Ghost of National Soccer League still apparent 40 years on from humble beginnings

Different class: West Adelaide's John Kosmina (left) scored the first goal in NPL football, 40 years ago.
Different class: West Adelaide's John Kosmina (left) scored the first goal in NPL football, 40 years ago. Photo: Antonin Cermak
Is it really 40 years? Boy that makes John Kosmina feel old. There's history, and there's living history. And "Kossie" – still going strong as a pundit and a coach – is living proof of a landmark worth recognising.

Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of the first game of the National Soccer League, the first national sporting league in Australia. And guess who scored the very first goal?

Manuka Oval was the venue, with Canberra City hosting West Adelaide. Johnny Warren, who had just moved into his new homestead at Gold Creek, made his coaching debut with the home side, with Charlie Perkins as his president. Tony Henderson would go on to captain the Socceroos. It was an all-star cast in blue and yellow.

Nowadays West Adelaide are in the top tier of South Australia's NPL, while Canberra City are strictly amateur playing in the third-tier of the ACT pyramid. Reduced circumstances for two clubs who were big enough, and brave enough, to sign on for the revolution. Which is exactly what the NSL was. Years ahead of its time.

Then and now: NSL's first goal-scorer John Kosmina continues to have an impact on the game today.
Then and now: NSL's first goal-scorer John Kosmina continues to have an impact on the game today. Photo: Graham Tidy
Basketball followed two years later, and eventually Australian Rules and rugby league followed suit. But the NSL set the pace – a leap into the unknown for the sport, for the clubs, for the players, and for the public.

For game one, just 1550 fans showed up at Manuka, a venue which was little better than an open park in 1977. But thanks to the fact there were no lights at the ground and the kick-off had to be brought forward, it was a history-making occasion nonetheless.

Seven minutes in, Laki Vagianos chucked in a long throw, Ian McGregor got the flick on, and Kosmina was there to volley home. His hometown club West Adelaide went on to win the game 3-1, and Kosmina was replaced after just 53 minutes.

Having made his farewell appearance for his local state league side Croydon Kings (then Polonia) the night before, and having played twice for the Socceroos against New Zealand the previous week, Kossie was cooked. Done, but not done and dusted.

Kosmina went on to set goal-scoring records in the NSL, and for the national team. Forty years later, his first "first-class" goal remains a source of pride, not just individually, but collectively.

Kosmina recalls the transition from state-based football to the national stage as being "bigger than Ben-Hur": "Looking back, I'm so glad I was part of it, and probably even happier that I'm still around to talk about it! There was such a buzz back then, the NSL was a brave new world, you felt for the first time you could have a career in football.

"OK, it was still part-time, but you went from two nights a week training in state leagues to three or four nights in the NSL. You got on planes, you played in better venues, there was some TV coverage, there was a strong sense you were part of an exciting new future.

"Obviously it didn't work out the way we all wanted it to, but it served its purpose. It lifted standards, it produced great players, and it kept the game alive. I'm thinking 'where did those 40 years go'? But at the end of the day I loved the NSL, good and bad. It was a great experience."

After 27 tumultuous seasons, the NSL closed down in 2004, to be replaced by the A-League. It was Frank Lowy who helped start the NSL, but in his second coming he chose to bury its memory. Yet 12 years on, the NSL legacy refuses to go away.

The FFA Cup has become a powerful reminder of the old guard's continuing contribution, while plans to expand the A-League and perhaps create a second division generally bring former NSL clubs into the conversation. Not to mention the fact that four A-League clubs have their roots in the NSL.

Unsurprisingly, Football Federation Australia has made only muted acknowledgement of the 40th anniversary, but in recent times there have been signs of a more open mind from Whitlam Square. The hatchet is buried and the NSL is not demonised as it once was.

Tellingly, one-time NSL clubs such as West Adelaide, Wollongong Wolves, South Melbourne, Brisbane Strikers and Adelaide City are all gearing up for a return to a bigger stage, either in an expanded A-League or a new second division.

While you might ignore history, you can't deny it. "Kossie" is proof of that. In the meantime, here are the teams from the very first game.

Canberra City: Ron Tilsed, Danny Moulis, Tony Henderson, Mike Black (Ken Kawaleva), John Stoddart, Steve Hogg, Ivan Gruicic, Oscar Langone, Nick Boskov, John Brown, Brian Stoddart.

West Adelaide: Martyn Crook, Laki Vagianos, Neil McGachey, Steve Amos, Barry Reynolds, David Jones, Gordon McCulloch, David Pillans (Alan Bourke), Graham Honeyman, Ian McGregor, John Kosmina (Nick Pantelis).

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/ghost-of-national-soccer-league-still-apparent-40-years-on-from-humble-beginnings-20170402-gvbqiu.html

National League celebrates 40th birthday

On the weekend of 2–3 April 1977, 14 teams embarked on the first round of the National Soccer League (NSL). The NSL brought together 13 of the best clubs from Australia's state leagues plus a brand new entity in Canberra City, coached by Johnny Warren.

In an era of expensive air travel, modest state league crowds and general uncertainty about how a national competition would fare, the creation of the NSL was a bold undertaking.

While the league wasn't truly national – a Perth team did not join until 20 years later – there was still a wide representation in the first season 1977 with teams from Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney taking part. A Newcastle club entered in 1978 and Wollongong came in three years later.

Electrical giants Philips Industries provided a sponsorship of $450,000 for the league's first three seasons, while television coverage for the early years was provided by the 0-10 Network who broadcasted two or three matches per round. This was investment and coverage way above anything seen before for football in Australia.


At 2.30pm on Saturday the 2 nd April 1977, almost in the shadows of Old Parliament House, the first national league match kicked off as Canberra City hosted West Adelaide at the leafy Manuka Oval.

In front of a mere 1,550 people, John Kosmina netted the historic first goal for the visiting team in the 7 th minute. By the end of the match two Canberra players had been sent off and West Adelaide were 3-1 winners.

A little later that day Footscray held St George to a 0-0 draw at Middle Park in Melbourne, a field the Formula One Grand Prix now runs over, while at the old Sydney Sports Ground (where the Allianz Stadium carpark currently lies) Sydney Olympic lost to South Melbourne 2-0.

The following day Adelaide City and Brisbane Lions drew 0-0, Brisbane City lost to Marconi 1-0, Heidelberg went down 3-1 to Sydney City, and Round 1's biggest winners Western Suburbs from Sydney thumped Mooroolbark 5-0.

By Round 5 Western Suburbs had won all matches so far, and were ahead of the more fancied and higher-profiled Marconi, Sydney City, South Melbourne and Adelaide City clubs on the NSL ladder.

However by the end of the 26-round season Sydney City reigned supreme and took out the first Australian national title. In the NSL's early years, the champion was the team on top of the final ladder. Sydney City secured 1977 honours in the final round after drawing 0-0 with fierce rivals Sydney Olympic with just below 3,000 in attendance.

In 1978 Newcastle KB United took the place of Mooroolbark, and the following season APIA Leichhardt effectively took Western Suburbs' spot. While these were two 'convenient' promotion-relegation scenarios, in that strong clubs were taking the places of less viable ones, the relegation drama in the following off-season was a messy affair.

South Melbourne finished at the bottom of the 1979 ladder, yet second-last Sydney Olympic were demoted back to the state league in a move that beset the NSL over the off season with legal challenges and wide-scale threats of protest. The saga was the first of many complicated relegation stories that plagued the national competition for the next two decades as the league searched for the ideal promotion-relegation formula, one which never really eventuated.

The NSL rollercoastered its way over the following 25 years, experimenting with many different formats (including a two-conference system from 1984 to 1986), a move from winter to summer (in 1989) and several other initiatives that gave the league a fascinating history to look back on when it eventually closed down in 2004.

There were many success stories from the NSL years, with Sydney City, Marconi and South Melbourne each winning four championships, Alex Tobin (522 appearances) playing the most games, and Damian Mori (225 goals) scoring most goals. Players originating from the NSL clubs provided the backbone for an ever-improving Australian national team, culminating in the Socceroos' first World Cup appearance in over 30 years in 2006. Crowds of over 40,000 saw NSL grand final spectacles in Perth and Brisbane.

The formation of the Hyundai A-League in 2005 took Australian national league football up an extra notch, with financial investment, media coverage and match attendances all raised to much higher levels.

In the A-League's first 11 seasons Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar each won three championships; Adelaide United reached the final of the Asian Champions League in 2008 while Western Sydney Wanderers took out the continental championship in 2014.

On the eve of the 40 th birthday of the national league, Sydney FC are dominating the 2016/17 competition to an extent never before seen in the previous 39 seasons.

Off the field, Round 1 of the 2016/17 season saw the Sydney derby attract an all-time record national league crowd of 61,880 people to ANZ Stadium.


Back in 1977, the revolutionary NSL started boldly albeit from humble beginnings on April 2 when John Kosmina scored the league's first goal in front of one and a half thousand people at Canberra's Manuka Oval.

With the Hyundai A-League's most successful clubs to date Melbourne Victory (v Wellington Phoenix) and Brisbane Roar (v Central Coast Mariners) hosting games on April 2 this year, the 40 th anniversary of the NSL's first game provides some connection between the new and the old, and a good opportunity to reflect on an exhilarating four decades of national league football in Australia.

And while the 40 th birthday reveals a league that is in a stronger condition than in earlier birthdays, it's also a foundation for an even bolder and brighter future for national league football in Australia.

Follow Andrew Howe’s Australian football stats updates on Twitter @AndyHowe_statto

Facts from the first season

Champions – Eastern Suburbs (Marconi finished 2 nd )

Player of the Year – Jim Rooney (Marconi Fairfield)

U21 Player of the Year – John Kosmina (West Adelaide)

Top goal scorer – Dixie Deans (Adelaide City) 16 goals

Coach of the Year – Rale Rasic (Marconi Fairfield)

http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/article/national-league-celebrates-40th-birthday/15o2kjbtai72p1gpwkm1oob0ho

For game one, just 1550 fans showed up at Manuka, a venue which was little better than an open park in 1977

LOL

Baby steps.

Those early, tentative steps lead us to where we find ourselves today:  a thriving, well attended domestic football competition, in the top 20 football leagues of the world.

The NSL constantly accomodated itself to the point of oblivion. Proper pragmatic strategy is required to revolutionise the game further. We must learn from our past.

 The NSL was controlled by the NSL club executives, the very same clubs that want a vote and leading the charge to enter the A-League after they lower it's quality and value so they can survive a MKII version.

How would they lower the quality Paul, why don't you enlighten us. How will these cornershop stores dominate NSL MKII.

They want to run on the whiff of an oily rag so they can survive. That's what they want. If you don't have the turnover to employ professional coaching, medical, administrative or other professional staff and can't afford a modern sports set up than the quality will suffer. Their mono ethnic community alone can't support a successful professional in-house structure and the clubs won't broaden their base to improve that position. Their proposal is little different to the NSL. The standard there was markedly lower.

That set up can't exist in the A-league so they are no threat at all. In a pro/rel environment it's even worse for them because they will never get promoted and will continually slide down a tiered comp. You should be the first one begging for pro/rel.

Well if that's the case they shouldn't be asking for a spot in the A-League first up!

Who is asking for a spot. If you're talking about South Melbourne they meet that criteria already.

The main criteria is the ability to grow the game and extend it out to mainstream. SM Hellas have been either unable or unwilling to do that.

Look who pops his little head out of Hollandia park. 

All ethnicities are ok except for wogs 

The games out in the mainstream now. The broadbased clubs know what its all about. If they shared your sentiments theyd be the first to tell the NPL clubs to piss off. But they're all in the same gang now. And Ffa are the osctracised ones now. Looool. 

Yep the very same clubs who are on the same team as the HAL clubs. 

And Pretty rich taking the nsl boogeman angle. In the nsl lowys agitated for an independent league, and are now ironically fighting tooth and nail agaisnt one. 

Lol. This is so much fun. 

good read 

West Adelaide: Martyn Crook, Laki Vagianos, Neil McGachey, Steve Amos, Barry Reynolds, David Jones, Gordon McCulloch, David Pillans (Alan Bourke), Graham Honeyman, Ian McGregor, John Kosmina (Nick Pantelis).

Have a look at all those Greek surnames for a club that was supposedly racist and mono ethnic in their thinking. Damn fucking Greeks how dare they have so many Anglos in their team. 

Self loathing greeks.... they dunno how to start a mini athens if they tried. 😂 cant trust em to do anything right! 

Ps dont forget about trimmers the uncle tom..... or are italians also bad? Whats the racial totem pole again?

Heil Posta!! Keep dem anglos out!!!

By the time Juventus was playing in the NSL, you'd be lucky to find a single Italian name on the team sheet.

Ok italians bad guys too... check!