19/05/00
Soccer, Soccer, Soccer
Summary:
This Saturday's FA CUP Final is the last to be staged in the old Wembley Stadium, under the famous but soon-to-be demolished Twin Towers. British soccer commentator MARTIN TYLER and historian JEFF HILL discuss the romance of the FA CUP and the old Wembley.
And as Australia's National Soccer League finals are underway comes news that the powerful Scottish club, Glasgow Rangers, has bought local team Northern Spirit. Good or bad for Aussie soccer?
And what's it like to own a soccer team anyway? RANIERI PONTELLO owned the Italian Series A club Fiorentina for 10 years, and he tells why it was all a big mistake.
Details or Transcript:
THEME
Amanda Smith: On The Sports Factor, an all-soccer show this week, as it’s the business end of the season, both on and off the field – in Europe, and in Australia.
Ever wondered what it’s like to own a big-time soccer club? Later in the program I’ll be speaking with Ranieri Pontello, who owned the Italian club, Fiorentina for a period of time. And we’ll also look at the Glasgow Rangers’ takeover this week of the Australian club, Northern Spirit, and what it signals for Australian soccer. But first, to Wembley.
Soccer commentator: Time for the traditional Cup Final hymn as Wembley hushes around these vast terracings and the Band of the Royal Marines and Derek Taverner Singers prepare to perform ‘Abide with me’. (Music)
Amanda Smith: Unmistakably the FA Cup Final, and tomorrow’s final between Chelsea and Aston Villa, is the last to be held at the Old Wembley, before the stadium’s demolished and redeveloped. The other notable thing about this year’s FA Cup Final is the absence of the mighty Manchester United. They won the English Premier League Title again this year, but didn’t enter the FA Cup competition because of commitments to play in the World Club Championships.
Now, the FA Cup itself is open to any senior club in England – including, but going way beyond the Premier League and the three other full-time professional divisions. And according to English soccer commentator, Martin Tyler – who’ll be calling the match this weekend – this gives the FA Cup a special romance, along with its long history and traditions.
Martin Tyler: Well I think it’s originality is one very important part of it and it’s the oldest knockout competition in the world in club football, and it does breed a tremendous sense of tradition so that when you go there for a Cup Final, and I think if you were even as far as away as viewers in Australia there, all aware that it’s of another piece of history being made before their eyes. And the actual appeal of the tournament itself, the durability of it has been its capacity to surprise.
And there’s no doubt about it, down the years some great teams have fallen prey to some of the minnows of the game and that’s extended to the finals themselves where totally unheralded teams in my time like Sunderland in the 70’s beat a team of internationals representing Leeds United who were probably the best team in the country and if not in Europe at the time. And I can recall West Ham who were in a second division then beating Arsenal – that was in 1980 against all the odds.
But it’s something that appeals to the romantics. I think the realists, and they’re the football aficionados know that winning the League is the greatest judge of professional consistency over the nine months. It’s a wonderful thing if you’re a player to win a League title because you’ve done it week in week out. You can win the Cup through charm and just hitting it right on the day and win half a dozen games and suddenly you’re there holding a trophy. So it does obviously widen the opportunities for clubs that week in week out can’t match the very best.
Amanda Smith: Now this final, Chelsea v Aston Villa is the last one in the old stadium. Is there much sentiment attached to that?
Martin Tyler: Well for everybody of course that will be the memory of what the FA Cup has been about. It hasn’t changed very much down the years. I was wandering around it last Friday, it’s musty and it smells itself to me like it smelt of the 1930’s. It was not a place without the crowd, the crowd is what makes it and the footballer match and the players and the colour and the pageantry.
It is pretty run down taking that aside, it is time for redevelopment. And looking to the future the new Wembley will hopefully be an even better venue for what remains one of THE matches of the season. It used to be THE match, but there’s so much intensity now by every premiership game now that we have cup finals every week in the way that they’re treated by television and by the players.
So I think that there has been a slight change in emphasis but it’s still the day where we know the world is watching. We hope that the game lives up to all the hopes of those who are really steeped in it. And I know in Australia you’ve got plenty of those people, but I also know that others will be watching who maybe peg this as the one game of football that they will watch for a whole year because they’ve heard about the FA Cup. It comes on what about midnight your time, a few beers out and put your feet up and pick sides if you don’t have one team already to support, and just see it through and go with the flow and follow the story and maybe then we’ll catch a few more aficionados, because if you allow yourself to be exposed to football it’s no coincidence that apart from places like Australia and the United States, the rest of the world is hopelessly addicted to it.
And sometimes those countries where, and I always feel that this is wrong, but those who follow other sports are frightened of the pulling power of football and there’s room for everything. And just because I’m stuck with football that doesn’t mean that I devalue rugby union or rugby league or Aussie rules. You know there’s a place for everything, but there’s something simple about football that appeals to everybody. You don’t need to speak any particular language, you don’t need to be any particular size, you don’t even have to have any great equipment. You need a ball, you need to be able to throw down a few coats to make goals and just go out and kick it around. And that’s why it’s the world’s most wonderful game.
Amanda Smith: Martin Tyler, who’ll be calling the FA Cup Final between Aston Villa and Chelsea, late Saturday night/early Sunday morning our time, and screened here on SBS-TV.
MUSIC - ‘Wembley, Wembly, Wembley’
And as we mentioned, this is the last cup final that’ll be held in the Old Wembley, under the famous, but soon to be demolished Twin Towers. The stadium was built in 1923 for a British Empire exhibition. In its early years it was also used for greyhound racing and speedway racing. But Wembley is of course best known as a soccer venue. And its soccer fame, or perhaps notoriety, began with the first FA Cup Final that was held there, says English sports historian, Jeff Hill.
Jeff Hill: Oh in 1923, this was the cup final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United which Bolton Wanderers won by two goals to nil. But most people I think don’t remember the occasion for the match itself, or even the winners, but for the scenes that took place before the match started. Because for hours upon the 28th of April 1923, North London was in utter chaos because so many people had foregathered at Wembley to see this magnificent new stadium which had just been constructed. The place had been much hyped, as we would say nowadays because of this tremendous new stadium, I mean for the time it did look very very good, there was really nothing like it in the world. And of course it meant that at least half as many people again as the stadium was capable of accommodating, which at that stage was 125,000 people, at least half as many again turned up and forced entry into the stadium. So it was utter chaos.
Amanda Smith: And because, as I understand it, because there were so many people, in fact not only in the stands but completely filling the playing area, a decision was actually taken to call the match off?
Jeff Hill: Yes, but it wasn’t called off in the end. I think nowadays it probably would have been, but the monarch, King George V had arrived at the stadium at the appointed time, it was customary at this stage for the monarch to attend the cup final and of course still is, and as far as we can see George V turned up, was presented with this scene of disorder let’s say, and reading between the lines of one or two autobiographies that were written subsequently, George V came along and said to the secretary of the FA – "Now then Mr. Wall, what on earth is going on here?", or words to that effect, "I’ve come to see a football match and I expect to see one". And consequently an attempt was made to create some kind of order out of the chaos and get the game started. And it did happen, and it happened relatively quickly, within the space of about an hour the pitch was cleared, the playing area was cleared. Some of the people were led out of the ground, whether they realised they were being led out of the ground or not I’m not sure, but it did create a sufficient space for the actual match to take place.
Amanda Smith: And wasn’t there a policeman on a big white horse who managed to……..?
Jeff Hill: Yes, that’s the key part of the myth of Wembley 1923 Amanda. Constable Scorey on his horse Billy, and it was alleged that Constable Scorey’s good sense caused the pitch to be cleared. In fact there were other mounted policemen available and doing that job at the time, but it all added to the myth that there was this policeman on the white horse who calmed the seething crowds. And really this is one of the most interesting, and I think probably most important aspects of building up the subsequent mystique of Wembley. People looked back on this occasion and were encouraged and reassured that this was a story about how orderly and sensible and rational and well-behaved and deferential the English people really were. It was a very nice story to tell about themselves.
Amanda Smith: Now when and why did the singing of the hymn, ‘Abide with Me’, begin as a tradition that’s sung at the start of FA Cup Finals at Wembley?
Jeff Hill: Oh that’s really interesting, and I think a very important piece of cultural history that many people have overlooked actually. It started in 1927. During the course of the 20’s from 1923 onwards the pre-match program, celebrations prior to the kick-off at Wembley had become increasingly orchestrated and stage-managed. For example military bands were introduced and so forth, and the master of ceremonies was brought in to lead the crowd in community singing, just to give them something to do before the kick-off.
And in 1927 it was decided to introduce the hymn ‘Abide with Me’, which it was said, some stories say it was a popular hymn of the Queen at the time, Queen Mary, but it did prove to be tremendously popular. The words of course had absolutely nothing to do with association football. It’s a hymn about approaching death, and about a man who is preparing to meet his maker. The tune of the hymn is very important Amanda because it’s extremely plangent, emotional. It’s easily sung by an untrained group of people and it does seem to have struck a chord in the tremendous crowds at Wembley who gathered there and it was a moment of terrific emotion and respect. And I think we’ve got to read that in the context of the time, of the 1920’s and the 1930’s when people were still extremely aware of the Great War and people who died in the war and the idea of war memorials and remembrance days was very very strong. And I think the singing of ‘Abide with Me’ at the Cup Final was another aspect of that process of remembrance.
MUSIC - ‘Abide With Me’
Amanda Smith: The signature hymn of the FA Cup Final at the Wembley Stadium. And speaking to me there about the Old Wembley – Jeff Hill, who’s a Reader in Historical and Cultural Studies at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.
Now amid all the big events happening in soccer around this time – European championships and cup finals – as well as our own National Soccer League finals – comes the news that the powerful Scottish club, Glasgow Rangers has bought the Australian team, Northern Spirit. Is this the beginning of a trend of foreign ownership of Australian soccer clubs? Is it a good thing or a bad thing for Aussie soccer? And what’s the deal? Here’s the Sports Factor’s favourite soccer analyst, Roy Hay.
Roy Hay: Well, Glasgow Rangers, or at least the controlling company behind it has been looking to expand its worldwide empire and in this case they’ve got an arrangement with the Northern Spirit which erupted onto the National Soccer League scene last season for the first time with big crowds in North Sydney. And Rangers has now bought a controlling interest in the club, a 51% ownership, costing about two-and-a-half-million Australian dollars. So it’s a big input of funds into the club. It gives Rangers part of that global reach that they’ve been seeking, along with clubs like Manchester United and Juventis and Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, the big clubs in Europe have all been looking to expand beyond their domestic or even the European competitions into a worldwide global program.
Amanda Smith: But why were Glasgow Rangers interested in owning Northern Spirit? They’re a new club and this season not one of the most successful clubs in the National Soccer League. I think they finished 13th of 16 on the NSL ladder this season.
Roy Hay: Various reasons. One would be its access to young Australian talent, and I think we’ve realised in the last few years just how successful the trading programs we’ve had for our juniors. The problem always was turning those brilliant juniors into top class international stars. And we seem to have cracked it with the likes of Mark Bosnich, Harry Kewell and so on. And I think Rangers have looked around and seen that Australia is a good breeding ground of talent. I mean they have two top class Australian players in the side at the moment – Tony Vidmar and Greg Moore – both of whom represented Australia at all the different levels.
So there is a connection there. I think there was also an initiative from this end. I mean Northern Spirit was looking for financial backing and security. Carlton in Melbourne are doing the same. Peter Jess is off at the moment I believe trying to hock the club. He is the owner of the Carlton club and he’s trying to secure its financial future by some kind of equivalent deal with one of the bigger European clubs.
Amanda Smith: Well I must say that my first reaction to this takeover was all our best soccer players leave Australia to play with big overseas clubs like Glasgow Rangers, now they’re buying our clubs as well. Is that an issue?
Roy Hay: I think so. I mean it’s bound to result in some loss of Australian control. It’s bound to result in some of the best of our players going overseas. On the other hand this was going to happen whether there was ownership or not I think. I mean the globalisation of soccer is taking place, the polarisation between the top clubs and the rest is happening. Australia’s a tiny element in that. You couldn’t say that this is all driven by a simple desire to have Australia under control. I mean there are links with African clubs, there are linked with South American clubs and so on are taking place as well.
On the other hand it does mean that some of our best talent will probably go overseas to finish its education. And we don’t think anything about that when it happens with young lawyers or architects or academics of various kinds. I mean they say the world stage, you need to perform in it. Our performing artists all go overseas at some stage in their career to further their education. So why shouldn’t that be the case with soccer? And is there a possibility also that there’s a two-way element, that we will receive perhaps some of the players from the purchasing club coming to Australia with recognised names perhaps for short periods, perhaps to bring their skills and experience and pass this on to the next generation.
Amanda Smith: Now is this takeover of Northern Spirit by Glasgow Rangers likely to be the first of a number of Australian soccer teams being bought up by overseas clubs? Because I note that the Manchester United Manager, Sir Alex Ferguson in an interview with the Scotsman newspaper said that Manchester United were also interested in developing their interests in Australia.
Roy Hay: I think that is fairly predictable that something like that will happen. United for example already have an arrangement with a Belgium club and they send their young players, fringe players to Belgium to complete their education. Manchester United have toured very recently, they played the Socceroos earlier this season. The tour was connected with money making of course. They set up two superstores in Hong Kong and in Singapore, each of which is budgeted to make ten million clear profit for Manchester United which represents a new player. So I think you might well predict that Manchester United, Chelsea, perhaps Tottenham Hotspurs, some of the big English clubs would look at the possibility of some sort of similar arrangement with Australian clubs.
Amanda Smith: Nevertheless what are the benefits or otherwise of foreign ownership of Australian soccer teams, if it is more than the one that’s currently going through?
Roy Hay: Well let’s look at what happened earlier this year. South Melbourne qualified for the world club championship, were not overawed, were not destroyed in the process, but really finished up bottom of the ladder. If they have a linkage with a foreign club of the standard of a Manchester United or a Glasgow Rangers, I think that’s bound to have an influence on the way the clubs are run. I think it’ll increase the professionalism in them. It should improve the standard of the play in both sides, and I think also it may have a competitive effect on the other clubs, even the ones that don’t get taken over. Because it seems to me it’s only a failure of our imagination if we don’t respond to this in a creative way by trying to find other ways of financing the activity, whether by formal arrangements or informal arrangements with clubs overseas. Remo Nogarotto, who’s the man behind the Northern Spirit deal, the owner of the club until this takeover, he has argued that this will give the club financial stability, enable it to pay the kind of wages that will enable full-time professionalism to exist in Australia, which is one of the things that we’ve lacked.
Now if footballers in Australia or soccer players in Australia were full-time professionals then I think inevitably the standard would rise. And who knows, then the World Club Championship might be a prospect for an Australian club, rather than just making up the numbers.
Amanda Smith: Roy Hay, who’s the President of the Australian Society for Sports History.
Well what is it like to own a soccer club? Especially say in Europe, where the hopes and dreams of a city often seem to rest on the fortunes of the home team.
Ranieri Pontello is now the president of the Manufacturers’ Association of Florence, but twenty years ago, when he was working in Australia, Ranieri got a call from his family back in Florence – they’re in the construction business – and they called to say that they’d just bought a soccer club, and he had to come home to run it.
In Italy soccer clubs are often owned by wealthy and powerful families – sort of latter-day equivalents of the Medici. In this case, the club was Fiorentina, which plays in the top league in Italy. So in 1981 Ranieri Pontello returned to Florence to become President of Fiorentina – for the prestige of his family, but certainly not to make money.
Ranieri Pontello: No, for sure not. At that time it was not a money-making venture, especially because during the 80’s it was not possible for a soccer team or a company, they told me a soccer team to make profits. So if there was a profit at that time, the profit had to be re-invested in the company. So it was a non-profit company at that time. Now it’s changed a lot, but at that time it was that.
Amanda Smith: So how much did you know about running a soccer club when you were recalled to Italy by your family to take over Fiorentina?
Ranieri Pontello: Very little about running a soccer club. I would say a lot about running companies, and so I don’t think that there is much difference in running a company, even if you know it produces shoes or it’s a construction company or it’s a soccer company.
Amanda Smith: But what were the differences and difficulties for you running a soccer club compared to other businesses?
Ranieri Pontello: I would say two main difficulties. First of all the soccer players, and secondly the press because in Italy soccer is very well known, it’s loved by the people and especially in a city like Florence. And therefore all the attention of the people are on the soccer team and on the players and on the people that are managing the team. And therefore that was difficult to start with. Then I got used to it.
Amanda Smith: Well the Fiorentina club since its establishment in 1926 has been one of the most prominent of clubs in the Italian League, especially successful I think in the 1950’s. But when you took over things hadn’t been going all that well, Fiorentina weren’t terribly successful through the 1970’s. So what was your mission in taking over the club at this time?
Ranieri Pontello: My mission actually and you are right, you are right, Fiorentina was not going so well and actually was amongst the last team in our championship. And my task was to put again Fiorentina and the position that Fiorentina was used to have, and so we hired a new trainer and we hired new players, especially foreign players because at that time in Italy we started to and we had the possibility of acquiring players from overseas. And I started with two players from Argentina from the teams that won their world championship and we acquired Daniel Passarella and Daniel Bertone – two very good players.
Amanda Smith: I should mention also that another one of your star players signings was Roberto Baggio who you signed I think in 1985?
Ranieri Pontello: That’s right, that’s right. We signed Baggio in 1985 when he was 18 years old. He was very, very expensive at that time but I think that we made a very good acquisition because you know we were able to acquire probably one of the best football players in Italy, and you know he helped the team along to gain positions let’s say.
Amanda Smith: Well probably the big controversy of the ten years of your ownership was when in 1990 you sold your megastar player Roberto Baggio to Fiorentina’s arch rivals Juventis. Why did you let Baggio go and especially to Juventis, the team that had just beaten Fiorentina in the UEFA Cup that year in very controversial circumstances?
Ranieri Pontello: In 1990 we sold Baggio because at that time his contract with us was going to expire the following year, and he didn’t want to sign another contract with us, and therefore we preferred to sign him while he was under contract with us, so that we could make more money out of the sale of this football player. And at that time the only team that was prepared to pay such an amount of money, I’m talking about 21-billion Italian liras, which is quite a large amount of money, especially if we go back to 1990. So the only team that was able and prepared to spend that amount of money was Juventis, even if the relationship between Fiorentina and Juventis was never the best one.
Amanda Smith: Well the Fiorentina fans I think were very unhappy and very vocal about the loss of Baggio. Did the opinions of those fans about that transfer influence your selling the club?
Ranieri Pontello: No, no. The two things were not related, and actually you say that … you probably used a wrong word when you said "vocal", because it was a little bit more than vocal the reaction of our supporters. But anyway, you know.
Amanda Smith: Well tell me what it was?
Ranieri Pontello: Let’s say more than vocal. At a certain time under my office, in front of my office in Florence there were something like 4000 people screaming and throwing eggs and other things, anyway.
Amanda Smith: Well why did you decide to sell the club after owning it for those ten years?
Ranieri Pontello: Because I think that you cannot stay in a soccer team too long because after a few years they get annoyed, you know people get annoyed of the same person, same president, and I think that a change is good also at high-level of the company.
Amanda Smith: Nevertheless would you do it again? Would you own another sports team?
Ranieri Pontello: Not for sure, no. Once is sufficient, it’s better never to make a mistake a second time, the same mistake a second time.
Amanda Smith: So are you saying you thought it was a mistake owning Fiorentina in the first place?
Ranieri Pontello: I would say yes, it was a mistake. First of all because we lost a lot of money and so that was one mistake, and secondly because when after a few years when people start to get annoyed about you, your public image is going a little bit down. So I think that if I could say that soccer should be left to somebody else.
Amanda Smith: Ranieri Pontello – who was president of the Italian ‘Series A’ team, Fiorentina, for 10 years – and who’s obviously thrilled not to be any more.
Well that’s the Sport Factor for this Friday. Michael Shirrefs is the producer, and I’m Amanda Smith.
Guests on this program:
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Martin Tyler English soccer commentator. |
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Jeff Hill English sports historian and a reader in Historical & Cultural Studies at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. |
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Roy Hay President of the Australian Society of Sports History. |
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Ranieri Pontello Former President of the Italian 'Series A' soccer team Fiorentina. |
Presenter:
Amanda Smith
Producer:
Michael Shirrefs
©1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation