Harry, Mark thanks for your time. We’ll start with a quick trivia question. When and where did you both first play together for the Socceroos?

Mark: [without hesitation] Saudi Arabia. I came on for 15 minutes. It was [coach] Eddie Thomson’s last game in charge.

FFT: Spot on…

Harry Yeah, I remember that game... ‘97?

FFT: ‘96…

Mark: October, ‘96, I know because I was there for my birthday a few days earlier.

Harry: Glad he can remember it!

Mark: I just remember it was unbelievably hot. John Aloisi was there. I remember the air-conditioning being on all the time.

Harry: I actually remember the hotel, it had table tennis in there...

Mark: It was a walk along an outdoor area before going into your hotel. It was so hot outside then you get to your room and it was, like, freezing.

How does all that compare to these days?

Harry: It’s completely changed. When I first stepped into it, the way we travelled the way we conducted ourselves. Everything was – how can I say? Even though we were professional players playing in very good leagues and for very good teams we were kind of like an amateur group coming together. Wild boys, turning up, playing a game of football - and usually playing some good football and winning – [but] even travelling around, getting different flights
and sitting back in economy.

FFT: Economy?

Harry: Yeah, it was the first time when I was travelling [with the national team]. And then eventually you started to see it all turnaround. We started having camps, staying a little longer, staying in nicer hotels, travelling business class and having the whole set up done properly. And from that, that’s where our football’s kind of evolved.

Mark: It’s completely changed. The whole environment, the set up and the running of the team has completely changed. It’s a lot more professional now than it’s ever been.

I certainly still wouldn’t be playing today if it wasn’t because at times you got to a point where the longer it went on, the longer it was not as a professional as you were used to playing in Europe, and the more frustrated you got and the more you thought, ‘Well hang on, what’s the point?’

But thankfully it changed pretty much around 2004/5 from a set up that wasn’t very professional where at times players dictated what time we trained – whether we trained in the morning or afternoon because they wanted to go out the night before – to now where it’s the way it is.

You can laugh about those things but how much of that is actually true? I heard the social side was pretty big back then...

Mark: 100% it’s true and it was frustrating because some players wanted to do that and wanted to go all the time and other boys were like, ‘hang on, this is just not what we do’. I didn’t want to say waste my time because that’s not what you do when you play for your country, but it was frustrating that you were giving up a lot of your time to play for your country and you wanted to do your best but there were a lot of things going on around you that didn’t allow you to do it. And that
was frustrating.

Harry: There were definitely no ice-baths [back then]. But again, things change and it’s changed for the better. You have to. If you stay back in those times your football is not going to improve and football’s going to go downhill. And it doesn’t take long for Australians to catch on about the European style and it didn’t take long for us to catch on. And once we did, we’ve got a pretty good thing going on now. The way it’s run and the way it’s all set up is very good.

You’re flying a lot more these days due to being in Asia, how have you adapted?

Harry: For me, footballers now have to learn about how to travel. It’s part of your job. Especially in Europe you’re playing abroad all the time. You’re travelling every third day near enough playing abroad. Then you go into the national team, okay, it’s a little longer but we’ve travelled back and forth now so it’s part and parcel of what we do. We know how to travel.

Talk us through how you travel in order to recover or prepare for games?

Mark: We went through a phase when we used oxygen masks but it’s now more a case of recovery. We wear compression garments, which is something I believe works really well. Harry wears them and quite a few other boys wear them. Ice baths too plays a bit part. The whole thought-process that goes into our travel schedule is very important.

Just talking about this last couple of games [away to Denmark in a friendly followed by
a trip to Muscat in Oman for a World Cup qualifier then to Brisbane for another qualifier against Japan], from moving from Oman and those conditions to recovery after the game and preparing and talking about when we should sleep, when we shouldn’t sleep to coming back out to Australia.

That’s all been part of the whole process and players have learnt. If you didn’t already know how you would travel and what best suits you; you were given a lot of guidance
as to what they believe was the best way of preparing for the games.

Harry, your Socceroo debut against Chile in Antofagasta,1996? As I recall a fresh-faced, mullet-styled teenager turning up…

Harry: (cue laughter all-round) No! I don’t think it was a mullet because I remember getting it cut off I think within a month of signing for Leeds …

Mark: I’m not laughing because I’m thinking what will be the next question
to me!

Harry: I went over to Leeds and I had the long hair …

Mark: Nah, it was definitely a mullet! (cue more laughter)

Harry: I had the hair and then I remember getting it cut off and no-one recognized me… it may have been a little bit longer but I don’t’ think it was a mullet. I’m sure it was not a mullet.

The game itself, didn’t you play against the likes of the great Ivan Zamorano?

Harry: Yes, I remember because I played left wing-back. I was excited. I knew Zamorano and what a great striker he was. And I remember the corner he scored off. Everyone had marked up and all of a sudden the number nine for Chile was free. And the other defenders said, ‘Harry pick him up’ and I said, ‘You want me to pick him up! You serious?’ What I remember he was a great jumper and he just got the better of me and scored from the corner. And we had a player sent off in that game which was a regular occurrence for the Australian team at that time. Like I said, we were wild boys …

Do you recall much about Antofagasta?

Harry: We started off in the city, which we’d been a few times before travelling to
the mountains. It was just in the middle of nowhere, but still a fantastic day.

Quite a few older, experienced heads were there that day, like Wadey [Paul Wade], Trimmers [Paul Trimboli] and Mehmet Durakovic. How was that experience and how does that compare to you now as a senior player yourself?