Photo: It's not every day one sees icebreakers from three different countries together in Hobart. The photo shows the Chinese vessel XUE LONG passing Australia's AURORA AUSTRALIS and the American Coast Guard vessel POLAR STAR last Sunday. If you zoom in you can see the main grandstand at South Hobart and the Keen's Curry sign in the paddock up on the hill overlooking the ground. [PlessPix]
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers and football fans everywhere.
May you have a wonderful festive season and all the very best for 2020.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Saturday, December 21, 2019
South Hobart aim to rise to the occasion again, and vale Otto Klaus
Photo: Alex Walter (left) in action for South Hobart [PlessPix]
South Hobart duo Alex Walter and Jack Bowman are the latest South Hobart players to join Glenorchy Knights for the 2020 NPL Tasmania season.
South Hobart duo Alex Walter and Jack Bowman are the latest South Hobart players to join Glenorchy Knights for the 2020 NPL Tasmania season.
In addition, South Hobart have
lost Loic Feral and Adam Gorrie to Olympia, and Oscar Thomas and Connor Schmidt
to the Knights.
South Hobart have retained
rising stars Bradley Lakoseljac, Kasper Hallam, Sam Berezansky and Ewan Larby,
as well as the experienced Kobe Kemp.
Photo: South Hobart's Jack Bowman (right) tangles with Hobart Zebras' Nicky Edwards [PlessPix]
Photo: South Hobart's Jack Bowman (right) tangles with Hobart Zebras' Nicky Edwards [PlessPix]
There is no doubt, however, that
coach Ken Morton will have to rebuild and rely on youngsters for 2020.
“We’re remaining positive,”
Morton said. “We have good youngsters staying
with the club and things will be good.
“We’ll be aiming to get them
to a competitive level and work hard to achieve that.
“Many of the youngsters have
played in the senior team so it won’t be entirely new to them.”
Photo: South Hobart stalwart, Life Member and goalkeeper Mark Moncur [PlessPix]
Photo: South Hobart stalwart, Life Member and goalkeeper Mark Moncur [PlessPix]
South Hobart had an
inter-club practice game at Cornelian Bay on today and veteran goalkeeper Mark
Moncur addressed the players before the match.
Moncur, who is a Life Member
of South Hobart, recalled the good times
and the bad times at the cub since he joined them as an under-13s team player
in 1987.
He was thrust into the senior
side aged just 15 in 1990 and has stayed with the club through thick and thin.
The club finished second-last
that year in what was the equivalent of today’s Southern Championship.
Moncur said the club had many
promising youngsters in succeeding years (Ben Harbinson, Nick Owen, Bernhard
Klasen are names that spring to mind) and in 2002 won the Southern title under coach Nathan Robinson.
He said that team broke up but
the club reached new heights when Ken Morton took over as coach in 2008 and
inherited youngsters such as Daniel Brown, Bart Beecroft, Hugh Ludford, Tom
Roach, Jonathon Lo, and Jesse and Bill Gasparinatos.
South Hobart won the title in
2008 and went on to win seven successive titles (2008-2014) under Morton.
The club’s only league success
after that was in 2017, but at one point they strung together a run of 63 games
without defeat.
Photo: Mark Moncur (right) with Joe Gorman, football writer for The Guardian (Australia) [PlessPix]
Photo: Mark Moncur (right) with Joe Gorman, football writer for The Guardian (Australia) [PlessPix]
“2020 will see South Hobart
once again turn to our youth to rebuild the club,” Moncur said.
“I am confident we have the
players and team capable of beating any team in the league.
“It will require us to play
for each other and play with passion for the club, which is something that
money cannot buy.
“It won’t be easy and we may
not win the title, but I will be proud and honoured if I have the opportunity
to play with this team.”
*****
Photo: Otto Klaus (right) with Ken Morton during a visit to Hobart in 2009 [PlessPix]
I learned today that Otto Klaus, one of the most controversial coaches ever to have worked in Tasmania, passed away on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland almost three years ago, aged 85.
I learned today that Otto Klaus, one of the most controversial coaches ever to have worked in Tasmania, passed away on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland almost three years ago, aged 85.
I maintained regular contact
with Otto, who was German, after he left Tasmania in the 1990s and sometimes
met up with him and his wife, Roslyn, when they visited Tasmania.
After Roslyn passed away five
years ago, contact with Otto became less frequent and finally petered out.
I knew he was still coaching
in his 80s at the University of the Sunshine Coast, but was shocked today to learn of
his passing in February 2017.
Photo: Otto Klaus (second from left in back row) as coach of the North-West representative side [PlessPix]
Photo: Otto Klaus (second from left in back row) as coach of the North-West representative side [PlessPix]
He first came to Tasmania from
New South Wales to coach Ulverstone in the early 1980s before moving south to
coach Rapid, Olympia and Hobart City and, briefly, Hobart Juventus.
His tenures were always
controversial, both in terms of his coaching methods and his media exposure, and
he was coach of Hobart City when they famously walked off in a game against
Caledonians at KGV Park.
The club was suspended and
fined, as indeed was Klaus.
I was writing for The Mercury
at the time, but he refused to talk to me and insisted that another Mercury reporter
cover the case. He felt I was biased
against him and the club.
Photo: Otto Klaus (left) with some of his Olympia players [PlessPix]
Photo: Otto Klaus (left) with some of his Olympia players [PlessPix]
We re-established the relationship
later and stayed in touch after he left Tasmania.
He coached international
students in soccer at the University of the Sunshine Coast and was also
involved with juniors in the region.
There must be many former players
who wondered what happened to Otto after he left Tasmania. Now we know.
Photo: Otto Klaus (extreme left, back row) with his Olympia team at South Hobart [Photo by Ralph Dymond]
Photo: Otto Klaus (extreme left, back row) with his Olympia team at South Hobart [Photo by Ralph Dymond]
Photo: Otto Klaus (left) with Olympia centre-forward Peter Sherman [Photo by Ralph Dymond]
Photo: Olympia coach Otto Klaus shakes hands with a Rapid official after their game at South Hobart [PlessPix]
Friday, December 20, 2019
Football Tasmania officially release 2020 rosters
Photo: Matt Bulkeley, Football Tasmania's CEO, at yesterday's media conference where the 2020 rosters were released [PlessPix]
Football
Tasmania CEO Matt Bulkeley yesterday officially released the 2020 rosters for
the NPL Tasmania, Women’s Super League, and Southern Championship competitions.
“These
senior rosters are the culmination of the very comprehensive competition review
process that we’ve undertaken his year and concluded a couple of months ago,” Bulkeley
said.
“We’ve
consulted widely through the process and done a lot of analysis and worked very
closely with our clubs and stakeholders in terms of where we’ve landed with
these competitions.
“I
suppose in terms of summarising where we’ve got to, central to the development
of these rosters has been the development of key rostering principles, which
includes trying to achieve consistency, or more consistency, for our clubs,
alignment, or what we’re calling big home days, where there are multiple games
happening on the one day at the one place, maximising the access to our facilities,
which are at a kind of premium, and also ensuring that we can allocate or
maximise the allocation of referees to our fixtures.
“We’ve
got a major focus on club match days, so, in the south, essentially, in many
ways, we’ll be moving to a model that has been in place in the North for some period
of time, where matches will flow from one to another.
“Our
NPL clubs will now be part of the Southern Championship and so will run a first
and reserve team effectively in that competition.
“What
we will have is Southern Championship, in most cases, leading in to NPL.
“We’re
also going back to more traditional time slots of having NPL on a Saturday,
primarily, with staggered kick-off times as much as we can to ensure that we’re
avoiding as much as we can simultaneous kick-offs.
“The
other exiting thing is that we’re moving to Super League Sundays, as we’re
calling it, so, essentially, almost all WSL will be on a Sunday, with the
exception in 2020 of Ulverstone, who will be playing still on a Saturday as part
of their kind of Northern match day.
“The
move is to have all WSL games played on Sundays in 2020, 2021 and beyond.
“We’re
also moving senior women’s football to Sundays as well. We’ll have girls’ youth football leading into
senior women’s football and then, obviously, the WSL, which mirrors what we’re
doing for the men.
“In
that respect, we’re confident that what we’ll achieve is a big match day for
our female players and, more broadly, more sustainable clubs with more games
going on, and economically it’s a better situation for our clubs.
“With
the merger of Clarence and Zebras, Clarence-Zebras will now be the eighth team
in the NPL, so an eight-team competition with no bye is what it’ll be.
“The
WSL will continue to be a six-team competition with University the sixth team
in that competition.”
Photo: Matt Bulkeley said the clubs had been consulted on the rosters [PlessPix]
Bulkeley
said there will be various summer cup competitions next season with the
opportunity for clubs to win some silverware.
There
will be one Friday night NPL fixture in Launceston in 2020, while South Hobart
will play several Sunday stand-alone NPL games at home at South Hobart Oval.
“There’s
not a lot of NPL games outside of Saturday and we consulted on that aspect with
the clubs and their preference was primarily to have Saturday fixtures,”
Bulkeley said.
“We’ve
staggered the fixtures so there is some spread in that respect, but the preference
was again to have that kind of big match day and not have too many stand-alone
fixtures.
“The
feedback was that we had too much of that in the past, with clubs having
different teams in different places at the same time.
“We’ve
listened and we’ve come out with rosters that we think reflect that feedback.”
Bulkeley
said there had been talk of making the NPL a summer competition but that was
not viable because Tasmania was aligned with the national NPL set-up.
He
also said Football Tasmania was still in favour of a Tasmanian A-League team
and that this was still a possibility in coming years as the A-League either
expanded or if an existing A-League club was to experience difficulties.
A
rectangular stadium to host football was still desirable, Bulkeley believes,
and the possible development of Wilkinson’s Point in Glenorchy could be an
ideal location, with football and rugby sharing it. Concerts could also be held there.
Photo: Matt Bulkeley said football was the biggest team sport in Tasmania [PlessPix]
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
1976 was a vintage year for Tassie football
Saturday, 20 March 1976 was a
big day for football in southern Tasmania.
The Southern Tasmanian
representative team played the visiting Toronto Metros Croatia from Canada at
Grove Road at 3.30pm.
The Canadian outfit had won
that year’s North American title and on the way to that honour had beaten Pele’s
New York Cosmos 4-0.
They had eight internationals
in their squad and the omens were not good for the Tasmanians.
The home side would have been
grateful that the visitors did not bring their world-famous Portuguese attacker
Eusebio on the Australian tour.
The Tasmanian game was
organised by the late Michael Furjanic, who was secretary of Croatia Glenorchy
at the time and a mover-and-shaker on the Australian Croatian Soccer Tournament
committee.
Furjanic had frequently
visited Canada and persuaded the club to include Tasmania on their tour.
The visiting squad were given
a civic reception in Glenorchy and attended a banquet at the Granada Tavern,
while a visit to Port Arthur was also on the agenda, as was attendance at the
Military Tattoo in Hobart.
To reduce costs, the visiting
players were billeted by Croatian families in Hobart.
The Toronto Metros Croatia
squad was: Zeljko Bilecki, Jack Brand, Damir
Sutevski, Ted Polak, Miralem Fazlic, Mladen Cukon, Ernest Major, Paul D’Agostino,
Robert Iarusci, Carmine Marcantonio, Gene Strenicer (capt), Zdravko Juricko, Bruno
Pilas, Nick Sevatopoulos, Ivair Ferreira, Roberto Vieri, Pat Ercole, Robert
Gemert, A Pavelic, M Galovic, M Petrovic, P Lucic, V Saric, G Mikan. Coach: I Markovic.
Some of the more notable
players were Roberto Vieri, who had 11 Italian caps, and Ivair Ferreira, a
Brazilian left-winger who, as it turned out, terrorised the local defenders with
his speed and ploy of switching wings.
Gene Strenicer captained the
squad, while Zeljko Bilecki was the best goalkeeper in the North American League.
As it turned out, Vieri and
Strenicer did not play because of injury.
Coach Ivan Markovic was in his
19th year as a coach and during his career he also coached Dynamo
Zagreb and the Yugoslav Olympic team.
Englishman Dennis Ford, who
was Tasmania’s director of coaching at the time, coached the Southern Tasmanian
team. He also coached Tasmania against
Sunderland that year before taking up a coaching position in Queensland before the
year was out.
The Southern Tasmanian squad
was: Tommy Wright (capt), Eddie Puclin,
Dudley Hall, Andy Collins, Chris Collins, Wolfgang Stuetzel, Don Farmery, Jack
Dilba, John Dilba, Harry Stewart, Peter Lynell, Domenic Fraraccio, John
Genovesi, Alistair Hales, David Smith, John Howlin. Coach:
Dennis Ford.
Toronto Metros Croatia won
the game 3-0 with three second-half goals in 11 minutes.
Once they were ahead 3-0, coach Markovic was heard to yell out to his Croatian team-members in Croatian: “That’s the game, boys. Now turn it on for the spectators.”
And they did. Gordon Burnett, The Mercury soccer reporter
at the time wrote: “The visitors…played
the short-passing game to near perfection, at times having seven men in attack.”
Bruno Pilas opened the
scoring in the 54th minute and Robert Gemert made it 2-0 in the 62nd
minute.
Zdravko Juricko completed the
scoring in the 65th minute after a top-speed attack involving seven
players.
The Tasmanians gave it 100
per cent, but just weren’t good enough.
David Smith made an excellent
debut at centre-half in place of the injured Dudley Hall, while Harry Stewart
and Chris Collins put in good shifts.
Burnett wrote: “Wolfgang Stuetzel saved off the goal-line on
one occasion. The reliable Eddie Puclin
was fortunate in goal in that Metros’ forwards often held on to the ball too
long or were off target with their shots.
“The attack, with Don Farmery
in the centre and Johnny Genovesi and Domenic Fraraccio on the wings, played themselves
into the ground without the needed support.”
Alistair Hales showed neat
skills and he set up Tommy Wright for a shot that dipped narrowly over the bar.
One David Smith shot had
keeper Zeljko Bilecki fumbling and scrambling to save.
Later in the year, Sunderland
beat Tasmania 5-0 at Grove Road.
It was a marvellous year for
football fans.
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