A look at Tasmanian football 60 years ago - the 1963 season

Photo:  Olympia, who won their first Southern Championship in 1963. [Photo courtesy of Dick Girling.] 

The Grove Road ground, now known as KGV Park, was opened in October 1963 after innumerable delays, so it seems appropriate to look at the season that was 60 years ago given that KGV Park has been ‘reborn’ with a new artificial surface.

There was turmoil in Australian football and it affected all the States.

Australia had been kicked out of FIFA because some clubs in New South Wales had lured Austrian players to these shores without paying their clubs transfer fees.

Australian football broke into factions  -  the existing Australian Soccer Association, which was booted out of FIFA, and the new Australian Soccer Federation.

Tasmania remained loyal to the Australian Soccer Association, as did Western Australia and Queensland, but before the 1963 season started, all States, including Tasmania, aligned themselves with the new Australian Soccer Federation and Australia was readmitted to FIFA.

Tasmania was, therefore, able to participate in a State competition run over the two seasons, 1963 and 1964.

It was not before a visit to Tasmania by German club Tasmania 1900 was cancelled because Australia was not in FIFA.  Tasmania 1900 was a very successful club from the Berlin suburb of New Koln and nicknamed The Tas and Tassie by its supporters.  It had won three Berlin championships and played before crowds of 90,000 in cup finals.

Tasmania 1900 had been founded by German sailors who had visited Tasmania and fallen in love with the island.  New Koln’s population was about the same as Tasmania’s at that time.

A pre-season friendly between Rangers and Melbourne’s Hakoah also had to be called off.

Soccer was also making some inroads on the West Coast with the formation of The Queenstown Soccer Association in 1963.  Games were played at the Preston Reserve with the blessing of the local hockey association.

Bill Bennett was granted Life Membership of the Tasmanian Referees’ Association.  He had been the foundation secretary of the Southern Tasmanian Referees’ Association in 1951.

The North-West’s Arthur Fillbrook was similarly recognised for his work in forming a referees’ body in that region in 1952.

The only other Life Member of the State referees’ body had been Hobart’s Norm Evans.

Tasmania’s first interstate championship game was on 13 April 1963 against South Australia at South Hobart.

The result was a scoreless draw and Olympia’s goalkeeper, Harry Alexiadis, was the star, making several crucial saves, including a penalty save.

Later on, Tasmania lost 3-0 to Queensland in Brisbane and 7-0 to New South Wales in Sydney.

The following year, Tasmanian lost 5-3 to Western Australia at South Hobart and 7-1 to Victoria in Melbourne.

The Tasmanian squad for the 1963 interstate games was:  H Alexiadis, S Prsa, G Arnott, T McLaughlin, I Gjurbuzovic, A Goodman, P wood, F Umgeher, W Worsey, J Bartolic, W Nikolai, C Jaeger, G Smith, H Zoetsch, C Kelly, J Scally, R Girling, G Gazzignato, H Pattison.

Alex Sarfalvy was the coach.  He had been an outstanding player in his native Hungary before migrating to Australia.

Sarfalvy introduced theoretical coaching classes on Friday nights at the Polish Club in New Town to which anyone interested was invited, but attendances were poor.

The State team comprised 99% of southern players, Harold Pattison being the exception.  The North had proposed seven players be included, but they were not chosen.  They were Terry Clark (28), Peter Mies (24), Harry Visentin (23), Mario Morosini (24), Josip Dekic (23), John Mooney (21) and Tom Bain (18).

Parochialism seemed alive and well.  It was somewhat ironic, then, that Launceston Juventus won the State Premiership Final by beating Ulverstone 4-2.

The 1963 season started with a local ‘World Cup’ tournament played at the Silk and Textiles ground in Derwent Park and organised by Hobart’s Juventus club.

The final, between Croatia and Germany, resulted in a draw and was not replayed.

The tournament was marred by a broken leg suffered by Rapid's star centre-forward, Egon Mathias, who was playing for Germany.

Soccer in Tasmania was presided over by the Tasmanian Soccer Council, which sat above the three regional bodies  of South, North and North-West.

The secretary of the Tasmanian Soccer Association, the southern body, was Selchouk Djemal, who had a spot on local television in some weeks and who was involved in the foundation of the Olympia club.

He caused a shock when he resigned suddenly.  His replacement was Fred Forstner, a great Bayern Munich supporter, who would always go to Europe to watch them play in various European finals.

South Hobart was the headquarters for soccer and there were many delays in establishing a new ground at Grove Road.

A grandstand was constructed and there were toilets and change-rooms for the players, but the construction of toilet facilities for the public were delayed for months.  The surface of the ground was also regularly torn up by machinery and it took a while for new grass to grow.

The ground was supposed to be opened in time for the start of the season, but the only three games played there were the last of the season, in Late October and early November.

The game between Croatia and Inter ended in a riot with a pitch invasion by supporters.  Three players were hospitalised and there was talk of erecting barbed wire between the grandstand and the pitch.  Does this remind readers of a recent A-League incident?

The 10-team Southern Tasmania top-flight competition comprised Rapid, Inter, Croatia, Caledonians, Olympia, Rangers, Wayatinah, Juventus, South Hobart and Metro.

The southern title was won by Olympia, who had only been founded two seasons ago and were coached by player Dick Girling.  He had been in the British merchant navy and had signed off from a tanker in Hobart and played for Caledonians, where he won several titles and personal trophies.

The final round saw Olympia, Rangers and Juventus finish level on 28 points each, with Olympia winning the title on goal average (Note:  not goal difference, the method used today).  It was the first time the title had been decided in this way.

Olympia used 19 players during the season:  H Alexiadis, R Girling, A Hall, C Syrginis, N Hanzivas, J Mayer, L Sacco, B Shacklady, E Huddlestone, W MacMillan, B Plomaritis, J Ioannou, C Petropoulos, N Hatjis, F Watson, V Kroustalis, J Alexopoulos, M Roussos, D Poulter.

I reckon that side would have given any of the top teams today a run for their money.

Olympia went on to represent Tasmania in the Australia Cup but were beaten 3-0 by Adelaide Juventus in Adelaide.  They gave a good account of themselves, however, and were certainly not disgraced and received much praise interstate.

The Association Cup Final was played at Grove Road on 25 October 1963 and Rangers won it by beating Croatia 1-0.

The last game of the season was at Grove Road on 1 November, when Olympia trounced Juventus 6-1 in the Falkinder Cup Final.

Other things of note in 1963 included the attempt to define professional and amateur players.

Clubs were asked to provide statutory declarations listing which players were professional and which were amateur.  This proved a fiasco and not many clubs submitted the required paperwork.

Transfer rules were supposed to be based on this information but the paperwork was unreliable, leading to some confusion.

At the start of the season, youngsters Phil Owen, Colin West and Wally Foster were denied clearances from South Hobart’s Under-18s to Rapid because they were regarded as belonging to South Hobart.

The South won the intrastate series against the North and North-West for a fifth time in a row with a 2-1 triumph over the North in the final.

I have already mentioned the riot at Grove Road, but violence was often just below the surface.

At South Hobart, a woman had her glasses broken and a man was bashed in the new grandstand.  A referee was kicked by a player and another threatened, forcing him to give the game away.

They were tumultuous times in some respects.

White Eagles won the league and cup double in the second division, thus gaining promotion to the top flight, which, as I say, should always be the case.

I wish everyone a successful 2023 season.  Let’s see if the game has really moved on since 1963.  As the old French saying goes:  “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”