no we just kept his fridge full of VB and he was contempt!!lol

Different times, granted, but I think Mehm is looking at things through rose tinted glasses. There were pay disputes within the NT in the '80s and in the '90s, and at one point the team went on strike for better pay and refused to train. And players negotiated their contracts as hard back then as they do now, it's just that the money was a lot less.

Maybe kids these days see more of a "progression path" from training hard to getting paid, that's possible, but IMO that's only because kids these days are so much more aware of the real world than we were due to the never ending stream of information coming their way.

I remember meeting a guy in the '80s who had played keeper in the NSL, but due to injury had missed a season and found himself basically out of the loop. Sorry can;t remember his name, he was of South American background, that's all I remember. I asked him why he wouldn't just join a lower level team to get himself back into it and put himself back in the frame. His response? An almost contemptuous "Who's gonna pay me?".

I know that's just one person, but IMO things aren't dramatically different today from back then. In fact, due to the advent of the HAL we have now shown kids they can have a football career path in the country. Not a bad thing at all IMO.

Mehm commented on this at the match on Sunday - asked if he felt differently about coaches now that he's done the job, compared to when he was a player, he said (something along the lines of) "we played because we loved the game and had a great team spirit, most of the guys today just want to get paid, nothing else matters"

You're right too, it was the '99 side. By that stage the dominance was starting to go the way of Wollongong and Perth as well, while Spirit quickly went on the slide after about 2000.

You're getting mixed up with the '99 side.

The 97 side was split up for a number of reasons - a few players went overseas (Milicic, Zdrilic, Kalac etc), Marusic and Enes to Spirit, Culina took his son to Olympic, a couple of others went to other NSL clubs (Mark Babic to Marconi, Trajkovski to Perth for eg)

The '99 side won the Minor Premiership and lost to South Melbourne in the final. That side was the one who was raped by Parra Power. The squad had Mile Sterjovski, Joel Griffiths, Nathan Day, Jacob Burns, Bennett, Berry, Barrett, Vrkic, Plesa etc... A couple of players stayed, but about 18 moved across to Parra Power if memory serves me right

Club never recovered from that

Different era mate. Although a HAL player on $70K would welcome someone to come in and do some free tradie work around his house.

Arnie himself was a qualified carpenter in his younger days... he could have built the house himself!

Sounds funny and bizzare nowdays but that's how things where done back then. Very, very informal. Star player would 'work' at club presidents business during the week for 'cash', club fans would concrete, do other trade work on players homes in lieu of match payments etc. Nowdays we have wankers like Kewell asking for clauses/bonuses if MV sell and extra 50 shirts and if an away team gets a few thousand extra through the gate when he comes to town!!!
Rozic was an absolute superstar.

And Rozic would've deserved it, the guy was IMO at the time the best player in the league, just seemed to have hours on the ball at the back, his distribution was excellent. Shit, he must be nearly 60 now, I'm getting old...

The '97 side was all class. There were some quality sides in the NSL over the years, and that one was one of them. But $$$ was obviously tight, and the next season Dave Mitchell left and took half the team to Parramatta with him...Except Marusic who went to Spirit and I think Culina went to Olympic for a season or two before going o/s.

As for Milicic, I always thought him highly underrated in the green and gold. A class act, surprised he didn;t carve out a bogger career o/s.

I think we may have given Rozic a house? Or possibly another Cro import. Dont think it was Arnie

It was the 96/97 side that was class - Milicic, Marusic, Kalac, young Jason Culina, Zdrilic etc

I gotta say, some racial stereotypes do hold true...:lol: :lol:

The story I remember was that they did build him a house, but I could be wrong, it's been nearly 30 years. Some great players in that Croatia side of the mid-late ;80s - Arnold, Patikas, Slater, Clinch, Franken, Jones, Hunter. Can't actually remember too many Croatian boys tbh, but I am sure they were there. And your '97-98 sides were real quality too.

Dont think we built him a house. We did a lot of work around his house though

At our 50 year gala he told the story of when Kalac's old man came to his place to concrete his driveway

I remember Sydney Croatia built Arnie a house when he played for them.

Great side definately. Shame you couldn't find any spots for 'favourite' sons like Drago Deankovic, Luka Bonacic, Sulemein Curovic.....(just having a laugh).

Tommy Cumming was such a brilliant player. Played for the Socceroo's even though he played in the 2nd tier state league. Pretty sure the last player to ever do so. Had many offers to go to the NSL but stayed loyal to Melb Croatia. Legend has it that the Cro's built him a house to stay.

Not sure about south coast... I know South Coast United played in the Sydney comp in the 1960's.

Newcastle clubs played in the same comp as Sydney clubs between 1927 and 1956.

@localstar - did the Sydney clubs play in the same league as the Newcastle and south coast ones?

In 1930, Adamstown were NSW champions, Footscray Thistle were Victorian champions, and West Adelaide were South Australian champions... so I don't know where that leaves us!

West Adelaide weren't even the strongest club in SA at the time, and faded into obscurity soon afterwards. West Torrens, Kingswood, Port and Port Thistle were the strongest SA clubs in the 20s and 30s. West Adelaide supposedly amalgamated with Hellas in 1962 to form West Adelaide Hellas, but I have my doubts about that story.. West disapeared well before then.

In NSW, the strongest Sydney clubs at the time were Pyrmont, Granville and Gladesville; but south coast clubs like Balgownie were also strong, and, like the Newcastle clubs, competed on an equal footing with the Sydney clubs.



Edited by localstar: 9/5/2012 02:31:17 PM

Zabica

B.Nyskohus
Tobin
Ivanovic
T.Vidmar

Veart
Muniz
A.Vidmar

Mori
Pelosi
Deans

subs: Melta, J.Nyskohus, Maxwell, J.Petkovic

I'll have a go:

Zabica
Shillabeer....Ivanovic....Tobin....T. Vidmar
.............................Melta
Lozanovski..........A. Vidmar......Villani
...................Mori.........Veart
Subs: J. Petkovic, Nyskohus, Santrac, Maxwell, Mullen

LOL

Can someone post their best Adelaide city line up

they had some truly quality sides - especially during the Zoran Matic era

Edited by chris: 29/4/2012 11:06:16 PM

... Rale Rasic as coach...

C'mon we all know the Canberra Cosmos would be up there. My all time best side would include Grella and err....

Yeah he is still alive spends a lot of time in Thailand giving the FA lads updates on the Thai League and the best lady boys :lol: He discovered how to operate twitter so you can only imagine what some individuals are copping. I must say whenever the forum was close to dying from a law suit ECP always came to help. Shame you left, missed out on fronty giving Clive Palmer the idea to fly the helicopter with Freedom of Speech sign at Newcastle :lol:

Great lineup, but let's remember these are players gathered over 30 years.

Still, I'd feel safe with:

..........................Bolton
Milligan.....Colosimo....Rudan.....Carney
...................Talay......Carle
Emerton.............................Corica
...........Yorke.........Brosque
Subs - Necevski, Popovic, Boschaart, Cole, Musialik, McFlynn, Kisel, Aloisi, Petrovski.

Not bad from my club over just 7 years

Probably something abusive... is he still alive?

this team would thump all, my all time best melb knights team!!
goals- yakka banovic
defenders- fausto de amichi,george hannah,ante kovacevic,steve horvat
midfield- ljubo lapsanski,tommy cummings capt,joe simunic,andrew marth
forwards- mark viduka,zejlko adzic
bench- frank juric,kresimir marasic,kenny murphy,robbie dunne,billy vojtek,josip biskic

now now guys in the know who recall some of these players will know this starting 11 very hard to top!!lol=; \:d/

and i could of included, sasho ogdanovski,vargas,leijer,duganzic,franjic,vaughn coveny etc etc all household names all were at melb knights.




Edited by cro69: 27/4/2012 11:58:09 PM

Edited by cro69: 28/4/2012 12:05:20 AM

Mishka, wonder what our friend ECP would have to say about that :lol:

Yeah but we would've kicked you off the park ... :lol:

I reckon my best ever South team would wipe the floor with that Syd City team!!!!!

Petkovic

Davidson Durakovic Blair Postecoglou

Tassios Wade Crino Boutsianis

Trimboli Brown

Subs: McLaren, Kisnorbo, Muskat, Petersen, Bozinovski, Ollerton, Yzendoorn, Lozanovski, Egan........I could go on forever

Coach: Ferenc Puskas

Fuck we had some great players.

Edited by smfc and proud: 25/4/2012 09:48:16 PM

As I said above, I have my own bias, but I am happy to name SM the best NSL club, with Sydney City a close second. I ask the theoretical question how well SC would've done had they hing around another decade. But then how well would've MK done if they had come in a decade earlier? It's all academic of course.

On another site (the old TWGF) we went through an exercise of going through the "best of" of each of the NSL clubs, and came up with some pretty impressive lineups.

I put forward my best Sydney City side:

..............Clarke
Hooker...Robertson...O'Connor...De Marigny
.......Barnes.....Cant
Watson....................Patikas
......Mitchell......Kosmina

Subs: Pezzano, Gomez, Boden, Farina