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With another World Cup campaign looming, I recently found myself checking old Socceroos results. Inevitably I came to the 1997 match against Iran in Melbourne that stopped us from going to France ’98.
Outside of personal tragedy, it remains one of the darkest experiences in my life.
I read some of the match reviews and my stomach started churning, until I was once again gripped by the depression of that night.
I can still vividly remember a 19-year-old Harry Kewell tearing the Iranian defence to shreds time and time again, and the hope that came with his vital first goal.
When Tony Vidmar put away the second, half a dozen friends started a conga-line around my living room, chanting, “We’re going to France, we’re going to France!”
I wondered if I should sell the house so I could afford to take the family with me. There was no question about me not going. No way could a team that had played so poorly for 50 minutes come back against such a dominant Aussie display in front of 85,000 screaming home fans!
They did of course, and the sense of loss, of having had something so tangible in our grasp for 27 minutes, only for it to be snatched away in less than five, was totally crushing.
Today, with over 17 years of hindsight, can I take anything good from that night? Perhaps by itself, it was ultimately of little importance, but in the bigger picture of Australian football it was huge.
Over 85,000 went to the MCG for that game, but 1997 was also the year the Strikers outdrew State of Origin in Queensland to set a then-record attendance of over 40,000 at the NSL grand final.
While everyone had heard countless times that our game was ‘the sleeping giant’, these two matches provided proof at both national and international level.
It may have taken a further seven years to get the answer, but those two matches posed the question: was Football Australia and the NSL up to the task of fulfilling the real potential of the sport in this country?
The answer, of course, was a resounding no, and thankfully they were replaced by the FFA and A-League.
The opening round of the NSL after the Strikers’ victory drew fewer than 34,000 fans across seven games. The opening A-League round this season had 90,013 fans across five games.
At the time, crowds of above 20,000 for the national team were rare. Fewer than 19,000 witnessed Australia defeat reigning world champions Argentina 4-1 in the bicentennial cup, and the national team crowd record was 43,967, at the SFS for the 1993 World Cup qualifier also against that country.
In 1997 we averaged around 8,500 spectators across eight home games for the Socceroos prior to the Iran match.
Today, it is over 10 years since we had less than 20,000 people attend any senior national men’s team match in Australia.
Does the part that November night in 1997 played in the awakening of our sport help to lessen the pain? Actually, looking back at the bigger picture, yes it does.
That night engendered within me a long-lasting feeling of pessimism towards the sport at every level. To now see the many lows our sport has suffered – and the lows don’t come much lower than that night – then see the resilience and progress it has continued to display despite such setbacks fills me with the greatest optimism.
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