Australia wouldn’t be near the top of any list of the World’s football nations unless it was written alphabetically. The inspiration for writing this came from this week’s game between Australia and Germany. It was a game in which Australia recorded one of their most famous football victories. Ok, it was a friendly but considering that before the 2006 World Cup, they were a relatively unknown side on the World stage and hadn’t done anything particularly impressive aside from qualifying for the 1974 World Cup so beating Germany was a great achievement. In recent years, the “Socceroos” have risen to be one of the best teams within Asia and Oceania and they are no pushovers.
Football has had a hard time gaining popularity among Australians due to most people playing Aussie Rules Football or Rugby. The first recorded match was in 1879 and three years later the first football association was founded. The first association that covered the whole country wasn’t founded until 1912 and it only lasted for two years before folding.
After a tough start for football down under, it had an unexpected boost in popularity during the 1950’s and 60’s thanks to the communities of European immigrants which had grown very quickly. There were also many British migrants who had of course experienced the game in the UK and continued playing and watching it after moving to Australia. The only problem was that as the game was mostly confined to these migrant communities it was still not very popular with the natives. If truth be told the Australian game would never truly progress to a good level if it remained within these tightly knit communities.
Throughout the ‘60’s and ‘70’s there were some league and cup competitions set up but they were not as popular as expected and struggled to get going. It wasn’t until 1974
when Australia qualified for the World Cup in West Germany by beating South Korea that the game began to capture the imagination of the Australian public. However, it certainly wasn’t England levels of World Cup induced hysteria. In the actual competition, the team were knocked out in the group stages, finishing bottom of their group and not scoring a goal. Generally in life people enjoy things they’re good at so the poor performance at the World Cup meant that the progression of the game throughout the country as a whole seemed to have suffered a set-back.
Although it wasn’t a World Cup performance to remember, it was impressive enough to qualify for the tournament alone. Most importantly however the Socceroo’s appearance in West Germany lead to the creation of the National Soccer League in Australia. Solid foundations had been laid and they gave the domestic league and national team a helping hand on the way to building towards a brighter future for Australian football.
For the first seven seasons, the domestic league was won four times by Sydney City FC but the league was once again struggling to keep going as attendances began to decline. The National Soccer League took the decision to make two separate leagues with the top teams from each playing each other in a two legged final; the winners of the final were then crowned champions. The changes to the league clearly did not help as once again a single national league system was implemented.
The dominance of the teams from New South Wales managed to enhance the reputation and support of football in the area and to a certain extent throughout Eastern Australia. The danger of the New South Wales dominance was a decline in enthusiasm to follow football in the Western cities such as Perth. The National Soccer League clearly needed to change things again in order to not confine football to a specific part of the country, restricting the progression of football nationally, domestically forever more.
The frequent radical changes in the domestic leagues obviously had an effect on the national team as they failed to qualify for both the 1982 and ’86 World Cup. In the latter, they lost to Scotland 2-0 (aggregate score) in a play-off. The National Soccer League continued to make changes for the 1989/90 season; this time the structure wasn’t altered but instead the season took place during the summer. The thinking behind this was that football wouldn’t have to compete with Aussie Rules football or Rugby for column space in the media. It was also hoped that dwindling attendances at both national and club level would improve as a result of the change.
The National Soccer League then took steps to make football more accessible for all Australians and to ensure it wasn’t limited to mainly migrant communities. Many clubs had to alter logos and even team names in the hope of bringing in a wider fan base. It wasn’t realised at the time but this was perhaps one of the biggest steps the NSL and its member clubs took towards helping the national team and football in general to gain popularity and support.
The 96/97 season saw Perth Glory arrive on the scene and they had a good level of success. Strong support and impressive performances from Perth Glory helped to illustrate to other clubs the kind of level and standard that they should aim for. From 2000 onwards, one team from Australia would get the chance to play in the FIFA Club World Championship if they won the Oceania Club Championship. South Melbourne managed this and featured in the 2000 competition, generating a considerable amount of money for the club. The prospect of playing on a much larger stage helped to attract players from all over the world to Australia; this lead to an increase in the standard of football being played in the domestic leagues. Young Australian players who aspired to play for their national team would also have benefitted from the improved standard by developing into better players themselves. As always in football, money is extremely important and after the cancellation of the next few Club World Championships many Australian clubs began to suffer as result.
Just a few years later the NSL was paused due to lack of success and financial problems. Eventually, in 2004 the A-League was formed which still exists today. The newly formed A-League was a breath of fresh air for Australian football. Combined with numerous national team players beginning to make a name for themselves in the European leagues, the Socceroo’s went from strength to strength and they qualified for the 2006 World Cup in Germany comfortably. The team were drawn in a tricky group which included Brazil, Croatia and Japan but they still became the first Oceanian team to get past the group stages. They were knocked out in the next round by Italy who won thanks to a controversial penalty which was awarded deep into injury time.
The Socceroo’s performances in Germany put Australia firmly on the footballing map and despite not getting to the second round in South Africa last year they are certainly not a team to be taken lightly. The A-League continues to go from strength to strength and it has begun attracting more and more European players which helps add to its credibility as one of the top leagues in not just Oceania but also Asia.
