Fronting Up: Australian Soccer and the First World War

This is a link to my recent 9000-word article on soccer and World War One, 'Fronting Up: Australian Soccer and the First World War'. It's a culmination of a lot of the work I've done previously. Feel free to download from this link http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/wcYIZvDiDcIkPEMNxrFJ/full

Please note that there are limited free copies available so only download if you are keen to read and/or share.

Summer Soccer: Tell 'im e's dreamin'

And then there's this, by Ian Warden from the Canberra Times, 20 July 1987. It's interesting because it shows how a number of aspects of the game and attitudes around it have changed. Interesting also that that some entrenched attitudes remain.

Notably this is written just before the game moved to summer. "It'll never work" or words to that effect claims Warren. Maybe it didn't.

AMONG THE MANY enormous problems faced by Australian soccer in its (probably hopeless) struggle for increased and enduring popularity is that the spectacle of the game itself does little to recruit participants and fans. The televising of Australian soccer probably does the game more harm than good while the televising of, say, basketball or of rugby league is a form of living advertising for the game.

Every Sunday the brave SBS-28 network broadcasts a whole match from Australia's West End Soccer League, boasting in its publicity material that this broadcast offers "the creme of local soccer". Bravely, I sat down to watch a match (4.30pm, July 12) between Sydney Olympic and SouthMelbourne.

Soccer referees have busy aftenoons these days and this was a busy afternoon for a referee rejoicing in thename of Bill Monteverde. Mr Monteverde's whistle regularly pierced the aternoon air like the insistent mating call of some monosyllabic bird of preyas infringement followed infringeent. Once in a while a little soccer interrupted the flow of fouling.

I was at a State Bank soccer league match a few Sundays ago in which one hyperactive defender was always urging his team mates to "Bite him!Bite him!" whenever an opponent advanced goalwards with the ball. This was, I fancy, an instruction to tackle the player rather than hang back and wait for him to actually do something with the ball in his possession.

There was a great deal of "biting" in the match offered by SBS. After a short spasm of actual soccer someone wouldbe writhing on the ground like a postman chewed by a bull terrier, clutching the ankles and femurs "bitten" in the tackle. Trainers were always on the field, administering the equivalent oftetanus injections to their fallen warriors.

"He's been in the wars," the panel ofcommentators (which included Johny Warren, Les Murray and an Englishperson doing an imitation of the commentators on BBC and ITV soccer programs) commented as someone who had been repeatedly "bitten" bit the turf again. Mr Monteverde, like most modern referees so used to and hardened by the spitefulness of the modern game that it would have taken an on-field murder to get him to send anyone off, showed five biters the yelow card, a trifling punishment fortheir crime of making the game unwatchably dreary.

During half-time the articulate LesMurray interviewed two soccer administrators on the subject of playing soccer fixtures in summer and in the evenings. One of them thought that this would be a great idea since it would allow "families" to come to the match after a day at the beach.

It is typical of Australian soccer administrators, blinded by their love of the game, that they would even dreamthat Australian soccer is a family entertainment. They were speaking after 45 minutes of tripping, kicking, writhing, hard lying to the referee, shirt pulling and swearing. I have no special gifts as a lip-reader but even I was able to decipher some of the terrible things Sydney Olympic manager Eddie "chop him down" Thomson was shouting at the long suffering Monteverde.

'I wouldn't like to see that'

The brief rise and inevitable fall of the Bulldogs

John Weldon wrote this piece for the Age in 1998. It's from a different time and speaks to a sentiment that's missing across all of our top-line professional sports today. And poor deluded John thought his Bulldogs were on the verge of a great era. Oh well.

I’ve been a Bulldogs fan since the late seventies. I watched them from the terraces at the Western Oval through various combinations of wind, hail and rain, and never once were they in any danger of tasting real success. Sure there was the odd finals campaign, but nothing which promised a future. That is until the appointment of Terry Wallace as coach, two seasons ago. He has brought levels of skill, endeavour and self-belief to the club the likes of which I have never seen before. He has the Doggies looking like winners, and I’m not sure if I like that.

I can’t truly enjoy the current run of success because I’m not used to it, and I don’t trust it. It’s hard to shake off that old feeling that it’s never too late to lose, (see last year’s preliminary final as proof of this). To make it that far last season and to fail so miserably was heart breaking, and as each victory takes the team closer to September glory I become more and more apprehensive. I worry about them like a parent whose child is ambitious and over-reaching, and like a parent I will feel their pain more deeply than they do, if they fail.

At times like this I wonder why I chose, as a boy, to follow such a troubled team. When I took an interest in football in my early teens, as a recent pommy migrant, teams such as Carlton, Hawthorn and Essendon were playing magnificent, awe inspiring football.

My first match was a Hawthorn vs. Footscray game at the Western oval in 1979. The dogs were hammered, but somehow they wormed their way into my soul. Even attendance at that years grand final, a stirring stoush between Carlton and Collingwood, couldn’t sway my heart, it was already beating red white and blue. Even before I understood what the game was about I understood what the Bulldogs were about. The crowd was full of pommies, wogs, paddies and others like me; I felt at home.

A fellow fan once said to me, “You don’t choose to barrack for Footscray, you’re geographically marooned out there. You have no choice.” This seems to be true, as all my friends from the St. Albans days, who barracked for the flashy teams of the eighties, have drifted back to the Bulldogs as they’ve grown older. Maybe it’s the fact that the other teams always hated coming over to our side of town. Somehow neither our ground nor our team were good enough in their eyes. As you become older you become more aware of that stigma, and you make a choice either to retreat from it or to wear it with pride every weekend at the game.

This most unfashionable of clubs now has over 20,000 members and is therefore guaranteed to survive, and I love that, but I resent the Johnny-come-lately’s in their brand new jumpers who stand in front of me in the outer. It’s not that I am afraid of change, I’m petrified of it. I find myself on the wrong side of thirty, wondering if the Bulldogs I supported will disappear forever. Will the newly won young fans of today turn out to be the self-satisfied Carltonesque fans of tomorrow? What will they know of standing on the sodden terraces at the Geelong Rd. end watching Brereton, Plugger and others carve up the hapless Bulldog defences of yesteryear?

Trooping out to the game week after week only to see your team destroyed, or almost make it, or nearly get it right, teaches a youth how to lose with grace. A win was a bonus. We were satisfied if we saw one great baulk from Douggie, a thumping tackle from Libba or a speccy from Chris. We were happy simply to be able to watch our team play. Perhaps winning is still too new a feeling. It’s hard for old timers like me to come to terms with

Strangely we revelled in the hellish conditions. The colder it got, the harder it rained and the more purplish and numb our extremities became the more we enjoyed ourselves. Success and the possibility of a premiership cannot replace that camaraderie.

The joy of the terraces at that glorious final-game-ever at the Whitten oval against West Coast, when the sky seemed to boil directly above the ground and bitter winds drove inch after inch of freezing rain into our faces. We collectively booed the poor fools who tried to raise umbrellas as we watched our boys play as true Scraggers, possibly for the last time, grinding the greatest of all Johnny-come-lately’s into the mud of Whitten Oval.

Now we face Adelaide, once again, in the preliminary final. If we can o’erleap them and go on to win the flag, it will surely spell the end of old Footscray and will truly herald the era of the Western Bulldogs. The move to Docklands will cement that and will end forever the days of standing on the terraces in the rain. We will sit undercover and in comfort and we will watch a winning team. I’m not sure I’d like to see that.

NPL Round 2 Results

NPL

ROUND 2: 

Oakleigh Cannons FC 2 (D. Bosnjak 2) Heidelberg United SC 1 (K. Sheppard 1)(HT: 0-1)
Pascoe Vale SC 0 Melbourne Knights FC 2 (J. Colosimo 2)(HT: 0-0)
Port Melbourne Sharks SC 2 (K. Braniff 1, K. Ibrahim 1) South Melbourne FC 3 (L. Minopoulos 2)(HT: 1-1)
Goulburn Valley Suns FC 2 (C. Carley 1, K. Sarkies 1) Ballarat Red Devils SC 3 (D. Swinton 2, M. Trigger 1)(HT: 1-1)
Dandenong Thunder SC 1 (M. Millar 1) Green Gully SC 0(HT: 0-0)
Northcote City FC 2 (J. Munoz 1, W. Dekker 1) Bentleigh Greens SC 3 (L. Jeggo 1, A. Proia 1, J. De Abreu 1)(HT: 1-2)
Werribee City FC 2 (J. Groenewald 1, S. Cudrig 1) Hume City FC 1(HT: 1-1) 
ROUND 1:
Bentleigh Greens SC  Ballarat Red Devils SC (HT: 0-0) (Washed Out)

NPL1

ROUND 2: 

Richmond SC 1 (J. Stefanou 1) Springvale White Eagles FC 0(HT: 0-0)  ,
Sunshine George Cross SC 1 (B. Lojanica 1) Avondale Heights SC 0(HT: 1-0)  ,
Brunswick City SC 3 (D. Vithoulkas 1, D. Sadik 1, N. Terezakis 1) Dandenong City SC 4 (K. Ziada 1, D. Matkovic 1, G. Jozeljic 1, D. Miskulin 1)(HT: 2-1)  ,
North Geelong Warriors FC 0 Box Hill United SC 1 (R. Muriqi 1)(HT: 0-0)  ,
Whittlesea Ranges FC 2 FC Bendigo 1(HT: 1-0)  , Moreland Zebras FC 4 (J. Nikolic 1, J. Turner 1, A. Centofanti 1, E. Batsis 1) Kingston City FC 0(HT: 2-0)  ,
St Albans Saints SC 1 (B. Devlin 1) FC Bulleen Lions 2 (M. Dimech 1, T. Nishimoto 1)(HT: 0-1) 

NPL 20s

ROUND 2: 

Dandenong Thunder SC 0 Green Gully SC 3(HT: 0-0)  ,
Northcote City FC 0 Bentleigh Greens SC 0(HT: 0-0)  ,
Werribee City FC 1 Hume City FC 2(HT: 0-0) 
ROUND 1:
Bentleigh Greens SC  Ballarat Red Devils SC (HT: 0-0) (Washed Out)

NPL1 20s

ROUND 2: 

Brunswick City SC 2 (J. Papargiris 1, T. Idris 1) Dandenong City SC 1(HT: 1-1) 
North Geelong Warriors FC 1 Box Hill United SC 2(HT: 0-0) 
Whittlesea Ranges FC 2 FC Bendigo 5(HT: 0-0) 
Moreland Zebras FC 5 Kingston City FC 1(HT: 0-0)
St Albans Saints SC 2 FC Bulleen Lions 0(HT: 0-0) 

NPL TABLES

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   South Melbourne FC                  2       2       0       0       6       2       4       6      

2   Melbourne Knights FC               2       2       0       0       5       2       3       6      

3   Oakleigh Cannons FC                2       2       0       0       3       1       2       6      

4   Dandenong Thunder SC             2       1       0       1       3       2       1       4      

5   Green Gully SC                          2       1       1       0       4       1       3       3      

6   Hume City FC                            2       1       1       0       4       2       2       3      

7   Bentleigh Greens SC                   1       1       0       0       3       2       1       3      

8   Ballarat Red Devils SC               1       1       0       0       3       2       1       3      

9   Werribee City FC                       2       1       1       0       2       5       -3      3      

10  Port Melbourne Sharks SC        2       0       1       1       4       5       -1      1      

11  Northcote City FC                     2       0       2       0       4       6       -2      0      

12  Goulburn Valley Suns FC           2       0       2       0       2       4       -2      0      

13  Heidelberg United SC                2       0       2       0       1       5       -4      0      

14  Pascoe Vale SC                         2       0       2       0       0       5       -5      0      

NPL1

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Box Hill United SC                      2       2       0       0       5       1       4       6      

2   FC Bulleen Lions                        2       2       0       0       4       1       3       6      

3   Sunshine George Cross SC           2       2       0       0       3       0       3       6      

4   Moreland Zebras FC                      2       1       1       0       4       2       2       3      

5   St Albans Saints SC                     2       1       1       0       6       5       1       3      

6   Avondale Heights SC                     2       1       1       0       3       3       0       3      

7   Dandenong City SC                       2       1       1       0       5       5       0       3      

8   North Geelong Warriors FC               2       1       1       0       2       2       0       3      

9   Whittlesea Ranges FC                    2       1       1       0       4       4       0       3      

10  Richmond SC                             2       1       1       0       2       4       -2      3      

11  Kingston City FC                        2       1       1       0       3       6       -3      3      

12  FC Bendigo                              2       0       2       0       3       5       -2      0      

13  Brunswick City SC                       2       0       2       0       3       6       -3      0      

14  Springvale White Eagles FC              2       0       2       0       3       6       -3      0      

NPL 20s

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Green Gully SC                          2       2       0       0       6       0       6       6      

2   Pascoe Vale SC                          1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      

3   Oakleigh Cannons FC                     1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      

4   Port Melbourne Sharks SC                1       1       0       0       4       3       1       3      

5   Melbourne Knights FC                    1       1       0       0       2       1       1       3      

6   Hume City FC                            2       1       1       0       3       4       -1      3       

7   Bentleigh Greens SC                     1       0       0       1       0       0       0       1      

8   Northcote City FC                       2       0       1       1       1       2       -1      1      

9   Ballarat Red Devils SC                  0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      

10  South Melbourne FC                      0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      

11  Heidelberg United SC                    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      

12  Goulburn Valley Suns FC                 1       0       1       0       1       3       -2      0      

13  Werribee City FC                        2       0       2       0       1       5       -4      0      

14  Dandenong Thunder SC                    2       0       2       0       3       7       -4      0      

NPL1 20s

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Richmond SC                             1       1       0       0       4       0       4       3      

2   Moreland Zebras FC                      2       1       1       0       6       3       3       3      

3   North Geelong Warriors FC               2       1       1       0       6       4       2       3      

4   Springvale White Eagles FC              1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      

5   Sunshine George Cross SC                1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      

6   FC Bendigo                              2       1       1       0       6       4       2       3      

7   Whittlesea Ranges FC                    2       1       1       0       6       5       1       3      

8   Avondale Heights SC                     1       1       0       0       2       1       1       3      

9   St Albans Saints SC                     2       1       1       0       3       3       0       3      

10  FC Bulleen Lions                        2       1       1       0       2       3       -1      3      

11  Brunswick City SC                       2       1       1       0       3       4       -1      3      

12  Box Hill United SC                      2       1       1       0       2       5       -3      3      

13  Dandenong City SC                       2       0       2       0       3       7       -4      0      

14  Kingston City FC                        2       0       2       0       1       9       -8      0      

Harry Kewell: Star quality

by Roy Hay

Harry Kewell is bringing down the curtain on a stellar career at the end of the current A-League season. It is a pity that he could not make it to what would be his third World Cup in succession, but the body which has inhibited him in the latter stages of his career will not let him deliver the kind of consistent performances demanded by Socceroo coach Ange Postecoglou. Even Melbourne Heart must have been reluctant to offer a new contract, despite the impact he has had on the players around him since he joined the club. So the time is right for one of our all-time greats to step aside.

The NSW U15s in 1994 containing Harry Kewell as well as Brett Emerton, Sebastian Sinozic,
Yane Talcevski, Daniel Ucchino, Michael Cunico, Robert Trajcevski and Adam Brodbeck

He was born in Smithfield in New South Wales of English parents. I first saw him play at Kim Reserve in 1994 with the New South Wales Under-15s who won the national championships beating a very strong Victorian side in the final. The light blues included Brett Emerton, Sebastian Sinozic, Yane Talcevski, Daniel Ucchino, Michael Cunico, Robert Trajcevski and Adam Brodbeck, all of whom went on to have significant careers in the game. Lined up against them were Vince Grella, Danny Allsopp, Simon Colosimo, Rodrigo Vargas, John Maisano, Clayton Bell and Colin Azzopardi. Between them these two talented groups produced most of the Joeys who took part in the Under-17 World Cup in Ghana where Australia pipped Spain on goal difference to qualify from its group behind Nigeria. Brazil proved too good in the quarter-finals and Danny Allsopp was top scorer with 5 goals and Kewell got the other.

Very soon the precocious Kewell was on his way to Leeds United where he began as a wing-back and his powerful engine got him up and down the field following his debut in the first team under Howard Wilkinson. He flourished under George Graham and David O’Leary clocking up over 180 league appearances and scoring 45 goals. On 24 April 1996, Eddie Thomson gave Kewell his first Socceroo cap against Chile in Antofagasta. Eddie was shrewd enough to know that Kewell could have been tempted to play for England so it was vital to ensure that he was aligned with the Green and Gold. Most sources want to claim that as a result he was the youngest player to be capped by Australia, but this is not true. Duncan Cummings was months younger when he made his debut against China in 1975, scoring within minutes of coming on as a substitute. That was the first of Cummings’ two games for Australia, while Kewell was to go on to amass 56 games and score 17 goals.

From Leeds, Kewell transferred to Liverpool where he was to win a series of trophies including the European Champions League in 2005, when injury resulted in his substitution before his team-mates produced a miraculous second half fight-back against AC Milan and won the cup on penalties. He played just under 100 league games for the Reds scoring a dozen goals. In 2008 he moved to Galatasaray in Turkey, captaining the club and performing various feats including a couple of matches at centre-half when injuries to other players occurred.

Meanwhile he took part in Australia’s unsuccessful qualifying campaign for the World Cup in 1997, scoring critical goals away from home and at the MCG against Iran. His heroics were not enough and Australia lost on the away goals rule. It was an equally sad story in 2001 as a home win over Uruguay thanks to a Kevin Muscat penalty was cancelled out by the three-nil loss in Montevideo. Opinions differ as to Kewell’s contribution to the away leg. My feeling was that he left Mark Viduka unsupported in the striking role failing to be close enough to the big man who had three top class defenders marking him for most of the game. In 2005 however Kewell came into his own with an inadvertent shank that set up Marco Bresciano for the goal at home to Uruguay and putting away the first of the successful penalty kicks. Then in Germany in the finals he scored the decisive second goal against Croatia, but then had to miss the Italy game in the round of 16 thanks to what was suggested to be gout at the time.

Harry Kewell has just scored against Croatia at the 2006 World Cup finals.

Kewell backed up again in 2010 in South Africa though he was perhaps harshly sent off for blocking a goal-bound effort against Ghana in the second match and hence badly missed then and in the victory over Serbia. Kewell also contributed in Australia’s Asian Cup campaigns in 2007 and 2011.

He was named as Australia’s greatest ever player in a poll in 2012 which inevitably focused on recent stars. He certainly generated the charisma which attracted people to the game in an age of celebrity. So when he returned to Australia in 2011 and signed with Melbourne Victory on a contract which gave him an element of his income based on the number of extra fans he attracted to the game, there is no doubt that he boosted the profile of the club and the A-League. However by now his body was giving him less chance to demonstrate his talent, though as the first season ran its course his contribution on the field improved significantly. After the season he returned to England and then played briefly with Al-Garafa in Qatar before coming home for what turned out to be his final fling at Melbourne Heart. Again injuries cruelled his season, but he deserves to go out with a flourish in Heart’s final game of the season against Western Sydney Wanderers on 12 April.

Kewell attracted a fair amount of controversy over his long career, partly explicable as a product of the tall poppy syndrome, but some self inflicted or a result of the agents with whom he dealt. Also the injuries he suffered were not appreciated by those furthest from the man himself and his abrasive or dismissive attitude to the media did not always work to enhance his image. Nevertheless, he has been a major contributor to Australia’s recent success, as key member of the ‘golden generation’. In time people will be able to evaluate his career more dispassionately and with greater perspective, but he is certainly one to be considered when listing the players who have lifted the profile of the game in this country.

RELIGION AND SPORT

Here's a terrific little piece from the Daily Herald in Adelaide from 1913. It tells the story of two sporting priests, one a boxer and the other a soccer player. The soccer player learned the game in the seminary in Manly and became beloved of his constituents in Collingwood and the Scottish miners in Wonthaggi. The piece speaks to the unrecognised general popularity of the game in pre-war Victoria.

THE FIGHTING PARSON

THE PRIEST FOOTBALLER.

The fighting parson of Queensland (writes the Melbourne correspondent of the Ballarat "Evening Echo") is now widely known, and his views regarding sport and practical demonstrations in amateur competitions have reassured the sporting fraternity, who have labored according to the utterances of extreme narrowminded religionists "in spheres of damnation," that there is a possibility of them entering the confines of Paradise.

Now comes the news that a young Catholic priest in Melbourne is a soccer player with a reputation. This cleric is a native of Collingwood, where he is respected not only by his own sect but by thousands outside his church. After leaving school about seven years ago the reverend gentleman studied in the Manly College, and was ordained a priest in due course. While at college the aspirant for the pulpit, being exceptionally fond of sport of all descriptions, took a liking for soccer, and he developed such talent for the game that he was considered the crack of the college.

He was transferred to Melbourne after becoming a priest, and was sent on relieving work at Wonthaggi. A British Football Association exists in this town, the outcome of the large number of Scottish miners who have settled there since the mines were opened. One day it was stated the young priest, who is, by the way, also of Highland descent, was watching the players in question at practice. He was asked if he could play. "Well, I don't mind trying," he answered, modestly, only too eager to grapple at the invitation.

He soon unfrocked and was sprinting round the ground with remarkable alacrity, dodging, ducking, catching the ball on his cranium with precision, and complying with the requests of the Scotchmen, of "shoot, mon," when he had the ball anywhere near the goal posts. His reverence rarely missed the opportunity of placing the ball in the right position. That evening much surprise and satisfaction was expressed at the wonderful showing of the priest, who was often playing after that until his relieving work was completed, and he was transferred back to Melbourne.

When the "soccer priest," as he was named, was given a send-off by acquaintances he expressed no little disappointment at leaving his Scottish brethren. A few weeks ago, unable to suppress fhe anxiety of the soccer players Wonthaggi to get him back, the reverend gentleman was called upon at his parish in a northern suburb and asked to sign a contract to go and play every Saturday for "Thaggie." He has accepted the invitation, but a difficulty his arisen which might prevent him from completing the contract. "You see, Father (the present parish priest) doesn't mind me going down every Saturday," He remarked, "but we are going to have a change and perhaps my next senior will have anything but a sporting mind, and then my little game will end."    

Imagine the popularity thai would accrue if ministers of religion such as the fighting parson and the footballing priest went into the game actively, and were permitted by their seniors to do so. Some little time ago after the Queensland parson had carried off the amateur competitions he was given a substantial offer to go to Melbourne and appear in the city, but, of course, he naturally declined to be staged in an exhibition bout, though, undoubtedly, he would have proved an exceptional draw, and might have resulted not only in an attendance of the usual followers of boxing but a clerical gathering representing all denominations which would have had the effect of raising boxing generally in their estimation.

Australian sport’s Mandela moment?[i]

by Roy Hay

Nelson Mandela, the recently deceased former president of the Republic of South Africa, was always conscious of the power of sport to symbolise, if not cause, social and political change. Hence his appearance in a Springbok jersey to present the rugby union World Cup to Francois Peinaar, the captain of the victorious team in 1995. What had been a symbol of the virtually whites-only sport embraced by the apartheid regime was now reconfigured as a contribution to the reconciliation Mandela sought between the majority of the population and their former oppressors.

In Australia in 1855 there was a sporting moment which has been almost completely forgotten but which also marked the coming together of opposing groups who had been killing each other only a few months before. What brought it back into focus was Peter FitzSimons mammoth 700-page blockbuster Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution, which also has no mention of the event or its participants.[ii]

In December 1854 the combination of oppressive licence fees for the right to dig for gold, the miners’ lack of representation in the new Victorian parliament and what appeared to be corrupt use of the law provoked an uprising against the authorities on the Ballarat goldfield. The Governor of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, fearing loss of control of civil society, put down the ‘rebellion’ by force after sending a hastily assembled army of troops and police to the goldfield.[iii] The miners’ defensive stockade was overrun in 20 minutes with around 22 miners and five soldiers killed and several more seriously injured on both sides. After a brief period of martial law and a more protracted and unsuccessful attempt to convict some of the participants of treason, the government ended the licence fees, introduced a limited form of manhood suffrage and removed some of the corrupt officials.[iv] Some of the victims of collateral damage in Ballarat in 1854 were subsequently compensated.[v]

On 22 September 1855, only nine months after Eureka, some of the surviving miners and troops played a football match at the Commissioner’s Camp on the nearby Castlemaine goldfield.[vi] The Mount Alexander Mail reported[vii]:

Lieutenant William Henry Paul led a detachment of the 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot into the stockade at Eureka but received a severe wound to his hip in the action. A pupil at Eton, the English public school, he joined the army and was gazetted as an Ensign in 1852 and promoted to Lieutenant in 1854.[viii] He had arrived in Victoria with his comrades and was sent to Ballarat with a contingent of the 12th which was intercepted and upset by a group of miners on the way to the diggings. One of the wagons accompanying the troops was overturned and Paul was sent on ahead with the others to reinforce the camp.[ix] After the battle Paul recovered from his injuries and almost certainly was one of the prime movers in the football match.[x]

His coadjutor was probably Thomas Beagley Naylor, the Receiver of Gold at the camp at the neighbouring goldfield of Castlemaine. Castlemaine is just under 80 kilometres from Ballarat and some of the Castlemaine diggers had been present at Eureka. Naylor was also secretary of the Castlemaine Hospital and it is possible that Paul spent some of his recuperation there. Naylor was also secretary of the Castlemaine Race Committee, so like many of his contemporaries had a finger in more than one sporting activity. A few weeks after the football match he organised a subscription to fund a scratch race meeting at Muckleford, near Castlemaine.[xi]

The Commissoner’s Camp at Castlemaine in 1852.[xii]

Castlemaine Court House in 2014, now the home of the Castlemaine Historical Society Inc.
Compare with the building to the left of the 1852 picture.

The Camp Reserve today. Home ground of the Castlemaine Football and Netball Club.

Unfortunately we don’t know the names of any of the other participants or whether the second match mentioned in the newspaper report took place. Nor do we know in detail what kind of football was being played. Darren Lewis, the historian of the Castlemaine Football and Netball Club, and Sean Fagan who has written about the first tour by an English rugby union team to Australia in the 1880s, both see the game as a precursor of their respective codes.[xiii] One of the earliest clubs to play football on a regular basis was begun in Castlemaine in 1859.[xiv] But it is equally, if not more likely, that the game bore more similarity to Association football as it was codified in England in 1863 than either Australian football or rugby union.

When we say these games were more like football as it was codified in 1863 in England it does not mean that they looked like an English Premier League match today or Barcelona toying with its opposition with its tika taka. They were different from the mass melees in the villages, but they were not for the faint hearted. They were strongly physical contests in which weight and probably height counted for more than neat skills of ball control.[xv] But the emphasis is on kicking not handling or running with the ball. When detailed descriptions of matches appear there are many references to charging, rushing and heavy collisions with bodies being upset and falls frequent. Injuries are mentioned regularly. So it was not a decorous business and there would have been quite enough physical contact to satisfy fit young players and spectators looking for some vicarious violence.

However, the historians of both Australian rules and rugby union tend to be both imperialistic and anachronistic in claiming that this match fits their image of a precursor of their varieties of football. The Castlemaine match was only one of a large number of small-sided predominantly kicking games played in Australia, often for monetary prizes, and hence certainly to agreed rules, long before the Melbourne club drew up its first set or union diverged from soccer over the issue of hacking. In an article in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport the evidence for the widespread existence of a football culture in Australia before codification will be presented and this Mandela moment will at last be put in its context.[xvi]

Notes

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[i]      My thanks to the staff of the Castlemaine Historical Society Inc. for their assistance and hospitality. Their infectious enthusiasm for making research a pleasure is wonderful.

[ii]     Peter FitzSimons, Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution, Random House, Sydney, 2013.

[iii]    For the role of British troops in Australia prior to 1870, see Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison: the British Army in Australia 1788-1870. Kenthurst, NSW: Kangaroo Press, 1986.

[iv]    There was a mass meeting in Ballarat on 9 December 1854 which sought the end of the licence fee and the abolition of the Gold Commission. There was a similar meeting at Castlemaine which demanded the abolition of military rule. Justin Corfield, Dorothy Wickham & Clare Gervasoni, The Eureka Encyclopaedia, Ballarat, Ballarat Heritage Services, 2004, Timeline, p. xiv.

[v]     A correspondent with the Herald, Frank Arthur Hasleham was shot in the shoulder when he came out of his tent to observe what was happening. He was paid £400 ‘for his wrong’. Mount Alexander Mail, Friday 14 September 1855, p.  3.

[vi]    The Castlemaine Camp had been the site of a protest meeting against the proposed doubling of the miners’ licence fee in 1852 led by Captain John Harrison, the father of Henry Colden Harrison, one of the early figures in the story of Melbourne and Geelong football. Gillian Hibbins, Sport and Racing in Colonial Melbourne, Lynedoch, Melbourne, 2007, pp. 36–7.

[vii]    ‘Foot Ball’, Mount Alexander Mail, Friday 28 September 1855, p.  3. Hard copy consulted at the Castlemaine Historical Society on 21 January 2014.

[viii]   Paul was posted to Launceston in 1856 and then took leave and returned to England. He later became Captain and Adjutant of the 36^th Regiment in Belfast in the 1860s. H.E.C. Stapylton, Eton School Lists from 1791 to 1877, Simpkin Marshall, London, 1884, p. 208.  He reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and retired in 1877. He may have died in Liverpool in 1903. Ian McFarlane, Eureka from Official Records, Melbourne, Public Record Office Victoria, 1995, and Corfield et al, Eureka Encylopaedia, p. 421.

[ix]    Evidence of Assistant Surgeon George Arden, Dorothy Wickham, Deaths at Eureka, privately published, Ballarat, 1996.

[x]     The Eton field game was a predominantly kicking and dribbling style of football. Ian Syson reminded me of this by email, 22 January 2014.

[xi]    ‘Racing’, Mount Alexander Mail, 19 October 1855, p. 3. Naylor had a chequered subsequent career. In 1860 it was reported in some newspapers that he had been imprisoned for defalcation but it turned out that a clerk in Gold Office named Graybourne was responsible and convicted. However, two years later Naylor was charged with systematically purloining small quantities of gold and sentenced to four years hard labour on the roads. Hobart Town Daily Mercury, Wednesday 25 April 1860, p. 2; The South Australian Advertiser, Monday 30 April 1860, p. 3; Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 23 May 1862, p. 5; The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, Thursday 31 July 1862, p. 2.

[xii]    Cuthbert Charles Clarke, The Commissioner’s Camp, Castlemaine in 1852, Alan McCulloch, Artists of the Australian Gold Rush, Lansdowne editions, Melbourne, 1977, p. 140.

[xiii]   Darren Lewis, A Day at the Camp: 150 Years of the Castlemaine Football Netball Club. Castlemaine Football Netball Club, Castlemaine, Victoria, pp. 8–10; Sean Fagan, The First Lions of Rugby: The First British Lions and Their Dramatic 1888 Tour of Australia and New Zealand, Slattery Media Group, Richmond, Vic.: 2013, pp. 196–200.

[xiv]   Lewis, A Day at the Camp, pp. 11–13.

[xv]    Gavin Kitching, ‘”The Origins of Football”: Ideology and the Making of “The People’s Game”’, Football 150 Conference, Manchester: National Football Museum, September 2–4, 2013.

[xvi]   Roy Hay, ‘Football in Australia before codification’, International Journal of the History of Sport, (in press, February 2014).