Soccer cements its rise from minority sport to take centre stage as Australia hosts Asian Cup
Football was once sneered at in a country dominated by rugby, cricket and Australian rules, but hosting the Asian Cup cements its popularity
Football was once sneered at in Australia as a game played mainly by immigrants but it will cement its rise from a minority sport to an established pastime when the Asian Cup starts on Friday.
In times past, lovers of football could find themselves insulted and attacked in a country where the rugby codes, Australian rules and cricket dominate the sporting landscape.
When I was at primary school in the 1970s, kids like myself - who decided to kick a soccer ball around their streets and in the schoolyard - were ridiculed, mocked and beaten up
But international successes and a vastly improved domestic scene have been behind football's steady ascent in Australia, capped with the 16-nation Asian Cup set to kick off.
Football is now more readily associated with the standout moments like Tim Cahill's sublime strike at last year's World Cup, or Western Sydney Wanderers winning the AFC Champions League last year.
Traditional attitudes to football are summed up by the title of ex-player and broadcaster Johnny Warren's 2002 book,
"Wogs" is a racial insult applied to immigrants, mainly from southern European countries like Greece, who arrived in waves after the second world war.
"Sheilas, wogs" and "poofters" were considered the second-class citizens of the day and if you played soccer, you were considered one of them," explained Warren, who died in 2004. "That's how soccer was regarded back then and, to some extent, still is today."
