World Footy News

Stephen Alomes, an Australian academic and occasional contributor to World Footy News, recently concluded one of many trips to Europe. Below he discusses some thoughts on how Australian football is developing and what is needed to push it forward.

Village and Uni to Continent and World – the View from the Far North and how Aussies can help

A glimpse from local footy stories – Turku, Finland and south western France to the continental and intercontinental map.

Stories of local recruiting, Euro competition, Aussie expertise, the need for links

Footy teams grow from the grass roots. Sometimes, the players come in groups from a local area, a kind of chain connection which brings them to a club. At Turku, where Australian genetics academic and former Geelong boy Craig Primmer works, some of the players have come from the university. The Aussie presence is small, however, even with another former Ballarat boy, Grant Siermans. It is essential for good skill development, which is perhaps why the Turku Dockers won the first Finnish premiership (see Turku Dockers take out inaugural Finnish premiership).

Other Dockers players came in a group from a village just outside the Finnish town. Paimio, just 12 kilometres away, produced a group of players who, like most of their Turku Dockers fellow players had never touched a footy before.

As in most European competitions the language on the field is mixed, with some key words (often goal/ball) in English and most words in Finnish, the English even better heard by the two Aussies and the American who form the non-Finnish complement of the team.

Of course there can be surprises, as when they played the Helsinki Heatseekers, and a certain new player for Helsinki, Carl Steinfort, dominated the game. Eventually the penny (or the Eurocent) dropped about the former Geelong and Collingwood player. Like many Aussies in Finland, he had moved there with his girlfriend.

Local players predominate, however, a contrast to London.

In France too, teams have been established by locals who have only ever seen the game on the Internet and have never been to Australia. French players form the teams in southern cities, such as Montpellier and the new boys on the block, Perpignan, and Toulouse, where few travelling or living Australians are found. A bit further west, the principality of Andorra, which also plays against the other southern teams, has at least one Aussie.

Backgrounds influence how players play the game, especially when there are too few teachers.

In Finland, while players who have come from ice hockey adjust quickly to the game’s tackling and forward movement, a few who come from soccer have an ingrained caution about moving forward, afraid of an offside rule. As a result they can often be caught, tackled and lose possession.

In south west France rugby players are tempted to tackle below the legs or to smother a player, while injuries can sometimes result from players who don’t know how and where to move – as time and space in footy is different to that in most sports, particularly in the era of the non-stop play on game of today.

The continental footy field – expats and the Euro Cup

In October 2009, the Finnish Icebreakers joined many of their EU compatriots and other European nations, including the French, for the European Cup in Croatia.

European travel is now more possible due to discount airlines, although getting to Croatia was more expensive for many participants.

However, the Euro Cup has an interesting dimension: unlike the International Cups of 2003-2008, it is not solely based on nationality.

Therefore the British team, with several Aussies, was inevitably stronger than some of the other teams. Therefore, the Finns believe, accurately, that they did well to push the Brits. As Craig Primmer emailed me:

Finland were leading England by 9 points at half time and had the lowest losing margin against the unbeaten England. They were however pretty gutted to have let their lead (and a guaranteed top four finish) slip away against the eventual winners, and this showed in their next game against Ireland. So all in all, we were reasonably happy with the first effort of a completely non-Australian squad.

Ed. To be fair it should be noted that the England Dragonslayers did not to our knowledge have any Australian expats playing. Even if they would have played Australians, the EU Cup uses a handicap system to (quite reasonably) balance against teams with Aussies. In judging the strengths of the various nations it should also be remembered that Britain's full 18-a-side team were competing against Denmark at the time, indicating there is still a very large divide between Europe's top nations and the EU Cup teams - we believe it's important that the relative strengths be accurately reported so up and coming nations know where they truly stand.

In future European Cups while some talk of larger size teams (16 or even 18) another possibility is nationality as a requirement.

Another factor, in France, was the deliberate choice of players from each of the teams as an important part of the development of the game.

Links, liens and liaisons: we need an online site for exchanges between Australia and the world

What does Eurofooty need to strengthen it? To the passing visitor – and see also Steve Pennell’s Age article focusing on Germany , Against the odds, oval ball bounces into Europe – it needs some basic resources from Australia – footballs, video training guides in world formats, long sleeve jumpers as the West Coast Eagles have now supplied to the Swedish….

It also needs Australians who can teach the game, coaches and umpires. It should not have to rely on the chance visit of a Jimmy Bartel (who came with his then Danish girlfriend) or a chance settler such as Carl Steinfort.

It really needs an online site for exchanges, for welcoming European, and other overseas players to local clubs for a few months or a year and welcoming travelling Aussie footballers, amateur and local as well as AFL or WAFL or SANFL etc, for a visit of a week or two to a local club, whether in Turku or Perpignan.

Alternatively, it needs a brother club relationship between Australian clubs and overseas clubs, which may be what world footy as a whole needs.

Ed. Any Australian clubs interested in forming relationships with overseas clubs or creating exchange programs then this website is more than happy to publish those details, just contact us.