The ups and downs of football in the red centre
By: Dylan Arvela
Tags: Football, Soccer, Indigenous, Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Vikings celebrating a goal against Scorpions.

To most, Alice Springs is known for what’s around it rather than what’s in it.

Uluru and Kata Tjuta are just next door and the spectacular Larapinta Trail and MacDonnell Ranges can be seen from the back porch.

Of course, there’s also the famous waterless boat race and a beanie festival my mum keeps talking about.

Football, as in the round ball game, on the other hand, is probably not what comes to mind when thinking about the capital of the outback.

Ross Park, in the town’s east, is the hub for the world game in central Australia and on Saturday afternoon after hundreds of kids enjoyed their games, MPH Vikings took on Gillen Scorpions in the Football in central Australia (FICA) Premier League.

The setup

There are five clubs, and upwards of 600 players, competing in FICA competitions from under-sixes through to the senior men’s Premier League and women’s W-League.

Along with Vikings and Scorpions, the competitions are made up of a combination of Verdi, Alice Springs Celtic and Stormbirds.

“This year the men’s Premier League is a four-team comp,” Jamie Orr, former FICA vice-president and current president of Scorpions explained.

“In previous years we’ve had up to five [in the Premier League] with all clubs represented, but this year Stormbirds aren’t represented and Scorpions are — we hadn’t had a men’s grade for the last three years or so.

“Teams play in the [18-round] home-and-away season and the FFA Cup when that came on board — it’s a nice distraction for many.”

Richard Farrell has been playing for Vikings since they were founded by Bobby Hood in 2005 so it’s fair to say the 46-year-old has a fair perception of the Alice footballing scene.

“I moved here in 2001 and before that, I was playing a bit of soccer back home in Ireland,” he explained in his Irish burr which has been uniquely stained by two decades down under.

“It’s a good local comp and it’s been going on for a long time. There’s a lot of juniors, soccer is huge here, but it’s very much like soccer everywhere — it’s underfunded. We get good numbers out here and you come down of a Saturday morning and you see hundreds of kids running around.

“What has also been great has been the women’s comp which has really taken off. There’s been one for quite some time, but over the last four years it’s really blossomed and attracted some really good numbers.”

Victorious Verdi and the FFA Cup

Verdi are Alice Springs oldest football club with the Italo-Australian side celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2020.

The Reds are the reigning grand final champions after beating Celtic 3–0 in the decider last October, thanks in part to a brace from the dynamic Fabrice Wamara.

Farrell admits Vikings’ rivals are the benchmark for football in the red centre at present.

“I couldn’t talk about Alice Springs soccer and not talk about Verdi and Gio Morelli,” Farrell said.

“They’re the town’s oldest club having been around for about 50 years and Gio has been a mainstay there as a coach, mentor and trainer for probably about 30 years or so.

“They won it last year and they’re looking strong this year. They’re quite a settled team, they have some really good players including a large contingent from African descent who all moved to town a few years ago. They’re a really nice bunch of blokes and they’re a very solid team.”

Saturday was set to see a rematch of last year’s title decider (though they have met twice already this season with Verdi comfortably beating Celtic in both matches), but Verdi had an important appointment 1500 kilometres north that evening.

Verdi were representing Alice in the Territory’s FFA Cup final four where the side was drawn against Darwin giants Hellenic Athletic at the city’s football stadium.

Hellenic are the current champions of the Top End and have Cup pedigree having made the national draw in 2018 when they nearly shocked A-League outfit Western Sydney Wanderers before ultimately going down 4–3.

In Saturday night’s match, the Darwinians went up early before Verdi struck back in style through Nepalese attacker Bikash Gauchan.

Hellenic edged ahead later in the first half and despite the underdogs best efforts, Verdi couldn’t find an equaliser.

After the match, Gauchan told FFNTV his side had to adapt to the warm climate straightaway in order to compete.

“I have been following the Darwin league since last year, Hellenic have some different players, but they are still really good,” he said.

“We worked really hard in the last month because we knew it was very different weather up here than it is there.

“Even though [we lost] I am very happy with the result, the boys [had] a great game so… I am very satisfied with the performance.”

An Alice side beating a team from Darwin in the FFA Cup, or previously the Territory’s Sports Minister’s Cup, has proved to be an insurmountable challenge to date with Verdi, Celtic and Scorpions all having a crack in years past.

“Some players would have been up there the day before and some players, because of work, would be flying up today,” Orr explained of the Verdi’s match with Hellenic.

“And they would be coming back first thing tomorrow.

“In June, don’t get me wrong it’s lovely [weather in Darwin], but you know as a player there’s going to be a lot of humidity up there and the rest that goes with it. You can prepare as good as you can, but it’s still a struggle.

“It’s really about getting up there and making a good fist of it because you’re not just representing yourself, but also the region”

Farrell believes a side from the middle of Australia will one day get one over their northern rivals, adding he would be keen to see the likes of Hellenic make the two-hour flight south in future.

“I’ve watched quite a few live games from Darwin — the difference is not unbridgeable,” Farrell said.

“An Alice Springs team will get them one day.

“It would be great to have the game down here, but I don’t think the Darwin clubs would be down for that.”

Alice exports

Given its isolation and population of 25,000, it would be understandable if Alice Springs hadn’t had any players of note push through to higher honours.

However, there have been a few names come through the town before making it elsewhere.

Scorpions once had giant goalkeeper Jack Dorron on their books before he had a stint with former NSL powerhouse South Melbourne.

Vikings have had two players push on to higher honours with Cameron Cook and Kyra Cooney-Cross both spending time in Alice Springs.

“A former Vikings goalkeeper called Cameron Cook is now on the books at Perth Glory in their junior teams,” Farrell explained.

“He’s very good and I’m sure he will play for Perth Glory [in the A-League] one day.

“Our most famous player has to be Kyra Cooney-Cross whose father played for us. She also played a couple of games for us and trained with us. Of course, she’s an Australian international and is playing for Melbourne Victory in the W-League.”

Another one of the town’s football folk making a name for themselves in the big smoke is 22-year-old Liam Miller.

Miller grew up in Alice where he picked up a whistle at a young age and now while studying in Adelaide, he is officiating matches in the second-tier of South Australian football.

“I started refereeing when I was 12-years-old,” Miller said.

“I have a mate that was doing it and I wanted to do it for a bit of pocket money.

“I started refereeing more and more and realised I was a lot better at refereeing than I was at playing so at 16 I stopped playing and began taking refereeing more seriously.”

Given a shortage of referees, an issue not unique to Alice, Miller began officiating senior matches in his mid-teens.

The whistleblower said he had to step up to the level, as he would go on to do when he moved to the South Australian capital.

“When I was around 15 or 16 I started to [referee seniors],” he explained.

“At first it was pretty challenging and interesting and then I was able to get used to it.

“I moved to Adelaide two-and-a-half years ago to study and to also keep pursuing refereeing. I hit the top of what I could do here and now I have been refereeing for over two seasons [in South Australia], mainly in the State League 1.

“It was a big step up [to referee in South Australia] at first. It’s a lot quicker and more intense. There’s also a lot more people at the grounds.”

Miller, who was back in Alice to see his family, was the man in the middle of the match between Vikings and Scorpions.

Assistant referee Zac Butter, referee Liam Millar and assistant referee Ariki Butter.

“It’s good to come back,” Miller said.

“It’s good to see people like [one of his assistant referees] Ariki doing really well and having fun. Also, seeing the people I used to referee and get to say hello.”

Familiar challenges

One doesn’t have to drive 10 hours to discover football has a funding issue in Australia as it’s as prominent a concern in Alice as it is in Melbourne or Wollongong.

The presence and financial might of the AFL has overshadowed football in Alice with Ross Park, while adequate, dwarfed by Traeger Park — the 7000-seat stadium which was set to hold an AFL match the previous night had it not been for the Covid-19 outbreak in Victoria.

“Lack of investment is the biggest challenge,” Farrell said.

“I compare us to the AFL. We have more numbers playing and you look at the facilities [Aussie rules] have in town. They have two fabulous facilities that they use which have grandstands and canteens, so the investment from the town council and the NT government [for football] has not been great].

“They built some changing rooms [at Ross Park], but they’re about 15-years-old too. The pitches here need upgrading and the facilities here could be better and on the football side of things, the FFNT don’t really invest in development down here so we’d love to see that.”

This financial disparity has also led to a demographic imbalance in Alice Springs football.

Nearly 20 per cent of the town’s population is Indigenous, however, you wouldn’t know that from watching Vikings take on Scorpions.

“Our club have people from everywhere — every club has,” Farrell said.

“There’s a strong Irish presence, English, Scottish, a few Kiwi lads were out there today. We had a young local Aboriginal lad playing for us and I would love to see more Indigenous participation given where we are.

“It’s a real shame there isn’t a full-time development officer who could focus on bringing in more local kids to the game and offering them a pathway like the AFL does. More people play soccer here in town, but the AFL has a full-time staff of three or four and an office and a real presence in all the schools whereas we don’t have that here.

“We probably have five or six Aboriginal lads across our seniors, so in our reserves and ladies, but there really should be more.”

Orr also recognises the lack of Indigenous peoples playing soccer in town, despite the multicultural makeup of the five clubs.

“We have your standard Australian base, but we also have a lot of South Sudanese coming through,” he explained.

“There’s other Africans as well like Kenyans exctra. We have noticed a turnout of Indians and south-east Asians joining in — Nepalese as well. You drive past our ovals and you can see them all out having a kick. There’s Koreans that used to turn up every Sunday afternoon so they’re out there but not all of those are transferring to [registered players].

“[In regards to Indigenous participation] it was a classic question from the Adelaide United CEO when they came through because they wanted to run an Indigenous program in the community. They wondered how many [Indigenous kids wanted to play football] and I said, ‘You never know and you will never know.’

“You can go out there for a day and you’ll get your photo and that’s great, but as soon as they’re gone, they’re picking [the ball] up and [kicking it like an Aussie rules ball] because that’s all they ever see. The AFL is always out there and they’re always pumping money in.”

Orr also feels it is hard to evaluate the progress of football in Alice Springs over the years given the competition doesn’t have a counterpart an hour down the road.

“You would always hope there’s been improvement.” Orr said.

“Improvement with how the competitions are run and managed and the talent.

Getting [talent] identification and stuff like that has been one of the bugbears. We think we have some good teams or some good individuals, but they just don’t get the chance to travel and test themselves against the real competition rather than the same kids week in and week out.

“But it is what it is, we love the game and we try and deal with it as best week can.”

Full time

In the end, the match was no contest with Vikings running out 7–1 winners with former Goulburn Valley Suns player Geordie Lelliott bagging four goals.

Farrell scored from the penalty spot while Emrys Jones and Sean Mouzinho also scored for the curiously named Vikings.

There was some consolation for bottom-placed Gillen with Victor Abadi netting seconds before Miller blew the final whistle.