Browsing Tag Football
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Football
The Birth of Football Mania (or how football replaced religion as the opium of the people)
In 1895 the renowned English sportsman (and polymath) Charles Burgess Fry noted that the burgeoning interest in Association football in the North of England was ‘almost a passion.’ ...
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Football
President Socceroo: The curious rise of Tim Cahill
In case you haven’t noticed, Tim Cahill has become the-I’ve-been-everywhere-and-done-everything-man. With the squabbling in the Liberal Party unresolved, given the prospect, the juggernaut that is ‘Timmy’ Cahill would ...
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Football 1
How Israel became the lost tribe of Asian football
There’s some scratchy black and white archival footage on YouTube of Israel playing Iran in the 1968 Asian Cup Final. The match was played in Tehran and Iran beat defending ...
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Football
An Open Christmas Letter To Mark Bosnich
Dear Mr. Bosnich, May I call you Bozza? I am writing, Bozza, to wish you a very merry Christmas and of course the happiest of happy New Year’s. ...
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Football
A Death in the Football Family: John Drynan’s Slice of Heaven
Watch out for the alpaca poo when you play football in the Drynan family’s idyllic backyard – especially if you play in bare feet. Four alpacas look on ...
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Football 1
Fan division after derby demolition: The early evolution of Melbourne City FC
Last weekend’s Melbourne Derby, the first between Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City, had AFL media types creaming their pants over the atmosphere, Victory fans gushing like Yosemite geysers ...
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Football
Down, down, FIFA rankings are down: The New Socceroos Status Quo
The new FIFA rankings are out and, as usual, it’s only a slightly more reliable measure of quality than the top 40 music charts. When I started writing ...
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Football 8
Does an insect have a heart? The early evolution of Melbourne City FC
I am still trying to process what I experienced at Melbourne City’s first home game at AAMI Park last Sunday afternoon. Days later, as I’m typing this, the ...
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Football
The Heavy Sleeper’s 2014 World Cup Diary: Complete and Unabridged
One year ago today, the Shoot Farken website was launched. To celebrate the occasion we are proud to republish The Heavy Sleeper’s 2014 World Cup Diary. During the ...
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Football
Ange Postecoglou and the Magic Lamp: How the Socceroos won the Asian Cup
On his final night in Doha, Ange Postecoglou suddenly remembered he had some shopping to do. His mind was still consumed by negative thoughts stemming from two uninspiring ...
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Football 1
Football Songs: The Shoot Farken Top 20
Here at Shoot Farken, we travel to the beat of a different football drum. We are marking the start of the A-League season with a countdown of football ...
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Football
Notes from the Ange Underground: The Socceroos v ‘Shoddy’ Arabia
Ange Postecoglou took some notes after this morning’s match against Saudi Arabia at Craven Cottage, London. Thanks to a mole in the Australian camp, Shoot Farken can exclusively ...
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Football
Ça plane pour moi: Ange Postecoglou and the wisdom of Plastic Bertrand
Belgium. Hate the place. Full of smartarses, especially their journos. “You lost your five last games and you play against the fifth best team in the world. Are ...
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Football
“Un dia muy importante”: Costa Rica basks in its World Cup afterglow
A transexual prostitute saunters into a seedy bar in San Jose, Costa Rica’s buzzing capital. She has a Joel Campbell badge fashionably pinned to her knock-off Louis Vuitton ...
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Football
How to make time-wasting in football a thing of the past
Football has a time-wasting problem. I make this judgement on the basis that coaches, players and fans complain about both time-wasting and ineffective time-keeping in football (just Google ...
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Football
EXCLUSIVE: Leaked FFA report considers potential for ‘ethnic-style’ A-League club
A highly confidential Football Federation Australia marketing report obtained by Shoot Farken reveals the sport’s governing body has been actively investigating the possibility of allowing a new “ethnic-flavoured” ...
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Australian Rules 1
Australia, it’s time to take a GHLAO (good hard look at ourselves)
Having migrated to this country in 1994, I saw many of Australia’s great sporting deeds. In 1996, during class in Grade 5, I watched Kieren Perkins win gold ...
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Football
The Short Sad History of Shit Socceroos World Cup Songs
After 32 years of hurt, Australian football fans have been blessed with three successive appearances in the World Cup. This most welcome blessing has also been accompanied by ...
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Football 3
Soccer and Anzac: Forgetting and Remembering in Western Sydney
Soccer has trouble remembering itself. This failing leaves it open to accusations of foreignness and unbelonging, accusations levelled from without and often complacently accepted from within. One of ...
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Football
AngeLeaks: Inside the mind of Ange Postecoglou at the Julian Assange Cup
A stream-of-consciousness mind dump from Ange Postecoglou, Socceroos coach, during Australia’s 4-3 loss against Ecuador in a friendly played at The New Den, London. (This readout has been ...
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Football 1
Fumbling the Moneyball in the search for England’s Number One
It’s possible that I have a kind of childhood-goalkeeping-related risk-aversion OCD. I email myself at 2am so I don’t forget things I need to do in the morning, ...
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Football
Snap, Kaká, Pop: Jack Lang’s Brazilian Football Adventure
It’s a big year for football and for Brazil, with the World Cup being held in the country that many view as the spiritual home of football. Of ...
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Football 4
The A-League is leaving MLS for dead when it comes to TV ratings
I intended to write this piece later in the year. I really did. But all it took was one tweet from a notorious A-League killjoy to change that. ...
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Football
How I Learned to Love the Offside Trap
I was schooled in the beauty of a well-sprung offside trap from an early age. My childhood memories are scant, but those that seemed to have left a ...
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Football 1
Remembering Johnny Warren: A Football Pilgrimage to Jamberoo
On the eve of the 17th Johnny Warren Memorial Cup, Shoot Farken brings you a piece by Mark Gojszyk on his pilgrimage to the Jamberoo Pub and his encounter ...
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Football 2
‘Bastards Like Them’: Forgetting and Remembering the Father Figures of Indigenous Football
In the early 1950s a young Aboriginal footballer called Charlie Perkins started to be noticed in Adelaide. John Maynard in The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe points out that “Perkins ...
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Football
Revenge of the Football Nerd: AVB the Movie
Loved and loathed in almost equal measure, script doctor Robert McKee’s book, Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Storytelling, sets out guiding principles on how to ...
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Football 1
How Australia missed out on going to the 1930 World Cup
It is 10am on a Saturday and I’ve arrived with a friend at a bustling café in inner Sydney, having driven up from Melbourne the day before. Here ...
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Football 5
A Wogball Christmas: Soccerphobia’s hold on the Australian psyche
I caught up with a friend of mine recently at a coffee shop on Bourke Street. We talked about the previous year, the ailing fortunes of our respective ...
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Football
The Old Man, the Rooster and a morsel of pork: Melbourne Heart as Balkan parable
My cousin is a great storyteller. I don’t mean good at making up stories, he’s just a good raconteur. In a very ‘old world’ quality, he describes every ...
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