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.