Opinion: BOTN's Chris Dunkerley looks in the archives for April, 2005 ..

Stand to Reason - Ian Penderleith's look at BOTN B.A. (Before A-League)

As you will know if you've been around Australian football for the past 12 years, or peeked at our About Us link at the bottom of the front page, BOTN existed before the Hyundai A-League, in fact in the 'dark ages' of the demise of and after the NSL! In April, 2005 legendary UK football magazine "When Saturday Comes", did a short article on us.

"Stands to Reason - The resilience of Australian fans ..... catch Ian Plenderleith's attention this month.

Enter the poetic world of the Wollongong Wolves, the Blacktown Demons, and (my favourite) Manly United at Back of the Net!, a site devoted to Australian football. The above teams all play in the New South Wales Premier League (current leaders: the Bonnyrigg White Eagles) and this is the web location to find out how Manly's Orhan Dincer recently scored past "a grasping Matthew Trott". You feel the description of the goal must sound better that it actually looked.

The Australiangame is in flux, with the National Soccer League having collapsed, but it will be replaced later this year by the eight-team Hyundai A-League in a curtailed season.

'Football in Australia is like dandelions - no matter how hard and how determined the effort to get rid of it", says the site's fluent resident columnist, The Eternal Optimist, 'it never goes away. At most it shifts its base of operations'.

Other BOTN writers share the gritty cheerfulness that the new league, with a Fox TV deal, can finally rescue Oz football from the doldrums.

It was instructive to read that the country's women are known as the Qantas Matildas, a name that manages to combine a corporate sell-out and both national and sexual stereotypes in a two-word moniker.

Again, though it does sound more phonetically pleasant than the Australian women's national team".

Dredged up by Editor, Chris Dunkerley Sydney, 14 December, 2011