Blog: Viddy's Valentine's Day Massacre

ON February 14, 1929, seven men were lined up against a Chicago garage wall and shot dead in a hail of machine gun fire.

The most violent US underworld killing ever witnessed sent local police and criminal gangs into a panicked frenzy.

At the time, Al Capone's Chicago bootlegging and dog-racing operations were turning a tidy profit, but the North Side Irish gang, headed by "Bugs" Moran, was muscling in on the action. Obviously something had to be done.

Exactly 80 years later, after his football team was massacred 4-0 on the pitch, an enraged Aurelio Vidmar sprayed verbal bullets in all directions, including his club, players, and (at least nominally) the entire "pissant" city of Adelaide.

Too many people were muscling in on the action, he said. Something had to be done. But just like the Mafiosi of old, Viddy faithfully refused to name names.

The one person he did single out for attention was  a reporter from the Adelaide Advertiser.

"You name them, you should know," he told Val Migliaccio, "You know, because you're involved as well."

If he knew, Migliaccio wasn't talking either. He publicly derided Viddy's rant as a crazy "Conspiracy Theory" and firmly predicted the coach's dismissal if the Reds lose the preliminary final this weekend.

Vidmar might have been regretting the personal apology he gave Val after his angry outburst. He tried to lock all the media out of AUFC's training, only to be over-ruled by the FFA.

Migliaccio is now suggesting that "prominent European billionaires" might buy out the club. But he's still not naming names. And mind you, the same reporter seems to have got Cristiano's exit from the club all wrong, so who knows? Maybe Migliaccio will be the one looking for a new job next month.

(Speaking of which, how funny was Damian Mori's SBS interview on Sunday? First he criticizes Vidmar, then he praises the club, and then - in answer to a delightfully loaded question - he admits that well, yes, actually, he'd LOVE to take over the coaching role! Cut tape, back to the studio, and an embarrassed commentator explains that Vidmar hasn't actually been sacked yet. Oops!)

The main target of the original Valentines Day massacre, the Polish-Irish "Bugs" Moran, somehow escaped the shooting unscathed. Some say he smelled trouble and fled the scene, others say he was just late arriving. Aurelio Vidmar might have noticed that his verbal bullets didn't hit any major targets either. Aside from the coach, nobody else at Adelaide United is facing an early exit.

One can only wonder if Viddy will be walking out the door of his beloved club next week with all guns blazing, or with the dying words of 1929 victim Frank Gusenberg echoing in his ears:

"I'm not gonna talk. Nobody shot me"

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It's been a funny few weeks for Australia's football media, hasn't it? Vidmar's not the only one who's been playing media games lately.

After Danny Tiatto went to the press to help get his mate Liam Reddy reinstalled in goal, he promptly picked up two yellow cards and a date with the FFA. So then it was coach Farina's turn to go to the press with further protestations of his (100% platonic) love for Danny. The ploy worked - Tiatto escaped lightly, with a deferred one-match suspension and a $2,000 fine.

But then Kevin Muscat escaped FFA sanction for a stomping incident, and Farina was back in the press complaining of unfair treatment. Gee, Frank, maybe the FFA just don't like to have these kinds of stories in the newspapers all the time, do ya think?

And what about Pim Verbeek? Before the Socceroos game against Japan, he insisted that his team was perfectly prepared, and gave his support to Jason Culina's move back home. After the 0-0 draw, Pim admitted that his team didn't have enough time together before the match, and his remarks about Culina, who had a quiet game being played out of position, were suddenly far less positive.

I guess there's a coded message in there somewhere. But like Miron Bleiberg says: "Jason has already made up his mind, why to bring it backwards?"