The theme of the March edition of PLAY ON is the Letter 'T'.
The first edition of PLAY ON for 2021, with the theme of the letter ‘T’, is now available.
When we came up with ‘T’ as the theme, we thought of Thierry Henry, Thomas Tuchel, Tim Howard, Toni Kroos, Teddy Sherringham; or Aussie players Tim Cahill, Alex Tobin, Max Tolson, Anissa Tan, Leanne Trimboli; and then there are clubs such as FC Tokyo, Tranmere Rovers, Taringa Rovers, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim or even a national team such as Thailand or Turkey.
Once again, our contributors do not fail to surprise in their choice of subject matter.
We do get to read about Tommy Taylor, one of the Busby Babes who perished in 1958 and didn’t get to be the ‘great’ he was on a trajectory to being. There is a chat with someone far closer to home in Archie Thompson. And it’s great to be hear from Gabriel ‘Chi Chi’ Mendez who is a trailblazer in Spain.
Our other subjects range from a wonderful lesson in the intersection of politics and football in Brazil in 1970 when they became Tricampeões – world champions for the third time – through to the terminology of football and an adjective laden look – beginning with t of course – at why we love football so much.
We close this edition with three tales of Australian football that help shape our contemporary game in very different ways: the role of #SokkahTwitter, the shape of things to come with TV rights, and a fabulous read on the multicultural tapestry of our game.
There is one more ‘t’ that helps shape our world at the moment – and that’s ‘tentative’. We’re fortunate in Australia to be coming out of the coronavirus pandemic as well as we are, albeit tentatively in many parts of the country.
But in football, we are also moving forward into 2021 tentatively.
Will we get through a season? Will there be more shutdowns? Will the Tokyo 2020 Olympics actually happen? What about Euro 2020? When will see the Matildas or the Socceroos play another game, friendly or in competition? Which football federations and clubs received a financial windfall from JobKeeper, and what will it mean once that stops this month? And what will happen once the A-League season is over in July?
The quality of the play this season has been overwhelmingly terrific (there’s a ‘t’ word again!), but off-field measures have so far been underwhelming to put it kindly.
By the time the next edition of PLAY ON is published in June, let’s hope that the answer to some of these questions are clearer.
In the meantime, enjoy the read and enjoy your football.
You can purchase PLAY ON as a downloadable PDF or via ISSUU for $5.99 by following the link from here. For readers who use the code MARCHMADNESS you'll receive a 20% discount.