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Wealth and acclaim are assured for the Socceroos competing in next month's World Cup, but the stars of 1974 lived in a different world. Mike Safe and Larry Writer report.
When Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka and Australia's other leading lights complete their upcoming World Cup duties, they will return to their English mansions, lavish lifestyles and multi--million-dollar salaries, regardless of their performance. The irony is not lost on Atti - full name Attila - Abonyi, a gifted striker who played in three World Cup campaigns and was part of the only other Australian team to make the Cup finals - the 1974 Socceroos. His incentive in the 1970 campaign? "They told us that if we made it we could keep our tracksuits," says 59-year-old Abonyi, who these days runs a laundry service in Coffs Harbour. "I remember talking to Johnny Warren about it before his death. We had a laugh and it sounds funny, but that's what it was like."
For members of the glorious 1974 team, it pays to have a sense a humour, especially when reflecting on the rewards of soccer then and now. When the Socceroos begin their World Cup campaign in two weeks, those who blazed the trail will watch with a curious mix of joy, envy and regret.
Among them will be Ernie Campbell, then a Socceroos striker, now a 56-year-old Sydney sales rep who admits he probably should have made more of life after the World Cup. "What I regret is that I didn't go back [to Europe]. But the world was a bigger place and there weren't the agents back then and I would have had to go by myself."
Could have. Should have. It's a recurring theme among the'74 Socceroos as the World Cup draws nearer. In recent months, The Weekend Australian Magazine has tracked down all but three of them - skipper Peter Wilson remains a recluse and two are now dead - to talk about their 15 minutes of fame. How had the'74 World Cup affected them? Had they been able to parlay it into ongoing success? The answer is almost unanimously "no", but there's little evidence of bitterness. Regrets? That's a different matter.
Campbell believes many of his team-mates could have made it...