What lies ahead for the former NSL clubs?

Over the past few weeks, the governance of Australian football, specifically the struggles of the A-League and how to address them, have been hot topics amongst fans, bloggers and journalists.

The football fan forum in Sydney apparently highlighted the general disdain felt towards Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley during what are difficult times for the game’s governing body.

The voice of fans is one that shouldn’t be ignored by the FFA and part of that voice belongs to followers of former National Soccer League and now state league clubs.

I know what the cynics amongst you must be thinking at this point: “Greek surname and mention of National Soccer League – prepare for an A-League bashing and sermon about the rightful place these ‘ethnic’ clubs have within Australian football.”

Prepare to be disappointed.

Amongst the topics raised within the bloggersphere recently has been the potential role of clubs such as Sydney United and South Melbourne as football continues to grapple with its own inevitable evolution. The recent Mirabella Cup farce serves to highlight the sort of divide between not only these clubs but the federations they fall under and the FFA.

In a thought-provoking piece he recently penned, journalist Paddy Higgs pointed towards Major League Soccer and suggested clubs such as United could have a role to play in any future expansion of the A-League.

It’s an interesting thought given the likes of United have established fan-bases and could potentially attract followers from a wide-ranging catchment area with a strong football tradition.

It goes without saying of course that there would need to be a re-modelling of these clubs so that they would have more universal appeal, rather than polarize communities as they did in the days of the NSL (though some might argue that the very point of clubs is to polarize, given football is a sport driven by passionate fan culture and rivalry).

But just how many fans can United, South Melbourne, the Melbourne Knights, Sydney Olympic, Marconi and APIA call upon? And perhaps more importantly, what characterizes these fans and what would they bring to the highest level of football in this country?

A life-long Sydney Olympic, my connection with the club stretches back to the inaugural 1977 Phillips League, where my father played a handful of National Soccer League games before his short career came to a premature end as he sought an education instead.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of travelling to Brisbane with my family to watch Olympic take on a Brisbane Strikers side that still had Clint Bolton in its line-up.

The trip by car was gruelling for my parents but driven – no pun intended – by a love for the club and football, we all believed it a weekend well spent.

Suffice to say times have changed and Olympic no longer have the privilege of travelling interstate to take on the nation’s best sides. That in itself was an alien setting compared to the days when Lambert or Pratten Park were packed out by partisan fans looking for a labour of love after a week working tirelessly in factories to build a future in a new land for their migrant families.

The reasons people have followed these teams have changed from generation to generation and over the years, the size of that following has gradually diminished before my very eyes.

Of all the comments made by my father at the Olympic matches we used to frequent at Belmore during the 1990s, one in particular has stuck with me.

Whilst watching a match he once pointed to a man who perennially occupied a bizarre stand-alone wooden table next to the famous portable canteen at the ground (the one on the railway side – there were always two set-up), always equipping himself with either hot chips or what I considered to be rather suspect souvlaki.

The first time my father pointed this mystery man out to me, it was to say that he remembered the same man watching him when he played for the club during the 70s both as a youth and first-team player. There he was, decades later, doing just the same.

Some will use this as evidence of the undying loyalty of ethnic fans and how it is a stark contrast to the “plastic” A-League and its shallow, passionless clubs.

To me personally, the presence of that man next to the old Belmore canteen has come to symbolize why NSL clubs such as Olympic were moved aside to clear a path for the horrendously named ‘New Football’.

Whilst he continued to attend Olympic games, people my own age who should have taken over from their fathers and grandfathers before them simply didn’t turn up: we collectively are the reason for the near-death of these clubs.

The reason for the shrinking of these fan-bases are many, stretching from the changing values, attitudes and desires that differentiate generations, to the lack of initiative shown by archaic administrators who ran the game into the ground through their lack of vision and transparency.

In truth, it was a mixture of the clubs not doing enough to bring young people through the gates and young people not showing enough interest to walk themselves through the gates.

What was created was a widening chasm that reached an unbearable point at the death of the NSL and continued to plague these clubs during the immediate aftermath, as they began their state league lives.

Of course, no-one really cared much seeing as how barely anyone bothered to support clubs such as Olympic, even though they specifically enjoyed a one of their most successful eras when they won their second ever league title in the early 2000’s.

So just where did these fans go? Perhaps they simply didn’t have as tangible a reason to follow these clubs as existed years prior, when the working class saw football as an escape from the toil of their daily lives.

Perhaps they simply didn’t love the game as much and were more interested in the opportunities that didn’t exist for their parents and grandparents in the way of education, work and the social sphere.

Whatever the prevailing reason, these fans disappeared and can only really blame themselves for the position their clubs now find themselves in.

I listened incredulously as people complained about the struggles of Olympic and how sad it was that they were forced into an existence that was beneath them – yet I never saw any of these people attend matches regularly, if at all.

This sort of hypocrisy appears to be rearing its ugly head again as talk of the role of NSL clubs in the future of Australian football continues.

Without citing specific examples, I too often see plastered online claims about why clubs such as Olympic should retain their rightful place at the pinnacle of Australian football, rather than being subject to providing the sideshow for these evil and soulless A-League clubs. Without going so far as to be jingoistic, the claims do seem to be from individuals who are looking for a vehicle to express some misplaced sense of identity.

They seem to be taking up some sort of non-existent fight.

I ask the question: when the time came for all of you to write a new chapter in the history of these clubs, where were you? Are you only coming out from the shadows now that you have a target at which to vent your frustration – the A-League – or is it because it is suddenly fashionable amongst certain social circles to be seen to support an ‘ethnic’ club that no-one else does?

Having said that, there are people involved at a state league level, whether as fans or administrators, who are to be commended for their unyielding support and passion. I am criticizing only a minority who are particularly boisterous, misinformed and embarrassing.

Ultimately, clubs like Sydney Olympic should feel anything but anger or frustration at not being able to compete anymore at the top level.

For the foreseeable future, these clubs should focus on nurturing and developing talent from which Australian football can benefit; Shannon Cole, who saw new life breathed into his career at Olympic before eventually representing his country, is one example.

To those deluded enough to believe that these clubs should return to the A-League, I need only point out that the stands at state league games are still virtually empty, just as they were during the “glory days” that so many of these “fans” harp on about but never saw with their very own eyes.

The fact is, the continued existence of NSL clubs is a testament to the various volunteers who kept them alive when they might well have otherwise disappeared of the football map completely, as well as to the fans who continued to support their team week-in, week-out, even though the setting had changed from a full-house on national television at Subiaco Oval to a sparsely populated OKI Jubilee, watching players caught in a career-limbo as the A-League awaited kick-off.

Despite only being watched by hundreds today instead of the thousands who packed stands during the 70s and 80s, Olympic, Sydney United, Marconi, APIA, the Melbourne Knights and South Melbourne can take pride in their long, rich history and the fact that they still have the means to produce another Marshall Soaper, Ned Zelic, Paul Trimboli or Mark Viduka, even though their stage will be the A-League rather than the NSL.

And who knows?

With a little humility and a lot of hard work, perhaps the day will come when they stand on equal footing with their A-League counterparts in some guise.

For the moment though, they are in their rightful place and the zealots who are antagonizing are doing more harm than good for the fragie reputations and futures of their clubs.

Chris Paraskevas is a freelance journalist who has previously written for Goal.com, Four Four Two Australia, ESPN Soccernet and Soccer International and can be found at @Cparaskevas