It was 11 years ago on a sultry June afternoon, just after a late Tim Cahill double had conjured up Australia's first ever World Cup victory from nowhere. In the bowels of Kaiserslautern's Fritz Walter Stadion, the visiting media contingent was infrenzied overdrive.
Scurrying toward the press conference room, where Cahill and Guus Hiddink were about to talk about the Socceroos' 3-1 win against Japan, I bumped into Led Murray, who'd just come off the air after hosting the Germany 2006 game for SBS in Australia.
Like me, Les was almost too stunned to speak, beyond the usual pleasantries, as we walked along the corridor with his co host Craig Foster. But we exchanged smiles and a knowing look about what that moment might mean for soccer in our country.
Twenty years earlier, we had been SBS colleagues at a time when soccer, as it was known then, was struggling in Australia. Years of poor administration had taken their tool, and the sport suffered in comparison with the established likes of Rugby League, Rugby Union and Australian Rules.
Lies, who was honored with a state funeral in Sydney on Monday after his death at the age of 71, started at SBS as a subtitler for Hungarian language programming. As well as his beloved soccer shows like On The Ball and The World Game, Les hosted Sport Report, a national program that I produced.
My strongest memory of Les from that period was the many hours he'd spend at the SBS offices in Sydney with his great friend Johnny Warren. Johnny was a former Socceroos' captain and member of the 1974 World Cup side that was our network's main pundit. Like Led, he held the dream that the Socceroos would again qualify for a World Cup to help football take its rightful place as a respected and mainstream sport in Australia.
Raucous laughter would come from Les' smoke filled office, as he Johnny would engage in impassioned discussions about the great Brazil teams of the 1960s and 1970s. And, of course, they would also pay tribute to the amazing Hungarians of the 1950s, led by Lies' hero, Ferenc Puskas, who played eight years with Real Madrid.
Sadly, Johnny never got to see the Socceroos qualify for another World Cup, dying of respiratory complications related to lung cancer in November 2004. But, like Less, he was awarded a full state funeral, and his optimistic slogan of "I told you so" became a mantra for the Socceroos as they aimed to prove their countless homegrown critics wrong.
Les and I were never close friends but we crossed paths professionally for more than three decades, and always enjoyed reconnecting.
In recent years, we caught up in Malaysia at the Borneo Cup, a junior soccer tournament organized by Sabah based former Socceroo Scott Ollerenshaw. It was there that Les shared with me his incredible story of being a refugee, sneaking across the Hungarian border on a wintry night, before ending up in an Australian migrant camp.
His family would move to Wollongong, south of Sydney, before Lies' 12th birthday. It was a working city known more for its love of the Rugby League than soccer, but Les would brazenly stand up for the beautiful game as his father earned a living at the local steelworks.
Les' real name was Laszlo Urge - he changed it when he took his first steps as a part time broadcaster at the Ten Network in the late 1970s - and I would still call him Laszlo when we met, including the 2010 World Cup draw in Cape Town, where Australia found themselves grouped with Germany, Ghana and Serbia.
The last time we caught up was at an A League game a couple of years ago, when Les invited me and my best friend from the Unites States to watch Sydney FC against Adelaide United from the comfort of the SBS corporate box.
He was waiting for me in the corridors of the Allianz Stadium with two passes in his hand, and with a smile. We watched the game in the company of his long time co host Foster, and others, with delicious Australian seafood and wines.
It was the first ever Australian soccer game for my American friend, and Les took extra care to make sure that he enjoyed the experience.
No matter whom he dealt with, Les always had that sense of mission when it came to soccer. He stuck with the through its many ups and downs, including the agony of seven failed World Cup campaigns before the miracle of the Uruguay penalty shootout victory in 2005.
Jason Dasey is Singapore based Senior Editor of global soccer website ESPN FC.
Twitter: @JasonDasey
Scurrying toward the press conference room, where Cahill and Guus Hiddink were about to talk about the Socceroos' 3-1 win against Japan, I bumped into Led Murray, who'd just come off the air after hosting the Germany 2006 game for SBS in Australia.
Like me, Les was almost too stunned to speak, beyond the usual pleasantries, as we walked along the corridor with his co host Craig Foster. But we exchanged smiles and a knowing look about what that moment might mean for soccer in our country.
Twenty years earlier, we had been SBS colleagues at a time when soccer, as it was known then, was struggling in Australia. Years of poor administration had taken their tool, and the sport suffered in comparison with the established likes of Rugby League, Rugby Union and Australian Rules.
Lies, who was honored with a state funeral in Sydney on Monday after his death at the age of 71, started at SBS as a subtitler for Hungarian language programming. As well as his beloved soccer shows like On The Ball and The World Game, Les hosted Sport Report, a national program that I produced.
My strongest memory of Les from that period was the many hours he'd spend at the SBS offices in Sydney with his great friend Johnny Warren. Johnny was a former Socceroos' captain and member of the 1974 World Cup side that was our network's main pundit. Like Led, he held the dream that the Socceroos would again qualify for a World Cup to help football take its rightful place as a respected and mainstream sport in Australia.
Raucous laughter would come from Les' smoke filled office, as he Johnny would engage in impassioned discussions about the great Brazil teams of the 1960s and 1970s. And, of course, they would also pay tribute to the amazing Hungarians of the 1950s, led by Lies' hero, Ferenc Puskas, who played eight years with Real Madrid.
Sadly, Johnny never got to see the Socceroos qualify for another World Cup, dying of respiratory complications related to lung cancer in November 2004. But, like Less, he was awarded a full state funeral, and his optimistic slogan of "I told you so" became a mantra for the Socceroos as they aimed to prove their countless homegrown critics wrong.
Les and I were never close friends but we crossed paths professionally for more than three decades, and always enjoyed reconnecting.
In recent years, we caught up in Malaysia at the Borneo Cup, a junior soccer tournament organized by Sabah based former Socceroo Scott Ollerenshaw. It was there that Les shared with me his incredible story of being a refugee, sneaking across the Hungarian border on a wintry night, before ending up in an Australian migrant camp.
His family would move to Wollongong, south of Sydney, before Lies' 12th birthday. It was a working city known more for its love of the Rugby League than soccer, but Les would brazenly stand up for the beautiful game as his father earned a living at the local steelworks.
Les' real name was Laszlo Urge - he changed it when he took his first steps as a part time broadcaster at the Ten Network in the late 1970s - and I would still call him Laszlo when we met, including the 2010 World Cup draw in Cape Town, where Australia found themselves grouped with Germany, Ghana and Serbia.
The last time we caught up was at an A League game a couple of years ago, when Les invited me and my best friend from the Unites States to watch Sydney FC against Adelaide United from the comfort of the SBS corporate box.
He was waiting for me in the corridors of the Allianz Stadium with two passes in his hand, and with a smile. We watched the game in the company of his long time co host Foster, and others, with delicious Australian seafood and wines.
It was the first ever Australian soccer game for my American friend, and Les took extra care to make sure that he enjoyed the experience.
No matter whom he dealt with, Les always had that sense of mission when it came to soccer. He stuck with the through its many ups and downs, including the agony of seven failed World Cup campaigns before the miracle of the Uruguay penalty shootout victory in 2005.
Jason Dasey is Singapore based Senior Editor of global soccer website ESPN FC.
Twitter: @JasonDasey
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar