In terms of my story in Australia, it’s the story of football’s growth. Not that it has anything to do with me, but I’ve been lucky enough to bandwagon on the back if it.

I have been part of some of the most fantastic moments that have happened in the last 12 years, so this book - Just a Gob on a Stick - doesn’t just tell those moments per se it’s more about the stories that were around them.

Everybody knows that John Aloisi scored the penalty and that Mark Schwarzer made the save against Uruguay in 2005 and that Harry Kewell scored in Stuttgart to put us through the round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup.

But what people don’t know is the stuff that happened around the scenes, around the game - things that happened to me, things that I witnessed, things that I heard, things that I saw, things that I did.

That’s more what this book is about and I hope that it gives people a little bit of insight if they are interested enough to read it, if not I understand.

 

As Australian football novice

When I first arrived in Australia the National Soccer League was in its death throes really. The Socceroos hadn’t qualified for a World Cup in 30 odd years and they hadn’t even played at home for three years.

I had done some research, I read Johnny Warren’s book, Sheilas Wogs and Pooftas and Ros Solley’s book, Shootout which gave me an insight into the politics which was very, very interesting.

But you don’t have a feel for football in Australia when you land as a foreigner. Because you can’t get it from the mainstream media because it felt like it didn’t exist. Even today, its better than it was, but you still have to search for the football stories and the football culture.

But obviously beneath the surface it’s very much there. But as a foreigner you think, and I am sure I was like this when I first arrived, you come across as rather arrogant as you view this landscape being, ‘well this is rubbish, there’s nothing here’.

I’ve tried to get this across in the book that when foreigners come to Australia they come to an understandable conclusion about football in this country.

Well as I discovered that’s not true and after a while it begins to dawn on you that there is just as  passionate a fan base as over in Europe. It’s different, it might be smaller and it operates in a different way, but that’s when you start to get the feel for it.

Less than 12 moths after I arrived I started to get fascinated by the history of the game here. It was very, very different. So I thought, okay, I’ve got to learn about this game and see where it takes me.

The first game I went to watch was Northern Spirit at North Sydney Oval and then I thought, 'right okay, it’s being played at a cricket ground.' But then they had a few fans there and it was good, it was still football and what I loved.

Then I went out to Paramatta Stadium and watched Paramatta Power. I went to Marconi and Edensor Park and I went to all those NSL grounds in Sydney and I loved it. It was football and football was my passion so that’s when I thought that this was something I could work with.

As Australian football evangelist

Then of course after 12 months everything was ripped up and started again with the A-League and it was like wow! What is going on here? And then it was a roller coaster. World Cup qualification, the A-League, the move into Asia, the change from soccer to football and then the Asian Cup final in 2011 and then it was boom, boom, boom wow!

I was like a lot of other British expats when I came here, ‘oh yeah Australia, beaches, sunshine, lifestyle, yeah I’d love a bit of that for a couple of years’. Then all of a sudden my career took off but mainly because the football landscape grew significantly so quickly and I was into a completely different world and I loved it. 

I’ll always love the English Premier League, I’m a Manchester City fan and they will always be my club, but I am more evangelical about football in Australia now than football in England. Football in England doesn’t need the likes of me. I’ll still love it and watch it, but football in Australia needs everybody to play a part.

You feel that as an individual. I love it, and that’s why I am passionate, probably too passionate about it sometimes. It’s what gets me into trouble. But I’d rather be that way than not care.

As Australian football critic

I am passionate about the game off the field as well, because it is still young in its development. As a journalist it's important for me to have those opinions and to get my thoughts out there. So that’s why in the book I also wanted to have a football discussion about where we are at with football in Australia at the moment.

This is a book that was five years in the making and the manuscript was handed in three or four months ago so if people are expecting it to be bang up to date in terms of Ange Postecoglou and where we are at this point in time in terms of the FFA Congress, well I’m afraid they aren’t going to get that as these are all rather recent developments.

But I do talk about the state of the game, and in particular the fact that the elections of 2015 should’ve been a watershed moment for the game. We should’ve have democratised the game and that didn’t happen. I though that was a mistake and in some ways, that has been proven since what has happened since with the congress.

Me and Tim Cahill.

I’ve been really fortunate to be involved in some really big moments in Australian football, and this book is about my journey more in a journalistic sense as much as a football sense, and obviously that journey started in the UK.

I interviewed Tim Cahill for the first time even before I moved to Australia so it was almost like it was pre-ordained that our paths were going to cross for the next 10-15 years. I have a lot to thank Timmy for.

I must have commentated on 40 of his 50 international goals, and he’s given me some of my best moments. And that is why I have chosen him to write the foreword for the book which he was very gracious to do.

Those goals in Kaiserslautern against Japan are probably the highlights of my career, including the Uruguay game, because they were such big games and such big moments and you almost feel a personal link to the player.

Timmy has said to me on several occasions in the past, “when I listen to that goal I love that your commentary is over the top of it.”

That is really nice to have that personal link, but more importantly it was an exciting moment for the game because Australia needed those moments. Not forgetting Harry Kewell as well. That goal against Croatia obviously was hugely important but no disrespect to Harry who is a fabulous player, one of Australia’s best ever, but for me Timmy has been a constant.

Just a Gob on a Stick, New Holland Publishers RRP $35 available from all good bookstores or online www.newhollandpublishers.com