For those who've wondered what life was like as an Australian football fan before back-to-back World Cup qualifications and an A-League, this endearing look at football through the eyes of one devoted fan illuminates and explains the journey we have taken over the last four decades.

Offsider is a memoir of Mangan's life after arriving in country Victoria in the 1970s as a "scrawny Pommy kid who learned to love the Socceroos". The former Soccer Australia magazine editor and The Age football correspondent spoke with Aidan Ormond.

What was your take on the old National Soccer League (NSL)?

I have to say that I loved the NSL. It was fatally flawed but brilliant in its own way and I think we really should celebrate the past - as well as acknowledging the fact that it had its dismal moments [laughs].

I remember Gippsland Falcons got a particularly small crowd for one particular game and one of the board members was asked about why, and he said it was because there were three big Italian weddings on that day in the district.

That was kind of a beautiful moment but also kind of symptomatic of the problems with the league at the time. It was, I don't want to say small-time but it was kind of provincial in its outlook.

And there was the time I rang an NSL club in my role as a journalist, and the first team coach answered the phone! That was brilliant. It was Zoran Matic, arguably the greatest ever coach in NSL history and on the shortlist to coach the Socceroos and he's answering the phone. On reception! (laughs).

I remember another NSL game at Olympic Park and for some reason there were no ball-boys. I recall seeing Zeljko Kalac having to fetch the ball himself from the terraces. He had to skate across the running track, scale the fence as there was not a single spectator behind the goal! It's those sorts of memories I love as much as the story as 40,000 fans turning up to Suncorp stadium for the 1997 NSL grand final.

Feeling like you were part of a community was one of the good things, though. And while one of the main criticisms of the ethnically based clubs was they weren't very inclusive, I used to see South Melbourne and I always had a really good time at Middle Park and later at Bob Jane stadium. I didn't feel like part of the souvlaki culture but still felt very welcome.

And when a ground in the NSL was full - say 10,000 - the ground would be heaving with excitement. You really felt part of something in a way you wouldn't have if you were going to an AFL game at the MCG.

And the standard of play was pretty good - not fantastic, rather like the A-League now - so there was always the sense that it might get bigger and better. It was always a tantalising prospect.

For instance, when Newcastle KB United came into the league in 1978 and the attendance of their first game was 15,067. It was like, 'right, this is how you make the league work. You just do what Newcastle KB do'.

 And 18 years later Perth Glory came in with a similar formula - being inclusive with a strong community focus - and there was the Carlton SC, Northern Spirit. So there were always hints that things might get better.

The A-League may never have got off the ground if the NSL hadn't been around with its hints of what the game was capable of...

Patrick, how does it feel to be a supporter of Australian football compared to years gone by?

In terms of all those grim campaigns for World Cups in 1978, 1982 etc, football fans have been through a lot. And this should be a rapturous time for us. But standards have been raised so high that it isn't good enough to qualify for the finals with a fairly uneventful 0-0 draw in Qatar.

That does speak volumes for how far we've come from the point of view of three decades or more of hard times, but we've still got a long way to go.

I didn't ever assume that we'd qualify for the World Cup finals in my lifetime. And that includes during the penalty shootout against Uruguay in 2005. Because we'd been through so much as a football nation and football supporters in particular.

[Uruguay's Alvaro] Recoba spoke about them having a 'divine right'. And he was right. They had a history. The history we had was one of heroic failure to a large extent.

There was something so Hollywood about the 2005/06 campaign - it was just like a film script, albeit with a little of a European art-house ending. You could never repeat that.

But I think the Socceroos have been absolutely crucial in turning people around to the world game. Another reason has been the globalisation of sport in general with the glamour of the English premiership and our association through it with our players.

You worked in the Australian football media in Australia in the 1990s. Your recollections?

You were completely reliant on SBS for any kind of TV coverage - apart from Soccer Australia's ill-fated affair with Channel 7 in 2000.

Then there was Greg Blake, who was - and is - a fantastic character and a commentator. He'd also present little segments on SBS on Sunday mornings where he'd do fairly off-the-wall interviews with players and coaches ... and the odd peanut seller.

He was extremely cheeky, didn't take it too seriously and would use the occasional American style commentary with an unusual turn of phrase. But he was also a very, very good commentator.

I recall one game when Glory beat the Strikers 7-0. Upon seeing the seventh goal go in, he announced: "The scoreboard attendant has dropped dead...". There was a pause. It was just a really neat turn of phrase and delivered dead-pan perfect.  I do like the idea of there being a place for someone a little bit quirky. These days however he's happily occupied elsewhere.

Generally, I like the personalities of the sport and the eccentricities, and the comedy and passion of it.

How was football in the 1970s media hen you were growing up?

Some may remember Fred Villiers, who read the soccer results on Sunday morning on TV's World of Sport. You had the comedy styling of [VFL commentators) Lou Richards and Jack Dyer - they had personality and were vibrant and funny and then there was the soccer segment with Fred in amongst the Ballantynes chocolates and Hutton's Hams.

Fred was very low-key but I loved him because he was the soccer guy on World of Sport. But if the soccer results had been presented by a, say, Santo Cilauro character, it would've been a different vibe. But thank god for having Fred there.

And from day one SBS supported football and on their first weekend they televised an NSL final in Les Murray's broadcasting debut, I think. And people forget that Channel 9 actually broadcast state league games in the 1970s.

What got you into football?

What has come to be known is an all-time classic, the 1973 English FA Cup Final where second division Sunderland played the villainous Leeds United from the first division, who no-one really liked but were arguably one of the best teams in Europe. Sunderland somehow won the game and it planted the not-very-helpful idea in my head that sport dispensed justice.

Three days later I bought my first copy of Shoot and it was paradise. I was hooked instantly. When I came back I decided what I needed to do for the rest of my life was to be a football fanatic. And I've tried to live up to that pledge I made to myself as a nine year old.

I was the skinniest, shortest, shyest, most cowardly left winger you'd ever see. But I was a left winger!

It was definitely problematic being a football supporter but I was never abused. I think I was more pitied. And it was like, 'isn't Australian Rules Football good enough for you? Are you slightly defective or what?'

So there was always the pity factor as a soccer fan and there was no way you could convince people. Yet once you start supporting a team you get a sense of the tension - the fact that the game can turn on a sixpence.

Although it was brilliant as well in the days of following the Socceroos on a black and white TV, where you couldn't tell which team was which and when they'd play club teams such as the Italian Army, who beat them. So times have changed.

How is the game in Australia looking today?

The war hasn't been won. There's the perception the game has fractionally gone off the boil in the last year or two. It was hard to know where the ceiling was but now people are feeling a little with the reduction in A-League crowd averages.

But still, 48,000 at the grand final in March. It was the media darling for a little while and the Socceroos definitely aren't as exciting to watch as they were four years ago. There's a sense the talent pool has slightly dried up.

There's fractionally less optimism than four years ago when the feeling was, we could beat anyone on our day. I had a look at the FourFourTwo magazine 2006 World Cup final edition preview and it was optimism all the way, tempered but a real can-do feeling about it.

I expect the new TV deal will work better for the sport. I think the last one was right for that time even though it was dwarfed by the AFL and NRL deals.

I'm a member of an A-League club and the league has been fantastic for the sport. And that last grand final was brilliant - the following day a couple of huge AFL supporters in the media in Barry Cassidy and Gerard Whateley said the atmosphere in the last ten minutes of that grand final was the most electric they'd experienced in their lives. And we're talking about a domestic soccer match!

What about the World Cup bid? I believe you have an insight into Sepp's thoughts?

Because it's about a few blokes in suits whose votes need to be won, I don't have the faintest idea how their votes are won. I don't have any idea how it'll play out and you don't know how many Charlie Dempseys might be there on the day. But we've got everything in place here - the flaws are fairly obvious in terms of time zones - but it's a really safe country and there is enthusiasm here.

For instance, in the 2000 Olympics around 20,000 people turned up to see Kuwait play the US at the MCG. And a little bit of name dropping but I was working for SOCOG and through that I spoke to Sepp Blatter the day after that game and I might have even asked him about Australia bidding for a World Cup. 

We were there with Justin Madden, the former AFL star and then Victorian Sports Minister, and Michel Platini all in the FIFA boss's suite and Sepp said, 'There were 20,000 people yesterday at this game, clearly Australians have a passion for football, for going to see games'.

He was there; he saw how it works here and the passion. It was the Sydney Olympics but this game was in Melbourne at the MCG and 20,000 showed up. And I think around 98,000 turned up for the Australia Italy game. And this was ten years ago. So he knows the passion we have for football. I think our bid certainly stands as good a chance as any and why we'd get the nod.

However, he's a political person and will say the right things in whatever country he's in. So what he said to me as an Australian ten years ago

Offsider's a wonderful read if I may say so. Can you describe it to those who haven't read it?

I'd say it's a tragic-comic tale of a young lad who's living out his day to day life in country Victoria at the same time being completely obsessed by the Disneyland world back in the UK and it's about passion for football.

It's hard to sum up but it's also about the migrant experience in the 1970s, about being out of place in the world, but it'll also show to some fans what life was like pre-Harry, and the struggles we went through.

*Offsider by Patrick Mangan is available in all good bookstores.