How we stopped being the victim

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:03]It wasn't fair. France were world champions and as long as they didn't lose to bottom place Junicia, we only needed to draw against Denmark in order to advance. But what do they say about the French and white flags? Having already secured their passage into the second round, they fielded their B team.

[00:00:21]As Australia hung on for a draw, the unbelievable happened. WIKI KAZRI GOING ALL THE WAY THROUGH AND scoring for Tunisia.

[00:00:30]>> Now Australia had to beat Denmark in order to go through. This is how much their squad was worth and this was ours.

[00:00:38]But we were done being victims.

[00:00:49]So, the World Cup is around the corner, and I really do feel as though the public needs to know our history with this tournament. This is not just a sporting story. It's a cultural story.

[00:00:58]Last year, I made a video on the 1974 World Cup qualification. And to be honest, I thought it was one of my better videos. So, I thought that I'd use that as a template, but expand the scope. I sincerely believe that for so much of Australia's footballing history, we had a generational psychological sickness. However, I think that's been overcome. Let me explain using Mr. M from the past. So, this right here is a photo of Australia's greatest ever footballer. He grew up in Weather Park, went to school in Fairfield, and his brother played for the Socceroos.

[00:01:30]Unfortunately for us, Italy claimed Christian Vieier as their own. In fact, this right here is a list of who I believe the top 10 soccerers to be. Six of them could have easily played for different countries. And there's a clear reason for that. Football was the sport of migrants. Now, you would think that wait, we were a British colony and football is basically a religion. Why did we never really get around that? So, both rugby and soccer had their roots in the same base game, which was called football. In this game, some parts of England prioritized hand play while others prioritized kicking. It was only in 1848 that the Cambridge rules came in which banned handling the ball and hacking a player down. This effectively created the schism of soccer and rugby.

[00:02:13]By that point, Australia had been a set of colonies for 60 years and had developed its own culture. We definitely kept cricket, but we went our own way with winter sport. In Melbourne, football evolved into Australian rules, while Sydney instead adopted rugby. But in 1895, England's workingclass North created yet another divorce. Rugby was strictly amateur and they forbade clubs from paying players. But put simply, trades in the north couldn't afford to miss work for training. Instead, they rebelled and formed their own code called Rugby League, and they decided to install some mods to the rules to make it a little more entertaining for the fans. Given that Sydney was a much more working-class area, we followed suit and primarily adopted rugby league in the early 1900s. There was simply no room for soccer until the 1940s.

[00:03:04]>> Do you believe that the white the so-called white Australia policy will always be a stumbling block? I don't think it's such a stumbling block as people pretend, but that it's important for us. I haven't the slightest doubt. So this right here is how many migrants we let in each decade. And have a look at the trend from the 1950s onwards. We had been rocked by Japan advancing to our doorstep in World War II. Our prime minister, Robert Menses, proposed a long-term solution that he called populate or perish. The issue was that we had always hated migration. When the states merged into one country, there was an agreement to enforce a white migration policy to exclude Asia. In the 1920s, our prime minister, Stanley Bruce, spent huge sums of money subsidizing English migrants to come and take our farms. When the depression came, we had no money in the bank because Bruce had spent it all on the scheme. And let's just say that after World War II, people were very skeptical of other nationalities. I don't think your average citizens passing sensitivity training. So, Mensis kept the white Australia policy, but whereas Bruce had placed emphasis on Britain, Mensis expanded it to broader Europe.

[00:04:16]Initially, menses had prioritized people who had been displaced by the Soviet Union at the end of the war. They mainly came from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Mensis called them the beautiful bolts. However, Mensy's eye was then set on central and southern Europe. Countries like Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, and even Germany came next. Now, I myself was born in England and came here in 2002.

[00:04:40]And even then, I remember getting shredded in kindergarten for calling it football rather than soccer. I mean, I am from the Shire. So, can you imagine just how much worse it would have been for those migrants? Seriously, imagine moving to Fairfield only to find that your favorite sport, which was universal across all of Europe, isn't played at all. And there's nothing that represents your community apart from the Canterbury Bulldogs in rugby league. A sport that you have zero interest in. With all of these migrants coming in, that leaves a pretty big gap in the market for a soccer team. And better yet, each migrant was bringing their own culture which didn't have to be manufactured. If each football team represented a different culture, no promotion of the sport was really needed. And so began ethnic football.

[00:05:22]>> The soccer code is thriving under the influence of European migrants. Here the Greeks of Sydney Olympic face off against the Italian Arpia Lighheart.

[00:05:31]>> So one of the key things to remember about Europe was that their culture wars weren't about Trump making himself into the Pope. They were about whether the pope should even exist. And by culture wars, I mean literal wars. So football became at least a healthier and emphasis on the suffix way of channeling tribalism. And it was often encouraged.

[00:05:50]For instance, Glasgow was divided between traditional Protestant Scots and Irish Catholic migrants from the potato famine. Up until 1989, Rangers had an unspoken policy of not hiring Catholics.

[00:06:02]So when these migrants came to Australia, they had no qualms about starting an ethnic team. In the 1950s, the western suburbs of Sydney saw three high-profile teams. Maronei Stallions for the Italians, Sydney Olympic for the Greeks, and Sydney Croatia for the Peruvians. In Melbourne, there was Juventus, which mirrored the very famous Italian club, and South Melbourne Helis for the Greeks. That's an Posta Cogley's home club. So football became a very underground sport in the 1950s and the games were barely covered on radio or TV. To use the language from the time whites played footie, ws played soccer.

[00:06:39]We didn't really export many players abroad either. Perhaps our most famous export was Charlie Perkins who trailed with Manchester United and Everton. But if you are familiar with this story, you might know that he put his career on hold to fight against indigenous segregation that was still going on in the countryside. My point is this. One, relative to the rest of the world, we sucked. And two, the footballing community in Australia felt completely unaccepted by the status quo of Anglo Australia. That was until we got a new prime minister.

[00:07:10]>> Over two decades of conservative rule have been broken in Australia as they welcome their new leader, Guff Whittam.

[00:07:16]>> Oh, by the way, I've written a book about when football and history collide.

[00:07:20]To be honest, since becoming a hard copy, it's been very poorly advertised on the channel. Literally, I just put it up as an Instagram story once, but a couple of people bought it and they actually said it was good. This is the link to buy it right here. Go give it a read. Anyway, by 1972, the White Australia policy was starting to come to an end. Back in 1966, Mensy's successor, Harold Halt, adjusted the policy to give equal opportunity for non-Europeans if they were highly skilled. But Goff Whittam wanted to push it further. One of his first moves was to pass a law which explicitly ended any preferential policy based on race. He also ended Australia's policy which required indigenous people to adjust to Anglo culture. His new policy was called self-determination. In other words, speak whatever language you want and as long as it doesn't break the law, live however you want. In fact, Whittam became the champion of the migrant voter, which is kind of ironic because he used to live in Krenala as did I. In my defense, I was just chilling at home playing Ratchet and Clank 3:Y Your Arsenal when all of those race riots went down in 2005. You could full on hear like glass smashing outside while I was just locked in on beating Dr. Nefarious. But to make my point, Whittam's opponent, John Howard, even conceded in his book that Whittam was a master at getting a whole new demographic to vote for his Labour party. One of Labour's admittedly most corrupt politicians, Eddie Obid, said that he first joined the party because of Whittam's promigrant stance, and Whittam went hard on redefining Australia. He got rid of knighthoods and vowed to ditch God Save the Queen as our national anthem, saying that we needed a distinctly Australian song. Really, for the first time since they'd moved to Australia, our football players felt an affinity not just to their local ethnic club, but to the Australian football team. Australia face off against Iran at the SCG with each nation hoping to show why they belong in the 1974 FIFA World Cup. So qualifying for the 1974 World Cup was way harder than it is today.

[00:09:22]England had won the whole tournament just 7 years earlier, but in 1973 they failed to qualify. There were 16 spots up for grabs and the entirety of Asia and Oceanana got one spot. At this point, Israel was also playing in Asia, and the last time round in 1970, they'd occupied that one spot. The process for qualification was really elaborate, and it was designed to keep waring nations away from each other. This right here was zone A, and it was for East Asia.

[00:09:52]This right here was zone B, and it was for the Middle East, South Asia, and Oceanana. But you couldn't have North Korea play against South Korea, nor Israel play against an Arab nation. So, they swapped. And FIFA really did just pray that neither Israel nor either of the Koreas got out. That's because the zones were split into groups and the winners of each group would play against each other to win the zone. The winner of each zone would play against each other in a super match over two legs.

[00:10:18]Explaining the intricacies of 70s World Cup qualification must be killing my watch time. My point is that it was hard to win. And we actually got off to a pretty poor start. We were 5 minutes away from losing to New Zealand before Ernie Campbell, a Maronei player, rescued a one- all draw. Thankfully, we put a good run together to beat both Iraq and Indonesia to make it to the zone B finals. However, going any further than that was going to be near impossible. The Australian team was simply just made up of part- timerrs.

[00:10:47]Our football was still way too underground to pay players a full-time salary. But it wasn't just that.

[00:10:52]Remember, these players played for clubs that were divided along ethnic boundaries. To illustrate the point, England had an elite team at the 2006 World Cup, but the Manchester United versus Liverpool versus Arsenal versus Chelsea rivalry was so strong that their defender Rio Ferdinand said it derailed the whole team. Imagine how much stronger an ethnic rivalry would be.

[00:11:14]That meant that our captain, Johnny Warren, was tasked with unifying the team. He himself played for St. George Budapest, a Hungarian-based team in South Sydney. And as an Anglo Australian, he was viewed as a neutral mediator. For instance, while preparing to play against Iraq, Sydney Croatia's players felt as though the Anglo players were dominating the tactical discussion and trying to play the Brexit way. The English are known for just lobbing the ball forward. However, the Croatians preferred a slower buildup with more short passing. Warren himself called for a meeting in a Sydney hotel room with a very simple message. We're not Maronei or Sydney Croatia here. We're Australia.

[00:11:53]So, Australia faced off against Iran to win zone B. And Iran were deceptively good. On the last two occasions, Iran had won the Asian Cup and would go on to win a third consecutive title in 1976.

[00:12:06]In 1972, they'd even beaten Brazil at the Olympics. Given that the game was going to be played over two legs, Australia absolutely had to win the first leg because there was simply no way that they would win in Iran. And at the end of both halves, they came in clutch, getting a 3-nil lead to take to Tran. They actually caught the same plane across and the Australians got off to a very hostile crowd. Except the hostility wasn't actually directed towards them. It was directed towards the Iranian players. For reference, this is what the Iranian fans are like.

[00:12:43]Iran should not have lost like that and they weren't going to repeat the same mistake. For Australia, the math was very clear. They had to restrict Iran to less than three goals. Predictably, Iran's standout player Parvitz Galani scored two goals in the first half and Australia had to hold on for 60 minutes.

[00:13:00]They were seriously struggling in the heat and one of our midfielders, Ray Richards, was even hit by a projectile coin. I mean, we barely managed a shot at goal, but the Iranians were relentless in their pressure. However, one player particularly stood up that day. Jimmy Fraser. After all, we are a footy country, so we make pretty good goalkeepers. In Toron, Fraser was everywhere and pulled off a series of incredible saves. To the horror of the crowd, as time whittleled away, they couldn't break him. When it reached crunch time, our coach Ralele Rasic made a huge call. Johnny Warren came off and a guy called Jimmy Rooney came on. It turned out to be quite a good day for the Union of Jimmies. On such a sweltering day, fresh legs were really needed and Rooney whammed down the clock with long dribbles. When the fulltime whistle went, Gellish Carney dropped to his knees in shock and quite literally wept. No one believed that a ragtag mix of workingclass Australians could beat the Asian champions. The migrant communities were overjoyed. And Prime Minister Whittam even said that soccer is one of the dividends of the migrants that we have welcomed to Australia over the years. But the Iran game didn't get us to the World Cup. It had only won us zone B, which meant that we still had to now beat the winner of zone A to get that sole spot. To our relief, Israel actually blew it in extra time and lost to South Korea. If we could beat Iran, we could beat Korea. If the Iran game taught us anything, it was that we really needed to bank in the home advantage. Once again, the first leg was in Sydney, but this time it was a disaster. A nil or score line meant that we were going to Soul with no advantage.

[00:14:35]And just like in the Iran game, Korea made use of their home crowd going up 2-0 within half an hour. We'd blown it.

[00:14:42]Or so it seemed. There's a cliche in football that 2-0 is the most dangerous score line. One of our strikers, Branco Boyvich, was a Croatian playing for a Yuguslav team in Melbourne. Not willing to take the L, he bustled to get on the end of a cross and scored a header to bring Australia back into the fight just minutes after conceding. And this guy right here is called Ray Barts. He played for a Jewish team in Sydney called Hakawa. He seized his opportunity. With the ball out of control on the box, Bart stepped in and smashed it into the goal to rescue the score line. The game finished to all which meant that over the two legs the deadlock hadn't been broken. So in a situation like that, what do you do?

[00:15:20]Well, how crazy is this? An emergency game was scheduled in Hong Kong just 3 days later. And honestly, Australia scored one of our greatest ever goals.

[00:15:29]With such tired legs, neither side could break the deadlock. And with 20 minutes to go, it looked like a fourth game was needed. But look at this. A Brexit ball goes into the box. It gets headed out and is met with a lovely touch. And then Jimmy Mai goes bang and that was game over. Australia had qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever. Like honestly, I'm not even joking when I say this. November the 13th could be a really good Australia day. And it was so fitting that we did this when Whittam was prime minister. He was the first prime minister to go watch the soccer ruse. He consulted with the coach on how to use sport to integrate more migrants into mainstream Australian culture. And he used government money to fund an under23's tour of Indonesia. Our next stop was West Germany.

[00:16:11]>> Australia begin their group of death as they face off against East Germany before a date with their Western neighbors next.

[00:16:18]>> So having ditched God Saved the Queen except for royal occasions, Advance Australia Fair was belted out to 25,000 people in Sydney. Whittam himself was in attendance and it was so fitting to have a uniquely Australian anthem to farewell our team to Germany. Now this was just meant to be a friendly match, but if you know ball, you know that Uruguay don't do friendlies. At the end of the first half, Ray Barts literally got karate chopped by a Uruguan defender. He was down for a little while and no one really thought anything of it, especially considering he not only played the second half, but scored and assisted in a two-nil win, but listen to him explain what happened afterwards.

[00:16:55]>> He sort of threw it out in a in a a karate type motion. It connected across my throat. It connected with my corateed artery and the artery swelled over a period of time. And as a result, um, I've virtually had a stroke and I'm advising you now not to play again.

[00:17:12]>> It was a devastating blow. Barts was a prolific striker and without him, we stood little chance at breaking down any of the big dogs. We had both East and West Germany as well as Chile. And while we defended well against Chile, we were so clearly missing Barts. We finished with two losses in a draw, but failed to score a single goal in our first ever World Cup. Uruguay had sabotaged our first ever World Cup and so it was personal. We'd have to wait 23 years to play them in a competitive game. But that opportunity came in 1997. In that time, Harry Kill had been born, grown up, and was now representing Australia in a tournament called the Confederation Cup. The winner of each continent faced off in what was really a practice run the year before the World Cup. In the semi-finals, the 19-year-old Harry Q rinsed his Uruguan defender and beat the keeper from outside the box to send Australia through to the final. The parallels to Barts were actually quite striking. They were both young, talented forwards poached by massive clubs in the north of England. Hulet had exercised the demons from 1974 and provided a catharsis that had been in store for longer than his existence. Except unfortunately, the story didn't end there. Brazil pumped us 6-nil in the final. Ronaldo and Remario both scored hat-ticks. We then choked against Iran and failed to qualify for the 1998 World Cup before facing off against Uruguay in 2001 to qualify for the 2002 World Cup.

[00:18:36]And again, it seemed as though we finally got revenge. You see, we had our very own master of the dark arts, a guy called Kevin Musket, and he wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine.

[00:18:46]Poetically, it was him who scored in front of a packed MCG to put Australia 1 nil up in the first leg. But this is where we really started to develop a bit of a victim complex. By the way, when I say we, I mean me, too. I'm not throwing any shade at the players that are obviously psychologically 10 times tougher than just me as a YouTuber. As a culture, we developed this ethos that we were either unlucky, robbed by the referee, or victims of really poor opponent behavior. In isolation, these were usually pretty fair criticisms. But together, they contributed to a narrative that always gave us an easy out. We lost because it wasn't fair. You see, as Australia disembarked the plane in Monte Vado, a lynch mob met them at the airport and angrily intimidated their bus. As a result, the soccerus were confined to their hotel rooms for the 3 days leading up to the match for their own safety. In fact, our captain, Paul Okon, worded it really well. They tried to make us really feel uncomfortable, put us off our game. They succeeded. Australia looked a shell of themselves as they blew their onegoal advantage to lose 3-0 on the day. But the thing was that this was a really talented crop of players. Two years later, when the pressure was off in a friendly, they absolutely cooked England's so-called golden generation 3-1. I know, I know the wind merchants will say that England played a different team each half of the game, but what they don't say was that the A team lost their half 2-0 and it was actually one all for the bees. I actually had that game on VHS when I was about 1 year into migrating from England. It's very torn.

[00:20:11]So, in 2005, Australia had another opportunity to beat Uruguay for a spot in the next World Cup. This time, we brought in an international specialist, Goose Hitting. He had just taken South Korea all the way to the semi-finals in 2002, which made them the first Asian team to get anywhere near that far. Now again, just to address the wind merchants, I concede the fact that Spain were absolutely robbed against South Korea, but Italy were not. Both Tootty and Vieieri were very lucky to even be on the field well before Totty's controversial red card. So, it was very exciting to have been able to lure in Goose. This time, we went to Uruguay first. And after the Uruguayan government formally apologized for what happened last time, there was a little bit less of a rockus. To be honest, the Socceroos were actually hard done by as Uruguay scored from a free kick that probably shouldn't have been given. But rather than collapsing, this time they kept it together. So, how's this for another poetic link? In 1974, we beat Uruguay and Sydney before heading to Germany to play in the World Cup. 4 days after the 1- nil defeat, we played against Uruguay in Sydney for a spot at the World Cup in Germany in 2006. This time the soccerus not only leveled the score but held their nerve in the ultimate test of composure. They beat Uruguay in a penalty shootout and made the World Cup. But this was huge for our collective psyche. This time the soccerers hadn't let victimhood define their campaign and they booked their spot in Germany. That meant that when Australia went 1 nil down to Japan due to a goal that probably should have been called back for a foul, they didn't panic. At the back end of the game, Australia blasted three goals to win our first ever World Cup game. But unfortunately, we left the tournament with a strong sense of victimhood. In that tense game against Croatia, we actually benefited from a refereeing mistake. Harry was offside for his decisive goal, but thankfully for us, it got missed. Look, there was some shocking calls that went both ways that night, including a Croatian player actually getting three yellow cards, but I do think that Australia got the rub of the grain, and that's something that the public has forgotten about. That meant that we got to advance to the second round against the eventual champions, Italy. In fact, things were going so well that with a minute to go, we not only were still level with them, but they also had a player red carded.

[00:22:17]Again, that was lucky for us. He definitely shouldn't have been.

[00:22:19]Although, he did elbow Tim Cahill before, so maybe cosmically it did work out in the end. But in the dying embers of the game, this happened. Italy scored the penalty and we were knocked out. And in my lifetime at least, I think this is probably remembered after sandpaper gate as the second greatest outrage in Australian sport. Grao left a trailing leg and simulated a foul in order to buy a penalty. True, it was a harsh penalty, but every football team would have an example of a far more egregious penalty call than this. What people didn't talk about was why on earth Lucas Neil decided to slide in when Grosser had no angle and his defensive partner Craig Moore had the pass covered. If Lucas Neil keeps his head there, there's no opportunity to begin with. But it was simply much more palatable to focus on what was outside of our control rather than what was inside of it. And this pattern played out in our next three World Cups. In 2010, harsh red cards to Tim Cahill and Harry Ku held us back in our first two games. So that when we beat Serbia in the third game, it was just unfortunately too little too late.

[00:23:16]Oh, and by the way, the ref actually bailed us out against Serbia in that game as well. I have to make sure that I hit neutrality on my Yugoslav quotas. In 2014, we had the group of death, including the two previous finalists and the team that would go on to win the next two copper Americas, which are the South American Championships. So that one wasn't our fault either, which of course is a fair criticism in isolation.

[00:23:35]And in fact, the low expectations actually liberated the team to really scare the Netherlands. In 2018, France got a controversial penalty against us, which meant that we lost against them rather than drew against them. This meant that we had to go all out attack against Peru on the last game, and as a result, we got done. Now, the outrage on this one didn't reach 2006 levels, but once again, it contributed to the narrative that Australia was always drawing the short straw. But I believe the 2022 World Cup truly purged this ethos from our system. In game one, we got pumped by France. In game two, we beat Tunisia, our first win since 2010.

[00:24:08]And given that Denmark had only drawn with Tunisia, and given that Chunicia were playing France in the final game, a draw was basically guaranteed to get us to go through. Except once again, Australia drew the short straw. With a qualification to the next round already secured, France rested their stars and the B team didn't exactly want to risk an injury on a dead rubber. So that the result of one game doesn't change the psychology of another. On the final day, both games play at the exact same time.

[00:24:33]You see, in 1982, West Germany and Austria played after Algeria, and they realized that if Germany won the game 1 nil, then both teams got to go through and Algeria would be eliminated. So in 2022, it was tense. At Halime, the score was nil all in both games. I mean this with the greatest of respect to Chisia, but if France played their A team in that game, Chisia is not winning. And so in the second half, the unthinkable happened. Tunisia took the lead. That meant that as it stood, they not only leaprogged Denmark, but they also leaprog Australia. Both of these teams now had to go for the win. In 1974, it was losing Ray Bars. In 1997, it was the streaker in the Iran game. In 2001, it was the Uruguayan crowd. In 2006, it was Groso diving. In 2010, it was harsh red cards. In 2014, it was drawing a bad group. In 2018, it was Griezmann diving.

[00:25:22]And in 2022, we had our excuse. France had waved the white flag against our opponents. Except that didn't have to be our destiny. Right on the hour, Matthew Leki broke through. He had absolutely no help and two defenders chasing after him. Denmark had it covered. Australia had blown dozens of chances like this in big games. However, Leki decided that it was time for a new narrative. He turned Yima inside out and shot right through his legs. If you don't watch soccer, this is a deliberate shot. the keeper can't see the ball and so has a much slower reaction time. So using athleticism, determination, and sheer intelligence, Ley decided that this was a new chapter in Australian history.

[00:26:10]And this World Cup is the continuation of that chapter. In our group, we have the USA, Paraguay, and Turkey. This is a group laden with history. In Paraguay, we tried to create a socialist colony called New Australia in 1892, of which 2,000 Aussie descendants are still alive in Paraguay today. With Turkey, well, that's on us. And with America, they stole Australian valor in World War II.

[00:26:32]After Aussie soldiers repelled the Japanese along the Kakakota track, General Douglas MacArthur ordered in Yanks to finish off the job to try and frame it as a US victory. Except they weren't properly trained for the jungle.

[00:26:43]And embarrassingly, MacArthur had to go back to the Aussies. America has never given Australia the credit that it deserves and that's how they're preparing for this World Cup. I >> I think we're a better footballing team than than a Australia. I think we're stronger than them. That doesn't worry me.

[00:27:00]>> The 20th of June. Marketing your calendars. Get down to your local and get behind this team that has already been written off because we're no longer victims. Now, I did say that Sandpaper Gate was an even bigger controversy than Grao's dive and I have a very unpopular take. I think that Australian cricket fans are to blame, including me. It is easily one of my most polarizing videos.