The rejuvenation of Sydney Olympic
Roar Rookie By football_fanatic, 4 Nov 2009 football_fanatic is a Roar Rookie
- Tagged:
- A-League, Australian Football, football, Jason Cullina, Sydney Olympic, Tim Cahill
There is a fine line in the debate of old soccer versus new football. Over the next five years, the former national giant Sydney Olympic, formerly of ‘old soccer’, is set to build upon its already wide supporter base and ensure the survival of the club in a bold attempt to prove they deserve to return to the highest level of the game in Australia.
With dwindling A–League crowds, it’s the former “ethnic” clubs like Olympic who are striving to step up and become the national powerhouses they once were.
After 53 years in the Australian footballing landscape, this iconic club is going through a rejuvenation process in an attempt to reconnect with all its fans and rekindle the love they have.
The two time national champions, who have produced and exported superstars such as Tim Cahill, Jason Cullina and Brett Emerton, are working tirelessly around clock to return to the pinnacle of Australian football.
All the early indicators point to the fact that Sydney Olympic, the two time NSL champions and powerhouse of Australian football, are slowly returning to its glory days.
And the FFA cannot deny that old soccer is the new football.
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- Explore:
- A-League, Australian Football, football, Jason Cullina, Sydney Olympic, Tim Cahill
November 4th 2009 @ 8:47am
George said | November 4th 2009 @ 8:47am | Report comment
Cmon Savvas theres no need for the rivalry. I watched South Melbourne wit the other 200 people at Bob Jane this year v. Ferntree Gully.. all to be a part of the massive crowd? Of course not, but I DID go to provide what little support I could while I was down.. good to hear that Coveny is taking the reins and offering his all to the club as manager now too.
November 4th 2009 @ 8:52am
Savvas Tzionis said | November 4th 2009 @ 8:52am | Report comment
Listen,
If you want to sell shonky business deals, stick to Henry Kaye type operations.
Its bad enough having the likes of Clive Palmer involved in the game.
November 4th 2009 @ 9:10am
Soccerboy said | November 4th 2009 @ 9:10am | Report comment
That article is funny….Emerton was brought to Olympic he was an A.I.S player Olympic didnt produce him,Culina was always at United and Olympic had NOTHING to do with him and the player he has become and FINALLY Olympic never had Tim Cahill,they told him he was TOO SHORT when he was playing for Belmore Hercules that’s why he went overseas and tried his luck at Milwall,please Olympic hardly produced any stars and the stars they had were never good enough for Olympic and were sold to other teams and that’s when they became players….As much as I love Olympic as I have supported them since St.George Stadium days that article is bullshit and Olympic wont be entering the A-legaue anytime soon and as for a B-League,well the FFA beta get their shit together and fix the A-League before they bring out a B-League….please people be realistic here FFA dont want ethnic clubs!!!!!!!!
November 4th 2009 @ 9:23am
AndyRoo said | November 4th 2009 @ 9:23am | Report comment
My brother played for a Central Coast rep team in an approx under 13 tournament that involved about 8 teams from all over NSW.
My brothers team was full of all sorts and they played against Sydney Olympic who were at the time going on about how they now represented the shire. The coach and every single one of their players were not only Greek you could tell it was from a certain part of Greece. Timmy Cahill wasn’t getting a guernsy with them that is for sure.
November 4th 2009 @ 10:21am
anita said | November 4th 2009 @ 10:21am | Report comment
All it needed was for a few guys to stand up and kick off the movement to bring the old fans back im so happy to read this stuff! Havent been to olympic games since the NSL cant wait for next season
November 4th 2009 @ 10:55am
Gibbo said | November 4th 2009 @ 10:55am | Report comment
as a melbournian i dont really get the intricacies of the sydney football context, however…
if poorly written, assertion filled articles offering not even a scrap of evidence actually have ANY basis in reality, i reckon sydney rovers fc might be in for a hard slog…
please FFA, no ethnic clubs. that said, if Olympic can be progressive and inclusive then it may have a role in the future of the game in australia
November 4th 2009 @ 11:45am
md said | November 4th 2009 @ 11:45am | Report comment
Note to the administrators of the Roar… This is neither news, nor an opinion piece (let alone a well-thought one) Please lift your standards.
Cheers
md
November 4th 2009 @ 11:55am
OlympicFTW said | November 4th 2009 @ 11:55am | Report comment
Hey guys. It seems that there are mixed feelings about this movement which is normal for every movement. I just wanted to say that it’s one thing to either get on board or not and it’s another to bag out a movement which people are embracing. If you don’t want to support Olympic, then don’t, but don’t bag out the effort made by the fans to help make the club better.
Would Sydney FC fans do the same if they were relegated to state league?
The issue we need to see here is that Sydney Olympic have been playing in NSW Premier League for the last 5 seasons. Not only has the club not died out. But FANS now are taking a more active role and bringing eachother closer to the club itself.
As for A-League or B-league; I’m not sure if the club itself is moving towards such targets but it seems that it is the FANS again who are asking if not demanding for a place in the A-league! Again is this wrong? We would all love to see Olympic competing for the top prize in Australian football.
And what is football? Is it a product which we need to sell to people so they can come to support or were the clubs originally built up because they had support. Olympic started out as Pan-Hellenic as a team of Greeks who would PLAY football. Over time other Greek migrants started coming out to see this team play, to support their fellow migrants. Eventually the team found itself playing in the NSL in front of thousands of supporters. Now as we all know, Australia is a free country, which is something we are all proud of irrespective of origin or background. In a country which promotes freedom shouldn’t we all be free to support something which we like? So how can we say things like “No Ethnic teams in A-league” what is an ethnic team nowdays anyway? Ok so Olympic has traditionally attracted people of a Greek bakground, is this bad. The Greeks chose to support and involve themselves with Olympic. If a large group of Greeks were on the board of Sydney FC and Sydney FC was supported by the Greek community would that make Sydney FC a Greek club?
In todays democratic, free, and racially accepting society criteria for A-legaue entry should not be Ethnicity! And if Olympic does show that it has the support of the community, whichever community that is, then I believe that it should be a prime candidate for greater participation and representation in the Australian Football Scene, after all if it has this much support as a lowly NSW Premier league club, imagine the crowds in the A-league….which would of course mean more money coming in to the FFA and the A-league and other financial advantages as well as the boost it would provide to the game.
I will always support Olympic, not because I’m Greek, but because it is the club that I have supported since I was a young boy, Olympic is a tradition something the New A-league teams need years to achieve.
November 4th 2009 @ 12:38pm
md said | November 4th 2009 @ 12:38pm | Report comment
Now this is a good bit of opinion.
I disagree with nearly every word in it, but good on you for having a go.
For mine, Olympic and its ethnic based NSL bretheren were part of the cabal that bought the game to its knees through a strange combination of regionalism (ie fights over who would control the state and regional federations), ethnic preferentialism (the ‘one of us’ mentality), nepotism and a sheer bloodyminded refusal to grasp the reality that the Australian public had moved on from allowing ethnic based tribalism to flourish and wanted football to move on too.
That said, most of the main protagonist clubs are now at the second or third tier of the game and deserve to be supported as suburban clubs in those divisions, if doing so makes people happy, so – good on you for having a go.
In the meantime, all supporters of suburban clubs (including Olympic) should make sure they get to a Sydney FC match (or a Rovers match when that happens) and support the game at the highest level.
November 4th 2009 @ 3:20pm
George said | November 4th 2009 @ 3:20pm | Report comment
I dont think its fair to attribute the bleak final moments of the NSL purely with nepotism and mismanagement from the clubs, neither is it fair to disregard completely the many colourful moments and memorable years that the NSL produced. I dont think it was an entirely European-based squad that qualified for the World Cup in 1974 either. As well, SBS and ABC coverage of the competition was something I cherished dearly. I was just like any other ordinary kid that got to see football on the telly as well as at the ground every week. Free-to-air football in my opinion is pivotal, something that we’re deprived of even today. The current Fox Sports deal for A-League and Socceroos games is glorified almost everywhere I go for its dollar value (which I’d argue sold football short anyway), but it denies access to those we should be showing our dear sport to the most. Instead, it arguably goes about placing hand-in-hand Socceroos matches with binge drinking at clubs and pubs. Who can forget that ‘Nobody Screws Soccer like 7′? I think the more important and deeper question here is to ask, ‘Who remembers that ordeal at all?’
It seems that this revisionist history has rendered the past, the clubs, the competition as a force that sought to keep football in the dark ages and erode Australian values, all for some knights in shining armour (who many are too ignorant or too content with the narrative to acknowledge how involved in the old format and politics that these people were) to save the game and save Australia from these ethnics. For the 8000-odd fans at the Sydney FC game the other week or the 2500-odd fans at the Gold Coast game, I might even suggest that it is this type of revisionist history that helps them sleep at night.
Enough about the past. Sydney Olympic is in the State League and isn’t going to be in a National League tomorrow or next week. Whats important for now is that the club provides a quality product in attractive football in the first team and superior player development in the youth squads, together with reconnecting with the community and rebuilding the electric atmosphere that it once possessed.
November 4th 2009 @ 4:21pm
md said | November 4th 2009 @ 4:21pm | Report comment
Winners and losers are often determined by fine margins.
A few points with what you say above:
ABC and SBS television rights basically equal taxpayer funding for football. That is not a sustainable basis to fund any competition. I’m old enought to remember 7. Don’t particularly want them back. I doubt 9 would be much different either. Foxsports do a good job and their basic sports package costs is pretty cheap. That said, I would love to see A-league on free to air (any channel), provided it is shown live, complete, uninterupted and in a sympathetic environment, because it would extend the audience.
There’s revisionism on both sides, but the victors tend to get their version of history accepted. There is no doubt that the game was particularly disfunctional in NSW and Victoria and little doubt that the NSL clubs played a large part in that disfunction. That’s not to say there were some good things during the time. I mean, here’s something to ponder: what would be the current state of Australian football if Peter Hore hadn’t tore down the net vs Iran and Tel’s team had qualified?
It’s a game of fine margins.
November 4th 2009 @ 4:55pm
rocco said | November 4th 2009 @ 4:55pm | Report comment
Why should I support sadney fc? You don’t support my club, why should I support yours?
November 5th 2009 @ 8:19am
md said | November 5th 2009 @ 8:19am | Report comment
Because doing so would send a message that Olympic isn’t trapped in the past. Many of the pro-olympic comments above seem to be about re-asserting “old football”, rather than finding a place in “new football”. That’s self-defeating; its like a kid chucking a tanty and occasionally throwing toys at the wall, while the adults wait for it to calm down and re-engage in the world (AKA the North Korea treatment).
There are plenty of reasons to come along Sydney FC matches: be there to support your boys like Cole and Jurman, be there out of the realisation that football rises and falls together (kids in the naughty corner excepted), or you could be there to see some of the best football being played in the country. I don’t think anyone at Sydney FC would care if you also supported Olympic.
If you want a place in any national league, you are going to have to stop treating A-league teams and the FFA as your enemy. It’s up to you and your fellow travellers though.
November 4th 2009 @ 10:05pm
dasilva said | November 4th 2009 @ 10:05pm | Report comment
Is it racism to only allow multicultural clubs in the A-league?
No it isn’t racism.
You are right that ethnicity should not be a criteria for entrance in the A-league. However that just means that if the board members are from an ethnic minorities, if the club’s fan demographic attracts a large ethnic minority support, FFA shouldn’t hold it against them. Seriously, Adelaide United had alot of Italians background in the board, the crowds has a lot of italian migrant background. However it’s never really held against them because there is a difference between an ethnic/migrant club and a club that attracts large numbers of ethnic minority.
The history of a lot of clubs in NSL was that the club was a social club to help a specific migrant community to adapt and socialise with each other in Australia. A worthy and noble goal.
However saying that, that is inconsistent with what is required from a professional club. A professional club should not be a social gathering of a single ethnic community. Every single club in the A-league must be a multicultural club (if ethnic shouldn’t be a criteria for FFA, it shouldn’t be a criteria for the club itself)
Even if the ethnic clubs do try to diversify, the fact is the roots and history of the club was to cater a particular community. Therefore perception from the community will stick.
Now if these so-called ethnic clubs wants to join the A-league there has to be a complete restructuring of the club.
They have to demonstrate that they are now no longer a club to serve a specific community. That it’s an Australian but multicultural club that is willing to attract people from diverse backgrounds. They have to follow strict rules from FFA that no non-Australian flags are allowed inside the stadium etc.
They are all reasonable criteria to expect from a club.
However, ask yourself do you really want to change the whole identity of the club to join the A-league. That’s really is the only way.
Having said that though. I do feel sorry for Southern Cross who I believe got unfairly shafted from FFA. They made a commitment that it was an Australian multicultural club. South Melbourne only had a small investment in that club but that was enough to scare the FFA. If Southern Cross was willing to play ball and commit itself to be a multicultural club then it’s irrelevant that there is a south melbourne link to the club just like there was a link with a dutch club to Brisbane Roar.
November 4th 2009 @ 12:15pm
Midfielder said | November 4th 2009 @ 12:15pm | Report comment
Good to see … will certainly go and watch a few games … always tho Qlympic had the best chant of all the old clubs…
OOOO—Lippp—ICCC … Newcastle have a similar chant today..
November 4th 2009 @ 1:03pm
Spezza said | November 4th 2009 @ 1:03pm | Report comment
One thing i dont get a about football in this country is that football around the world is not just about the round ball its bigger than that its a way of life.
If you support a team you support them through thick and thin, you dont go and watch a top level team for the sake of the game!
That is something the big wigs of football must understand and respect and there fore that is why promotion and relegation is so powerfull all over the world, ok its not in America but do we really want to follow their footsteps in football??
I am an Olympic supportter and have no reason to go a watch sydney fc or sydney rovers unless my team plays agains them.
This does not make me anti-football this does not make me an idiot this makes me a loyal fan.
FFA must understand you cant brain wash people and make then follow your plastic league.
Open up the gates football is a world game lets follow the world and make it right in this country.