Back to the future: why NPL clubs are embracing their ethnic roots again

As Australian football settles into a new decade, casual observers could be forgiven for thinking the sport is actually stuck in a time warp. Nearly 20 years since the collapse of the National Soccer League, the hallmarks of what some lambast as the "old soccer" era are creeping back.

APIA Leichhardt playing Melbourne Victory in the FFA Cup in 2018.Credit: Getty

They're there on the jerseys of teams preparing for the forthcoming National Premier Leagues campaigns in each state and territory. Take the new APIA Leichhardt logo, for instance: the "Tigers" mascot is gone and their original badge from 1954 is back, complete with retro monogram and a silhouette of a man throwing a discus, taken from a statue gifted to them by the Italian government many decades ago.

A little further south of Sydney and the Rockdale City Suns are no more. They're now known, as they once were, as Rockdale Ilinden – a reference to the 1903 uprising by Macedonians against the Ottoman Empire that led to the birth of the modern Macedonian independence movement.

In the nation's capital, Canberra FC are now called Canberra Croatia. In Melbourne, FFA Cup regulars Hume City have slapped the Turkish flag in the centre of their new crest, the Italian-backed Moreland Zebras have added "Juventus" to the end of their name, and two other clubs – Brunswick City and Northcote City – are marking their 50th and 60th anniversaries with commemorative logos that prominently feature their old monikers, "Leonidas" and "Hercules", written in the Greek alphabet.

Undoubtedly, more will follow.

All of this has been made possible by Football Federation Australia's decision mid-last year to rescind the controversial National Club Identity Policy (NCIP), a piece of legislation that will be remembered as one of the biggest missteps of David Gallop's reign as chief executive.

David Gallop announced the NCIP on the eve of the first season of the FFA Cup in 2014.Credit: Ben Rushton

Introduced on the eve of the first edition of the FFA Cup in 2014, the NCIP banned clubs from using names or logos featuring "ethnic, national, political, racial or religious connotations either in isolation or combination". In any other realm of Australian society, it would have been condemned as divisive at best, and flat-out racist at worst.

For football, though, it was nothing new – the NCIP was merely the latest in a long line of policies, stretching back to the 1960s, designed to "de-ethnicise" the code with the aim of making it more appealing to mainstream, Anglo-Australian audiences. Multiculturalism might be the bedrock of football in Australia, but those in charge of it have always had an assimilationist streak.

None of these policies, of course, fooled anyone into thinking the game was not heavily fuelled by migrant contributions, nor did they stop trouble-seeking supporters of different ethnicities from clashing with one another.

Hailed by Gallop as an "inclusive" move, all the NCIP did was make people angry by reviving a largely dormant issue. And in practice – by forcing clubs in the FFA Cup to cover up tiny flags on their jerseys with duct tape, while Fox Sports presenters scoffed down ethnic food – it only underlined how ludicrous the whole premise of it was.

'Our history in football goes deeper, so what's wrong with embracing that and celebrating it? You've got to play to your strengths.'

Rockdale Ilinden president Dennis Loether

One of the first actions of the new FFA board was to initiate a review of the NCIP. In July, it was repealed and replaced by a loose set of guidelines, while fans were also permitted to wave national flags at club matches once more.

Some clubs have rushed to take advantage, intent on proving it's possible to simultaneously embrace the past and build for the future.

"They forced us to change our name," said Canberra Croatia president Tony Vidovic. "Now that the NCIP is gone, everyone can go back to what their names were.

"For us it's about respecting those original pioneers who came out and formed this club and putting Croatia back in the name. It's our identity and Australia as a multicultural society is built up of different nationalities."

At Rockdale's recent annual general meeting, the vote was unanimous to return immediately to the Ilinden name. It was already on their logo and the signs around their home ground but was not allowed to be used in official competitions.

"It's a bit of nostalgia," said president Dennis Loether, who himself is of German heritage and grew up watching Italian, Maltese and Croatian teams in Sydney.

"It's not on the basis of some nationalistic or ulterior motive, but merely paying respect. The vast majority of our playing and coaching group are not of Macedonian heritage anyway.

"You don't need to have modern-day gimmicks. You see in the cricket, rugby league, all the teams have animals or something like the 'Thunder'. Our history in football goes deeper, so what's wrong with embracing that and celebrating it?

"You've got to play to your strengths. I think people will see it for what it is – almost like a 'retro round', all year. I think that's great."

Not every club has moved so quickly, however. In fact, the two that many imagined would have been first in line to revert to their old names – Melbourne Knights and Sydney United 58 who were named Melbourne Croatia and Sydney Croatia respectively and are Australia's leading Croatian-backed clubs – are highly unlikely to exercise their new rights in this post-NCIP landscape.

They both believe times and circumstances have changed, and maintaining a broader appeal is more important than turning back the clock purely for the sake of it – especially as talks continue over the formation of a national second division.

"I think it'd be foolish to rush in and change our [current] name because it has brand recognition," says Melbourne Knights president Pave Jusup.

"It can spark some interest from your own community again, and revive some old feelings. But at the same time it can do the opposite to new people who have come to the club recently – not that it would for us, personally, but at some clubs it may have that effect.

Graham Arnold (left) during his time with Sydney Croatia, as they were known in 1985.Credit: Fairfax Media

"Both us and Sydney Croatia, we unashamedly used our clubs for the promotion of the Croatian name during the war of independence and that's been achieved. The only reason now would be literally just to put it into someone's face, if that makes sense. We don't need to readvertise the fact [that we are Croatian].

"There was a purpose to it before. Now, that purpose doesn't exist in the same way."

Sydney United 58 president Mark Ivancic also believes the Croatia name is probably "best left to history", but was surprised to learn that it was not the club's veterans who wanted it back, but their children and grandchildren.

"The younger blokes were more enthusiastic about it," Ivancic says. "The older brigade were the ones saying, 'Leave it as it is, let's move onto the future'. I would have thought it was the other way."

But Ivancic does not believe an ethnic club name should be held against any applicants for the second division. Indeed, now that football has a sanitised shopfront in the A-League, history and heritage may prove a valuable point of difference.

"It shouldn't be a criteria for eligibility in a B-League," Ivancic says. "It should be on the clubs' merits and capacity to perform at that level rather than what the club's name is, because if it is we're back to that debate about ethnic clubs and needing to stamp it out ... what's the point of opening the floodgates again?"

Ethnicity in Australian soccer remains an emotive topic with an array of different views and perspectives. That will never change.

What the abolition of the NCIP does is acknowledge that those views and perspectives actually exist, and grants clubs the power of self-determination, instead of enforcing a cookie-cutter approach upon a kaelidoscopic community.

"Everyone's different, they've all got specific histories and aims for the future," Jusup says. "The best thing about it is now clubs have the freedom to choose how to express themselves.

"As long as they do that in an intelligent way, not hurting anyone else, it's good for the game.

"For us, as a club, it's a bigger deal that they removed the rule about having flags at games rather than the actual name. When we played Adelaide in the FFA Cup, we had four or five Croatian flags there. FFA didn't cause any dramas. We didn't make a big hoo haa out of it. Everyone went home happy and there were no problems.

"If people are happier within the game, that has flow-on effects everywhere else."