'Everything a footballer shouldn't be': Remembering Portsmouth's controversial 1997 Australian experiment
Terry Venables oversaw Pompey’s recruitment of five players from Australia in 1997
Welcome to the South Coast Socceroos, a forward-thinking club assembling the brightest young talent from Down Under to flourish on the English stage.
Pompey have followed this progressive pathway previously, of course. Albeit approaching 20 years ago.
The A-League has become a rich recruitment resource for the Blues since July 2023, with Kusini Yengi, Alex Robertson and Sammy Silvera taking the tally of Australian arrivals to seven over the last two years.
However, it’s a policy which was initially rolled out in the summer of 1997, spearheaded by Pompey owner and the Socceroos’ manager Terry Venables.
Venables utilised his knowledge of the game Down Under to bring five Australians to Fratton Park - John Aloisi, Craig Foster, Hamilton Thorp, Robbie Enes and Paul Harries.
By the end of the 1997-98 season, only Aloisi remained, with Venables having also departed as chairman after defaulting ownership back to Martin Gregory.
Certainly Aloisi was an excellent signing, with 29 goals in 66 appearances overall, yet the remaining four hugely disappointed, of which three instantly returned home following their Pompey failures.
‘The other four were no better than what we had’
‘Now John Aloisi could play, he and Mathias Svensson seemed to hit it off, working well together,’ John Durnin told Played Up Pompey Too in 2020.
‘Nice lad too, who played on the shoulder, spinning off the defender, deceptively quick and, once he got going, was strong. The other four Aussies recruited by Venables were no better than what we had.
‘Craig Foster, I’ll give him his due, probably deserved to be on the team sheet, I wouldn't disagree with that, he could play. However, he thought he was better than he was.
‘If he knuckled down he probably could have stayed. I didn’t see eye-to-eye with him. Foster was a naturally-gifted midfielder who could play with either foot, there was just something about him, though, there was a bit of arrogance.
‘He’d try to take the mickey out of players in the dressing room, yet soon got put down - he realised he wasn’t going to win that battle with one or two of us. Foster didn’t mix with us, nobody entertained him, but the others socialised. He could play, though, I’ll give him that.
‘Of the others, Hamilton Thorp was a funny lad, I’ve got a lot of time for him, and he was the best out of the lot as a person, he wasn’t like them at all in regards to the way they acted. He definitely wanted to be on an Australian beach just enjoying himself!
‘He was a physical specimen, to be fair, but couldn’t trap a bag of cement. On the pitch he would see things late, his reaction times were poor, such as jumping too early. Thorp was everything that a footballer shouldn't be - and what you think he is going to be, he wasn’t. A good guy, though.
‘Then there was Robbie Enes, a nice lad who didn’t really get a chance, I don’t know why he was there. I don’t even know what his best position was, I think he was a midfielder. There were no airs or graces about him, he never had an attitude problem with us, he was all right, but featured just five times.
‘Enes wasn’t as good as those already at Fratton Park, he couldn’t lace Stuart Doling’s boots. Stuart was a good player, he could play, but was a quiet lad and you could see there was something festering in there.
‘The final member of the quartet was Paul Harries, who played 23 minutes for us! Do you know what, about five or six years after he left Pompey, I was watching an Australian Second Division match on TV and heard ‘Paul Harries gets the ball, oh he’s scored’. There can be only one Paul Harries and that was him - I was laughing my head off.
‘That’s the last I heard of him, but again he was nothing better than we already had.’
Scoring five minutes into his Portsmouth debut
Aloisi joined from Cremonese in a £300,000 deal in August 1997 and, six days later, netted five minutes into his Pompey debut.
Accepting a pass from strike partner Mathias Svensson, his left-footed shot opened the scoring against Manchester City in what would turn out to be a 2-2 Maine Road draw.
He would end the season as the Blues’ leading scorer with 12 goals in 40 outings as they finished 20th in Division One, just one point above the relegation zone.
Aloisi told Played Up Pompey Too: ‘I refuse to believe Terry Venables would have recruited any of us if he felt we couldn’t play or didn’t regard us as good enough to perform in Division One. It’s just sometimes it works out for a player, sometimes it doesn’t.
‘The other four had come directly from Australia, Pompey was their first taste of European football and it doesn't necessarily click overnight. It was a big difference compared to back home.
‘The first year you miss home’
‘I had already been in Europe for five years, previously with Standard Liege and Royal Antwerp before Cremonese, so could empathise with the others requiring time to adjust. The first year you miss home, but then get used to the lifestyle and the style of football, ensuring you can start showing what you are able to do.
‘At Pompey they were not allowed that settling-in period, it was virtually “You need to adapt straight away and start playing well right now”. Unfortunately they didn’t and when Venables left five months into the season that was it.
‘They hadn’t the runs on the board to show the new owner or new manager they were good enough to feature for that team. The four of them were good players, though, even if the Pompey fans really didn’t take to them.’
Foster had been signed from Sydney United for £300,000 and registered on his full debut for the Blues in a 3-2 defeat to West Brom in November 1997.
In January 1998, the midfielder scored twice to put Pompey 2-0 after 40 minutes in an FA Cup third-round clash with Aston Villa, only to draw 2-2 before losing the replay.
Harries was a winger who featured once, central midfielder Enes totalled five matches, while Hamilton Thorp, a powerful striker, scored once in nine appearances.
Aloisi added: ‘’Craig Foster was a regular starter for the national team and a really good player, technically superb. He ended up also playing for Venables at Crystal Palace. I liked him as a player, especially being a striker, he was one of those midfielders who looked for you and picked you out.
‘The others were young, promising players and the reasoning behind Venables bringing them over was not to be starting XI players straight away, it was for them to push on and develop over a year or two.
‘England probably wasn’t the best place for Robbie to make it’
‘Hamilton Thorp had the qualities to be a very good striker. He was big, could hold up the ball well and had a great touch for somebody of his size, yet was youngish in terms of his football experience.
‘In the end the pressure of not scoring got to him and it didn’t work out for a player I believe had really good ability for a forward.
‘Another was Robbie Enes, a technically very good midfielder and probably ahead of his time in the position he excelled at. Nowadays a lot of teams operate with that defensive midfielder they play through, like Sergio Busquets at Barcelona, but during that era nobody did, so England probably wasn’t the best place for Robbie to make it.
‘Finally there was Paul Harries, although I didn’t really know too much about him. He was really young and I was unfamiliar with his background. All I knew is what I saw from him in training and, while he had pace, I didn’t see enough of him to be able to comment on what kind of footballer he was.’
Alan Ball, who had replaced Terry Fenwick as manager midway through that season in January 1998, cancelled the contracts of Foster, Thorp, Harries and Enes in the summer of 1998 - after just one season.
As for Aloisi, he was sold to Coventry for a criminally cut-price £690,000 in December 1998, with cash-strapped Pompey battling to avoid administration. At the time, the striker was much in demand, with 17 goals in 26 matches.
And, 18 months after the 1997 Australian experiment was launched, it was over.
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