The A-League is in Cairns this weekend. Saturday evening’s match between Brisbane Roar and Wellington Phoenix will be the first since the national league began in 1977. To get a proper picture of football in this region you need to know about John Bomben, the 75-year-old godfather of football in Far North Queensland.

The A-League arrives in Cairns while local football is at a critical juncture. The National Premier Leagues side, Far North Queensland Heat, has been playing in the Queensland NPL since 2012, and its licence expires in two years. The NPL was established as an elite level, nationwide “second-tier” of football designed to raise the standards of players and coaches and funnel the best talent from community football to the A-League.

In this context FNQ Heat is supposed to be the representative of a strong, proud and diverse football region. Instead, it has been a dividing force. Many of the best players, coaches and administrators remain at the established clubs. Some people simply hate FNQ Heat, others believe the delivery has been bungled, but speak to almost anyone in the area about Heat and you’ll get a bleak picture. Bomben, who for 17 years straight was zone president of the region, supports the concept but believes it doesn’t currently fit the needs of the area. “An idea is just an idea,” he says, “but you have to prove to me that it works.”

Watching a game with a beer, a plate of Lyn Bomben’s pasta and a view of the Great Dividing Range is football paradise

To fully appreciate Bomben, you need to know Leichhardt Football Club. Bomben arrived as a 19-year-old in 1961 from Pordenone in Italy, first to cut cane and then to establish a career as a builder. He has built hundreds of homes, but the most important is Leichhardt FC. Known originally as the Azzuri but now as the mighty Lions, Leichhardt entered the local competition in 1975. Over four decades Bomben has held every position possible: president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer. His wife Lyn has been by his side every step of the way. Bomben personally put the deposit down to buy land for a home ground, and he provided much of the material and the labour for the construction of the clubhouse.

When Bomben talks about himself, or the things he’s does, he often says “typical wog”, or “typical Italian” with a smile and a shake of the head. Leichhardt, like many of Australia’s most important football clubs, is built in the image of its local immigrant community. Italians mostly — cane-cutters and construction workers — but also Yugoslavs, Scots and English. When Bomben first became president in 1978, he changed the constitution to allow non-Italians to hold leadership positions. Initially, he says he lost about 75% of the membership, but the Italian soul is still here and the names on the committees since 1976 are illustrative of the gradual progression: Sinopoli, Baldizzone, De Vecchi, Annibale and Margiotta, but also Zivanic, Bloomfield and Patten.

“I got a mother, I got a father, I got a thousand years of culture,” says Bomben. “You want me to assimilate? No. Integration.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Bomben in the clubhouse of Leichhardt Football Club. Photograph: Joe Gormam/The Guardian

If you drive to Leichhardt’s home ground from the centre of town, the first thing you see is a faded red wall with LEICHHARDT SPORT AND SOCIAL CLUB printed in big letters. Above the word “Leichhardt” are interlocking Italian and Australian flags, below are the words ITALIAN CENTRE. To get into the clubhouse or the pitch, first you enter through concrete walls painted with the majestic red lion of the club logo. Then, after you pay your entry fee at the ticket booth, you must pass a significant slab of rock with a small plaque at its base. Written in Italian is a tribute to those who have died in war.

“All wars, in all countries, right or wrong,” explains Bomben. It’s one of three plaques inside the ground — the other two are at the far end, dedicated to Bomben’s old mate Anton ‘Tom” Booy, a Dutchman who died in 2013, and Anthony Caccioppoli, a Leichhardt player who passed away too young in 1999. To get to these plaques you need to pass an outdoor brick pizza oven, three-tiered covered concrete terraces, and the most charming small clubhouse you’re likely to find anywhere in Australia. “It’s pulsating,” says Bomben as he slaps his hand against the wall. “It’s all owned by the club, there’s no leases, you understand? We own our future.”

Butting right up against the sideline, Bomben’s clubhouse is one main function room above, one below, a kitchen, a couple of bars, six dressing rooms, a large concrete deck and a little outdoor area that tucks in underneath the main function room. Here’s where the unmistakably Italian character lies. Walk down the staircase, past the maps of Sicily and Podenone, you arrive at black and red floor tiles which support a long wooden bench. From the ornate stools that line the bench, the view is perfect. Watching a game from this spot with a beer, a plate of Lyn Bomben’s pasta and with a view of the Great Dividing Range — a stretch of mountains that separate Cairns from inland Queensland — is football paradise.

Several high profile people have come to this conclusion, and stayed. Karl Stefanovic and his brothers played football for Leichhardt. Milan Jankovic, a former Real Madrid player and Yugoslavian international, played and coached juniors at Leichhardt in relative anonymity for years. Jimmy Eszes, a former Hungarian youth international, escaped from communist Hungary, settled in Cairns in the early 1980s and never left, although Bomben tried to get him contracts with professional clubs down south. “I wanted him to play for Australia,” says Bomben, “but he said, ‘no, I’m happy to stay here’.”

Inside the function room at ground level is a collection of old jerseys and photos, many of which feature Eszes. There’s a faded picture of current Sydney FC assistant coach Steve Corica when he played youth grade for Leichhardt in 1988. The sisters of current Joeys star Nicholas Panetta and Brisbane Roar midfielder Adam Sarota are both there in the women’s sides, as is an old photo of a women’s team sponsored by “Caravella Unisex Salon” — the family of former A-League player Zenon. Also on the walls are a collection of jerseys since the 1970s, some the old blue strip and others the red and black which the club adopted after Bomben bought a bunch of AC Milan jerseys. One of the older blue jerseys commemorates Leichhardt’s 1980 North Queensland championship. The stencil of the player on the front, of course, is Bomben.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bomben’s likeness features on a Leichhardt jersey hung on the wall in the clubhouse. Photograph: Joe Gormam/The Guardian

The production line of talent from Far North Queensland is immense: Ben Halloran, Tahj Minniecon, Shane Stefanutto, Michael Thwaite, Adam Sarota, Frank Farina, Corica, Caravella, Scott Higgins and Wayne Srhoj, just to name a few.

Caoimhin ‘Quivi’ Fowler, a 16-year old Leichhardt junior, recently signed with Vitesse Arnhem in the Netherlands. Leichhardt is immensely proud of “Quivi”, but here’s the back story: at 14, when he went to trial at FNQ Heat, he was told he’d never make it. According to Leichhardt football manager Mario De Vecchi, Fowler was dismissed as a ball-hog. Not good enough, apparently, for FNQ Heat, but good enough to be tracked by Liverpool, Feyenoord, Borussia Dortmund and Vitesse.

Fowler’s trajectory is similar to a young Tim Cahill. Cahill has a Samoan mother and an English father of Irish descent, and for the most part developed as a footballer in England. Cahill was courted by Ireland and represented Samoa as a 14 year-old. Fowler, with an Irish father and a mother from Papua New Guinea, has similarly bypassed the system and has already been selected for the Republic of Ireland Under-17 side.

For a club that depends on gate takings, local sponsorship and hot chips for revenue, Fowler’s transfer fee was an unbelievable windfall. Every cent Leichhardt earned, however, has gone back to Fowler’s mother and father, who now live in the Netherlands with Fowler’s four siblings.

“Usually the best kids are not the rich kids,” explains Bomben. “If you consider the club as a family, with a father and a mother, we had all these kids playing for us. The club will still survive, but you channel that money correctly so that whoever has got the potential can further develop.”

When Bomben says “family club” it’s a literal description, not a metaphor. There are two more kids that Fowler grew up with that are expected to go to the next level. Jarryn Fittock, the son of head coach Stacey, and Cody Eszes, the son of Jimmy who escaped from Hungary to Cairns all those years ago. The question for Leichhardt is whether these boys are best served by going to FNQ Heat, or staying in community football and trying to land a contract elsewhere.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An archive photo at Leichhardt Football Club players. Photograph: Leichhardt Football Club

De Vecchi was a long-time team-mate of Jimmy and Stacey at both Leichhardt and representative level, and talks of Cody and Jarryn as if they are his own kids. De Vecchi served his apprenticeship with Bomben, both as a carpenter and as a football administrator. Between 1997 and 2001, he was vice-president underneath Bomben, and within a few years he became president. De Vecchi’s presidency coincided with the transition of the old community representative model to the current Centre of Excellence programs which became the NPL. Like Bomben, he supported the idea of an NPL team that represented the Far North, indeed he was briefly on the board of directors but resigned after not being able to reform the way the franchise operates.

“I played rep all my life, from juniors to seniors,” he says. “But my mates all said the development coaches [at Heat] are a bunch of duds. This created an unprofessional environment in a supposedly professional environment. The kids did go, but the children of my peers who played at a high level, who were coaching their own kids at clubs, they didn’t even get invited to be NPL coaches. So they’d send their kids, who’d complain they were getting much worse coaching than at their clubs. There was all this drama — why should we go to professional academies when they’re so poorly delivered? I’m the president saying ‘we gotta do this’, and they’re saying, ‘Muzz, are you for real?’”

Col Junna, former National Soccer League player and brother of highly regarded AIS coach Ray, echoes this view. A single parent, Junna says although his three kids are good enough for NPL level, he can’t afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to send his kids to FNQ Heat. And even if he could, he wouldn’t, as he believes they can get better coaching elsewhere.

Zenon Caravella moved back to Cairns in 2014 after his A-League career finished, and has since opened a private football academy. Next season he will be the FNQ Heat assistant coach, but even he admits there is now a “huge disconnect” between the Heat and the community. The issues he has noticed have to do with cost, integration with the community, and trust. “You have to have the Heat as a pathway,” he says, “But there’s a lot of problems being a regional area. Whatever model Football Queensland use, it’s state-wide and doesn’t allow flexibility.”



Flexibility, or the lack of it, has been a major issue. Initially FNQ Heat played community football against the established clubs, as well as elite NPL competition around the state. This meant that the local Under-16 sides, for example, would have former team-mates lining up against them for Heat. In self-interested, nouveau riche metropolitan centres this wouldn’t be a huge issue, but in small, tight-knit areas like Cairns, it’s a powder keg. De Vecchi, who describes Leichhardt as “my club, my blood, my heritage” says this “has divided the community at an absolutely disgraceful level”. Before last season, the Heat were effectively voted out of the local competitions by the clubs, but the animosity remains. Moreover, now the FNQ Heat juniors don’t play enough games because they are not involved in local football. The impasse is unhelpful to both the Heat and community clubs.

At best, there is a virtuous cycle in regional football. The grandfathers and grandmothers set up the clubs, their sons go through the juniors and win a local or regional title. A few foreign players might join them along the way and become part of the family. A precociously talented local — a Frank Farina or a Zenon Caravella — will jump up to a different level, and become a vessel for that region’s hopes and dreams. But back at the clubs, those who didn’t make it settle down, establish businesses, and become coaches or administrators. Their kids want for nothing. How can FNQ Heat, or any regional NPL club, provide a finishing school for these kids without breaking that cycle?

In 2014, with Caravella, Alex Smith and Jamie Gosling in the midfield and Leichhardt great Martin Docherty as coach, Heat made the Queensland NPL finals, went to the FFA Cup and momentarily galvanised the community. It didn’t fix the underlying issues, of course, but it provided a brief glimpse of what the Heat could be. Recapturing some of that spirit would be a start.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tamas Maffey-Stumpe of the Heat brings the ball under control during the FFA Cup match against Sydney United 58 FC in August, 2014. Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

As Bomben showed me his awards for community service, multiculturalism and football, on more than one occasion he said: “If you don’t respect your own culture, you fucken got nothing.” This applies to the current situation in Far North football. Bomben, De Vecchi and Leichhardt Football Club are not trying to be difficult. They want FNQ Heat to succeed, but as a partner not as a coloniser. Their concerns are not unique to Cairns, indeed the situation is a microcosm of a fundamental question that faces Australian football — how does an elite-level franchise with no history and no culture faithfully represent a region with deeply embedded traditions, rivalries and characters?

In Cairns this question will need to be answered sooner rather than later, not for Bomben but for the generations of players that will come after he passes on. Bomben has done his bit for football up north. The John Bomben Cup, which has been running for 28 years, is a local institution. Every September people speak of “playing in the Bomben” as Farina, Caravella and many others from all over Queensland and Papua New Guinea have done.

The A-League will come and go, and Bomben will do as he has always done: support community initiatives and try to get local kids to a higher level. On the notice board at the clubhouse that Bomben built, a Cairns Post feature article on “Quivi” Fowler has pride of place.

“I’m from the old school,” says Bomben. “The way I see things is very simple: I want to develop the players, not just soccer players but as persons. I want them to be proud to come from Cairns. Doesn’t matter where they go in the world — is the only way they will make it in life, if they remember the roots.

“We family minded people, we don’t like bullshit, we like to be straight. We do the best we possibly can with our means. If I can do something and it will not dislodge my life, I will do anything to send them to the next level. I believe that this kid has got potential. He will be a star.”