In 1989 legendary ex-Real Madrid and Hungry striker Ferenc Puskas arrived in Australia to take charge of South Melbourne Hellas. This would be the start of a special bond between him and his skipper, the one and only Ange Postecoglou.
When I decided to write a piece on the relationship between the two, I’d done a bit of research into the club and it was a fascinating insight. Not just on the bond between the two men, but the history and traditions of the club. It has many similarities with our own football club.
Greeks had been emigrating to Australia since the 19th century, the first recorded migrants being pirates who were sent to Antipodes (Australia’s British colony name) after being sentenced by the British naval courts.
Free immigrants soon followed on their own accord well into the 20th century and made a life for themselves by establishing businesses including football clubs.
One of those clubs where South Melbourne who had an aim of establishing themselves as the Greek club in Melbourne and unite different groups of Greeks. Another club in the city Melbourne Knights previously known as Melbourne Croatia were equally as proud of their migrant roots, the club former Celt Mark Viduka played for from the age of 5 until 20.
South Melbourne Hellas were formed in 1959 as an amalgamation of South Melbourne United, Hellenic and Yarra park, the idea of a man called Theo Marmaras. Interestingly a man by the name of Georgios Samaras also played a part in the founding of the club, the grandfather of our former Greek striker of the same name!
Throughout the years South Melbourne became a popular club and quickly established themselves as a decent side. They recruited a lot of players from the Greek leagues as well as Scotland and England to help them compete.
Fortunes not only changed on the park but off it. For many a year Greeks had nowhere to gather and meet, football quickly helped with that. As well as being a football club it was a community.
It wasn’t all plain sailing though and they faced problems in the shape of xenophobia from many ‘natives’ who were hostile towards immigrants. Football was seen as a sport of the immigrants in a cricket and Aussie rules obsessed country.
On one occasion the club bandstand was set on fire and the clubhouse vandalised with graffiti. Quite astonishing behaviour from citizens of a nation built on immigrants, some Australians are like Americans in that sense. It’s bizarre.
Victoria, the state Melbourne is capital of has at the last census had a population of 173,000 Greeks, the largest Greek diaspora outside the motherland and Cyprus.
A large percentage of those Greeks arrived in the late 1960s due to the 1967 fascist coup. One of those family’s was the Postecoglou family. A five year old Ange along with his mother and father Dimitris who had lost his business due to the coup made the journey to Australia by boat in search of a better life.
Fast forward 22 years and Ange was skipper of South Melbourne Hellas and Puskas was his manager. For three years Puskas played a 4-4-3 attacking but some would say ‘carefree’ formation. Ange himself a left back who’s job was now to attack more and defend less was even a bit negative at first, but it worked all the same as Puskas led South Melbourne to five trophies. He not only brought success but also a stylish brand of football to Australia.
Ange credits Puskas with his own approach to the game. He’s on record as saying Puskas was a breath of fresh air and he learned a lot from his open attitude to the game as opposed to the more regimented coaches of the time.
Puskas couldn’t speak English so Ange became his translator on and off the park as the galloping Major could speak Greek after spells at Panathinaikos and AEK Athens. He would also chauffeur him to and from training, sometimes even socially. He in turn became a friend as well as a mentor.
It’s fair to say Ange and Puskas shared a special bond, his parents and fellow Greeks will have been so proud of him for welcoming and helping out a fellow foreigner in a strange land. The way it should be.
JustAnOrdinaryBhoy – follow on Twitter @ordinarybhoy
Another brilliant article