A-LEAGUE launch: "New Football"

[Egan]

First Ivan Ergic from Banana Land in Canarvon and now Vrteski from my old home town, in the Iron Ore Rich fields of the Pilbara has joined the Glory, replacing Milan Jovanich...looking forward to seeing a player that I am older then playing for my team next year



Perth Glory are looking to the future with a West Australian flavour having signed one of the country’s best young goalkeepers, Alex Vrteski, for next season.

The 17-year-old made his debut for the Young Socceroos last week, keeping a clean sheet in a 4-0 win over Sri Lanka in Colombo to seal the U20s’ place in the Asian Youth Championships.

Having represented Sorrento and Stirling Lions in the WA state league, Vrteski is the latest young West Australian to be snapped up by Perth Glory ahead of the 2006/07 Hyundai A-League season.

Currently honing his skills at the AIS in Canberra, Vrteski will join up with his new team mates for pre-season training later in the year and will be one of Glory’s two required under-20 players in their 20-man playing squad.

Vrteski becomes the youngest player contracted to a Hundai A-League club and will become a full-time professional from July 1.

Having been involved with former youth development scheme, Future Glory, in the past, Vrteski was invited by technical manager, Mich d’Avray, to train with the first team as part of the Pathway to Glory initiative midway through last year.

“People who have seen Alex play will know he has huge potential,” d’Avray said. “He’s a young lad, a big lad and has a bright future ahead of him should he continue to improve the way he has.”

D’Avray was pleased Vrteski chose to continue his development in Australia rather than follow the lead of hundreds of young players who go to Europe looking for opportunities – which often end in disappointment.

“The AIS know Alex very well and he will have a stint there (before coming back to Perth). Too many youngsters have headed overseas. Alex is being wise, he’s been well advised by his family and the path that he is going on is the right one for him,” d’Avray said.

Previously a regular with Australia’s U17s, Vrteski admitted that signing for Glory was a dream come true.

“Since I have lived in Perth, from the age of seven or eight, I always came to watch Perth Glory. I have hardly ever missed a home game, even all through this season. It really is like a childhood dream come true for me to get a chance to play for the team and it certainly is a big thing.” (So many players who come and play for our club who come from Perth...say the same thing, is the best thing to hear from your players as a supporter, eg Nick Ward)

Vrteski also believes that the experience he has had training with the club, and previously through Future Glory, holds him in good stead ahead of his first year as a professional.

“Before Future Glory I was only training twice a week but then I was training nearly every night and to have players like Jason Petkovic and Vince Matassa putting on goalkeeping sessions was great.

“The fact that I have been able to train with the first team squad already makes me feel that there is already a level of acceptance with the playing group and a feeling of being involved,” Vrteski added.

PLAYER PROFILE:
Name: Alex Vrteski
Birthplace: Karratha
Nationality: Australian
DOB: 28.09.88
Position: Goalkeeper
Height: 194cm

Hyundai A-League appearances: nil
Previous clubs: Sorrento, Stirling Lions, AIS.
International honours: Appearances for Australia at U17 and U20 level.

[Hiraldo]

Good to see. He was one of the more impressive Oz players at the u17 WC last year and these are the guys we need staying at home for a little while.

Wouldn't be surprised if he's more useful than Petkovic before long, too.

[Egan]

Good to see. He was one of the more impressive Oz players at the u17 WC last year and these are the guys we need staying at home for a little while.

Wouldn't be surprised if he's more useful than Petkovic before long, too.

Well many supporters want Petkovic to lose his contract already...there's a large swell of anti-sentiment from this season, from Petka's game play.

I think Petka is a little bit maligned this season, I think he was not as good as in the past...but he was definitely carrying an injury the whole year...and I didn't want Jovanic in the side as many did towards the end of the year.

Petkovic still has a lot to offer in my view, has another 2 years left and IMO Vrteski should do well under his guidings, despite many wanting the 17 year old to replace Petkovic immediately

The double save against the Mariners - A-quality

[Hiraldo]

You know you've made it when the local turf club has put back an important weekend race meeting to give people time to get home and watch you play, as is happening in Gosford on Sunday.

[Cheesie-the-Pirate]

Driving home this afternoon, listening to ABC 702 and George Negus claimed (and John O'Neil confirmed) that it was he who first advocated the "A-League" name.

[Simmo79]

I wonder who came up with the name the first time around?

Was Negsy on the SA board that season?

[Egan]

Ok the biggest news of the week.

Glory resign the worst defender in the world

Not for 1...but for 2 years

I expected it though...

[hot_dogma]

I wonder who came up with the name the first time around?

Was Negsy on the SA board that season?

I think he would have been say circa 1996/97.

[Hiraldo]

I am 99.999999999999% sure that I read from a May 1995 report David Hill at least suggesting the NSL be renamed the A-League.

BTW, Hiraldo and Mikey's (of TWG and SFCU forum fame) GF preview.

plug plug plug plug plug plug plug plug plug plug

[Simmo79]

Alrighty

the rest of you can start work on your tall poppy syndromes....now!

[Egan]

This from before the 2000 Grand Final...shows you adequately how much every club has been formed much in the Perth Glory model...was a good read.

Amanda Smith: And that might sound like an English Soccer match, but it’s actually a Perth Glory game. Now while Soccer clubs from the eastern States are struggling for attendances, in the West the crowds are booming. Since coming in to the National Soccer League for the 1996/97 season, the Perth Glory continues to set new attendance records. And has attracted a passionate supporter base, none more so than those who inhabit ‘The Shed’, as one part of their home ground is known. And on Sunday the Glory play in their first Grand Final against the Wollongong Wolves. But why is it that the Perth Glory attracts the largest Soccer crowds in the country? Colin Johnston is one of the Glory faithful.



Colin Johnston: I think it’s a variety of things. There hasn’t been a strong Soccer presence in Perth. All of a sudden we now have a team that not only is representing W.A., because let’s face it, they’re in a one-team town, they’re very much like the Eagles were in the AFL in their early days, a one-horse town, so everyone gets on the bandwagon to support them, there’s no competition like there is now between the Eagles and the Dockers. But it’s a one-team town, there’s no strong ethnic base to this support. There are still teams in Australia that we still tend to link, to some extent, with their old ethnic origins, you know, back in the days when we did have teams with names ending in Macedonia and Croatia etc. Perth Glory, there isn’t really an identification factor, certainly not amongst the people I talk with.



Amanda Smith: Well Perth Glory fans, despite what you said about there being no one particular ethnic base to the team or the club, Perth Glory fans are often typified as being like English soccer fans, is that true?



Colin Johnston: Well I do know up on The Shed, where shall we say the most high profile fans are, there is a very strong English contingent. I know a lot of English migrants who go up there, and I do know one of the early games I went to, I met some English tourists on the train, heading to the grounds, and directed them to the ground, showed them where to go, showed them where the stand was, and their comment was, "It’s just like home". They were up in The Shed and they felt it was the same as going along to their local team back in England. There is certainly a very strong English element up in The Shed, but I sit in the side stands (I personally like to be able to have a seat for most of the game) and I can hear five or six different languages being spoken most weeks. And while there is a strong English element there, in conversations with people, none of us really identify it as the British team or an English team. There’s no sort of overt display of any ethnic background or any nationalism there, it just so happens that there’s a strong contingent of lads who like to sing and cheer, who congregate, and there’s a strong English base to them.



Amanda Smith: Well you mentioned the singing and the chanting. The sound of singing and chanting from the terraces is very much a feature of English Soccer, but it hasn’t really been much of a feature of Australian Soccer that I’ve been aware of.



Colin Johnston: The only singing I’ve ever heard at Soccer in the past in Australia, or in Western Australia anyway, has usually been minor little ditties aimed at offending or taking a rise out of an individual player. And it’s been fairly limited; it might go on for two minutes and that’s the end of it.



Amanda Smith: Give us an example of a Perth Glory song or chant? What sort of things do they sing?



Colin Johnston: Well a lot of them do cross the boundaries of good taste, in fact some of them are downright offensive. They sing all the usual "We’ve got the best fans in the land" type songs, they sing the traditional ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, the well-known Soccer song that’s fairly well associated with the Liverpool Football Club, though I have noticed they tend to put their own slant on it as far as timing and rhythm goes. They do sing a couple of fairly offensive songs questioning the parenthood of the referees, and they like to make a point of the fact that opposition teams have no fans; they often sing songs along the lines of "Can you hear Sydney (or Melbourne) sing" - I won’t go into the punchline. But a lot of them are directed at emphasising the point that they’re the only fans there, that the opposition have no fans to support them and they’re on their own. A little bit of intimidation going on.



Amanda Smith: Well just in terms of that crowd on The Shed and the kind of English-ness of that section of the Perth Glory crowd, when Perth Glory was established, the National Soccer League administration was working very hard to loosen the specific ethnic associations of many of the clubs, but why was the English-ness, or that perceived English-ness of the Perth Glory culture seen as OK? Is that because we don’t regard Ethnic ethnicity in the same way as Greek or Croatian or Italian, for example?



Colin Johnston: I think yes, possibly it’s seen as being a safe kind of ethnic gathering. Whether it’s got anything (I’m a little out of my depth here) but whether it’s got anything to do with the fact that the English lately haven’t been in too many wars with people, as opposed to some of the other ethnic communities that we’ve had tied to Soccer, so that a conflict back at home has spilled over into the local communities here, I don’t know.



Amanda Smith: And yet paradoxically in Europe, English Soccer fans are regarded as the scourge of the game.



Colin Johnston: Oh, certainly.



Amanda Smith: Has any of that less attractive culture of English Soccer fandom become part of the Perth Glory?



Colin Johnston: No, I don’t think so. I mean there have been instances where say there’s some bottle throwing. But it’s interesting to note, and I’ve been discussing this in the last day or two with people that go to the Soccer with me, it’s interesting to note that when there are instances such as bottle throwing or things like that, they’re always plastic bottles; it could be argued that that’s the only sort they sell at the ground, but it would seem to suggest that people aren’t coming along with any expectation that they might need a better missile than a plastic bottle, or they need flares or any of the other various things that turn up at grounds where there are troubles. I think you can fairly safely say that there’s no-one, or no organised group anyway, probably no-one at all, coming with the intention of using the game as an opportunity to start some kind of trouble or some kind of violence. As I said before, the hostility that there is there, and there’s certainly a lot of hostility expressed, but it’s very much expressed, there seems to be no likelihood, I’ve never felt, at any game, even some of the ones that got a bit heated, I’ve never felt at any time that there are calls to, you know, "Let’s all have a riot" or "Let’s go bloody mental" etc., which is one of their favourite chants. There’s never been any likelihood or expectation that they’re going to act it out, though it has been pointed out that that’s quite often the call to start something in other parts of the world, amongst English fans.



‘GLORY’ CHANT



Amanda Smith: Singin’ for Glory, the Perth Glory, playing in Sunday’s National Soccer League Grand Final against the Wollongong Wolves. And that was Glory follower, Colin Johnston.

[Egan]

Miller and Bobby's Testimonial on Sunday.

ROFL Glen Jakovich playing

Craig Foster and Gumpy...oh and Tony Franken (man that bloke was a legend)

Vas Kalageracos, got the Glory from 3-0 down against Sth Melbourne away from home to score a hatrick in 15mins and earn us a draw...was a great player

Getting so bloody excited about the match.

Pity that Bernd didn't come back...media would have gone physcho.

Full squad lists:
Bobby 10:
Tony Franken, Shane Pryce, Craig Naven, Jamie Harnwell, Danny Hay, Paul Strudwick, Damian Mori, Dale Wingell, Alan MacKenzie, Bobby Despotovski,Tony Carbone, Brad Maloney, Simon Colosimo, Glen Jakovich, Vince Mattassa, Danny Milosevic

Coach: Gary Marocchi, Micky Brennan.

Scott7:
Tommy Maras, Matt Horsley, Shaun Murphy, Brad Hassell, Vinko Buljubasic, Andre Gumprecht, Scott Miller, Gary Faria, Alistair Edwards, Johnny Carbone, Vas Kalagoracos, Paul McVittie, Craig Deans, Craig Foster, Michael Garcia, Jason Petkovic, Robbie Zabica.

Two squad places will be auctioned at Friday’s sell-out Testimonial Dinner and MGP Awards

[IanRitchie]

Knights are just going to let Brockie go.


f**k you Knights!

f**k off to Canberra.

[Simmo79]

thanks, but no thanks

[Simmo79]

http://www.sydneyfc-unofficial.com/Foru ... =6383.html

a good thread of grand Final photos from the Cove.

If you don't know what Hot Dogma looks like, he's front and centre in the first photo (nice headband).