The decision had been made within five minutes of the final whistle. You know which one. That final whistle at the MCG. SU28 would be encased in black as a permanent reminder of that game. For a few hours we even toyed with the idea of winding up SU. But with a good night's sleep and a healthy dose of vitamin B came the realisation that Australian soccer needs SU perhaps more than ever before.
And that is really saying something.

After three years and twenty-seven issues it was expected that Studs Up would be ready to lie down, content with the state of the game in Australia. After all, back in issue number one we told the ASF exactly what was wrong with the game and how to fix it!

Well, not quite, but when we first went into print in 1994 it was because of the state of the game as a whole in Australia. Not only was the standard of play poor, but the administration was possibly at its lowest performance level ever, with regular punch-ups on the terraces and surrounding streets, and worst of all, we hadn't made the World Cup finals for 20 years.

So, what's changed? Well, David Hill has shaken some life into the administrative side of things, but he certainly hasn't been able to stem the massive exodus of players overseas, resulting in a standard of football which is rarely better than that of three years ago. As in 1994, there are four, maybe five teams you would regularly like to see play, but if Soccer Australia want to know why Joe Public won't pay $12 to stand on concrete (exposed to the elements) to watch a couple of ordinary teams then its time they got out of their corporate boxes and tried doing exactly that for a few weeks. The ethnic violence factor has hardly been eliminated, but there appears to be a greater awareness amongst the hooligans as to what damage their actions cause. After witnessing at the MCG what REAL support can achieve, perhaps there may be a change of attitude.

While SU may have started out with a series of elongated whinges it quickly became apparent that we were filling a void for a vast number of soccer enthusiasts who were willing to devote their time to contribute articles, news, opinions and a hell of a lot of archive material. When OzSoccer hit cyberspace it also quickly became a forum for informed debate and as the power of the Internet increases, so the number of fans 'networked' will also increase. Studs Up will also be entering the electronic arena in the coming weeks and we look forward to encouraging a whole new breed of contributors. Since SU began a number of our regular contributors have gone on to have articles printed in a variety of publications including ABSW, Total Sport, Max, Soccer Australia, and numerous Ericsson Cup matchday programmes. Some of them have even been paid for their efforts.

Despite a meagre print run of only 150 or so (why so few?), Studs Up has so far managed to 'network' a vast number of soccer junkies and wield an influence far out- weighing its circulation. With the work of all the fans (particularly Greg Baxter and the OzSoccer mailing list) Oz fans are now in a position to form a highly effective lobby group.

Of course it would be easy for us to say "Tell all your friends to send us thirty bucks" but the main point of Studs Up has always been to provide fans with a forum where they can openly discuss the game's problems and possible solutions, particularly in areas which have traditionally been taboo in the domestic soccer publications.

At the National Soccer Summit in 1995 we told the delegation "To fail to qualify (for France) would be to invite rebellion". Given the state of the game, non-qualification for France is no longer the only reason to invite rebellion.