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Opinion
Back in 2019, I was gifted the honour of sitting on the first ever panel discussion at the inaugural Football Writers’ Festival in Jamberoo.
The somewhat sleepy town just a hop, skip and jump from Kiama on the south coast of New South Wales has become something of a spiritual home for football in Australia, with the local establishment even more significant considering the staff serving you a schooner from behind the public bar are directly related to Captain Socceroo, Johnny Warren.
Three generations of Warrens work at the pub that was first constructed in 1857. The clan took control of the hotel in the 1980s and subsequently undertook a project to adorn it with myriad football memorabilia, with the most famous member of their kin as a key focus.
Now, the pub stands as the most wonderful and unique boozer one could ever walk in to.
I will never forget the first time I did.
As a panellist at the 2019 festival, I was blessed to be accommodated in one of the charming, old-school rooms on the second level. The comforting generosity of the room blended perfectly with the creaking staircase, traditional front bar and a vast outdoor beer garden that simply took my breath away.
It was exactly the way most of us wish to experience a pub and a far cry from the polished brass knobs of many modern establishments that most city folk are forced to endure whenever they attempt to catch up socially with friends.
Yet there was something even more special to encounter.
After settling in and descending back to the main bar, a turn to the left steered me into what is the most stunning of rooms, littered with images, clippings and football memorabilia from days gone by and an eerie sense of the space knowing all there is to know about the game in Australia before the modern A-League era began.
The front room of the Jamberoo Pub is nothing short of breathtaking.
Johnny Warren’s face is clearly present, yet associations can also be drawn to football right across the country, with specific clubs, players and moments all featuring. The drink in your hand will most likely have been poured by Johnny’s nephew Jamie, or else one of his kids who also zip around the place on glass duty.
Andy Paschalidis with Les Murray (middle) and Johnny Warren (right). (Image provides by Andy Paschalidis)
I attended that first festival as a passionate yet relatively new member of the football media. With Foxtel’s commitment and long-term investment in the game seemingly about to come to an end, the stark reality that there appeared to be little else of quality for passionate Australian football fans to consume concerned me greatly.
The notion of an event that encouraged and valued intelligent and professional football content being composed appealed to me greatly. Frankly, at the time, such content appeared to be waning.
Despite the first Football Writers’ Festival being a brilliant and successful event, it had little chance of guising the fact that the Australian football journalistic landscape was ever-shrinking and destined to continue to be so.
Content and exposure in mainstream newspapers now appears to be at an all-time low. The shuttering of SBS’s The World Game website in 2021 further exacerbated the issue and with Fox Sports’ dominant voice in the domestic game destined to vanish in a puff of smoke prior to the 2021-22 season, the landscape left behind is somewhat desolate and disturbing.
The brisk exit of the previous broadcaster was a concern of which I have written previously, with the power of the News Corp brand smothering competition and logically leading to the vacuum that currently exists.
In an attempt to fill that space, a broad array of websites and blogs have popped up over the last 18 months, mostly featuring content written by unpaid and enthusiastic authors.
As hard as those platforms might try, the reach required to make a significant difference and see the world game popping up on news feeds other than those of people eagerly seeking football content, appears beyond them.
Despite the sad state of affairs currently existing in Australian football media, many of the nation’s best writers will meet again on March 25-27 at Jamberoo Pub, with the issue of accessibility and reach of content no doubt at the forefront of many people’s minds. They will be joined by football fans from right across the country, those keen to engage in the discussions that arise.
This year, Andy Harper will present the inaugural Michael Cockerill Oration and 1974 Socceroo Adrian Alston and Australian football royalty John Kosmina will no doubt have the attendees in stitches.
The Roar’s Texi Smith, ex-Socceroo Frank Farina and journalist Nick Stoll will also be in attendance, with a host of other guests and speakers adding to the three days of engagement.
It will no doubt be an entertaining and engaging event, yet underlining it all will be the continuing and serious concerns around how football in Australia sees its story, message and analysis presented on platforms that so often appear less than sympathetic to the cause.
It is a problem that has plagued football in Australia since the earliest of days and one that a large gathering of writers would like to see overcome.