ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the background for on-going academic assessments of the situation by bringing together three major and interrelated themes of Australia history – migration, sport and violence. The low position of the European migrants on the Australian socioeconomic scale and their lack of power in politics and at work must have resulted in massive frustration, both individually and collectively. Soccer gave them a chance to compete against Australians on equal terms and anything which threatened discrimination against them on the field would be regarded as intolerable. The major site of soccer violence in Australia is not in fact at the elite level but much lower down the player scale. There are major problems associated with the attempt to de-ethnicize soccer. The resistance by the clubs themselves or more especially by their fans: crowds at Hindmarsh Stadium do not cheer for the West Adelaide Hellas Sharks but for Hellas.
