The retirement of John Hutchinson this year concludes the football career of one of the last links to the NSL era and a true product of Gippsland football.
On 31 March 2001, Eastern Pride – formerly known as Morwell Falcons and then Gippsland – played a home game in the National Soccer League which would be the last with their first team. The game was a 2-1 win over Parramatta Power, watched by a meagre 763 spectators. A crippling financial situation meant that the Gippsland club could no longer afford to play its first team, and the next game played with their youth would be a 7-1 defeat at Canberra Cosmos- a club who also got the axe at season’s end, joining both Eastern Pride and Carlton SC on the scrapheap. Brisbane Strikers were also due to be cut (with some absurd reasoning given), but were given a reprieve.
In 2001, with the Internet already established as a standard medium of communication for football supporters, it became clear to all and sundry that the NSL could not continue in its present form. A shoddy league structure, lack of mass mainstream support, increasing penetration of overseas football (to be fair, that has always been the case here) and the continuous player drain all were part of this sorry state of affairs. In 2001, it was clear to the football community that a complete overhaul of the game in Australia would be needed. Yet this did not prevent quality players coming through, although a generation suffered from the death of the NSL and transition to the A-League, a transition that took some years to fully effect.
Gippsland has traditionally been one of the strongest football regions of Victoria outside of Melbourne. The club was responsible for launching the top-level careers of players such as Archie Thompson, Eugene Galekovic, Hutchinson and Naum Sekulovski – all of whom went on to play in the A-League. In fact, the latter three were in the team on March 31, 2001 when Eastern Pride played and won their last home game. There were other players of note for both teams on that day. Parramatta Power had Alex Tobin, Liam Reddy (on as a sub), Andrew Clark, Ahmad Elrich and former Celtic and Aberdeen player Joe Miller. Eastern Pride also had such players as Mike Conroy, who had a long career in Scotland and lower league English football, and Robbie Puca. Puca would return to his home state when Eastern Pride folded and play for Perth SC, becoming a stalwart in state league football for the next decade.
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The demise of Eastern Pride that followed was described as a travesty and tragedy. That it undoubtedly was. However, it was also along with the demise of Carlton SC and Canberra Cosmos during the course of the season a significant contributor to effectively sealing the fate of the National Soccer League. Parramatta Power themselves epitomised the many problems of the period. Today, not a few football nostalgics look back on the NSL with a certain fondness. There was much to be fond of – some very good teams and players had come out of there and some of that legacy flowed into the A-League, a legacy that will never die. Many of the clubs that once made up the NSL still exist beneath A-League level, where they play a vital role in the Australian football ecosystem. The league and clubs did have redeeming virtues, whose lessons remain invaluable for the future of the A-League, especially in the field of player development.
But a brutal truth was inescapable, namely, that most of the clubs had failed to evolve with the times and changing needs of the football community and support base in Australia, especially in an era where overseas club football had penetrated even deeper into the local conscience. When Adelaide City dropped out of the NSL two years later, Adelaide United were formed to take its place in the final season of the competition as a precursor to what was to come next. And football in Australia, thus, owes a certain debt of gratitude to them and Perth Glory, who pointed to what was possible in those uncertain times.
The A-League of 2015, which has two viable clubs in Sydney and Melbourne along with those in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, is the ultimate fruit of the process. The FFA Cup, on the other hand, provides the opportunity to build bridges between old and new.
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