IT'S AUSTRALIAN SOCCER

The History of Football (Soccer) Australia can be traced back to the early 1900's, with the formation of the 'Commonwealth Football Association' on December 21, 1911.

The EARLIEST inhabitants of Australia played ball games some of which involved kicking a possum-skin ball in the air. Those who arrived in the early nineteenth century brought their own ball games with them. Reports of small-sided, predominantly kicking games for money or other prizes, are reported long before the first local set of rules for the Melbourne Football Club were written in 1859. Those rules were very similar to the Cambridge University rules of 1845, and those of John Hope’s club in Edinburgh of 1824.

In 1850, Dalmahoy Campbell and Francis Stephen organised an eleven-a-side game in Melbourne and Campbell was involved in another game later that year. These matches and others were unknown to and consequently ignored by the small group who drew up the Melbourne Football Club rules nearly a decade later.

The practice of the games evolved over succeeding years, only gradually diverging into something resembling the codes we know today. A handling game with an offside rule influenced by the practice of Rugby school in England became popular in New South Wales, while the Victorian code had its first free kick as the colony actually lost population in some years between 1860 and 1880. There was no volume of migrants to challenge the local football code. The early adoption of an eight-hour day for certain groups of skilled workers created space for sport on Saturday afternoons and crowds of spectators attended the Victorian code.

The new wave of immigration in the 1880s brought a critical mass of newcomers some of whom had a knowledge of the Football Association game or its Scottish equivalent. Matches were reported in Tasmania, South Australia and in 1880 John Walter Fletcher organised a series of matches in Sydney. The first inter-colonial matches between Victoria and New South Wales took place in Melbourne in 1883 and annually thereafter for several years. Queensland and South Australia soon followed, while Western Australian clubs were playing by Football Association rules from the 1890s. A team from Western Australia toured the eastern states in 1909.

Football Australia Hall of Famer - John Walter Fletcher

Though matches between teams called England and Scotland drew crowds of several thousands in the eastern capital cities, for the most part Association Football, sometimes now called British football or soccer to distinguish it from the other codes, remained primarily a participation rather than a spectator sport.

Interestingly the Scots and Northern English were the first to name their clubs after elements of their heritage rather than the location where they were situated in Australia. Celtics, Northumberland and Durhams, Fifers, and Thistles were formed in each of the colonies. This practice was to be followed much later by post-Second World War migrants to Australia. These clubs served more than just the sport. They catered for newly-arrived migrants and often helped them come to terms with Australian society and its evolving culture. Once again this was something which became very important in the second half of the twentieth century. The downside was that the game was later seen as a migrant game, rather than an Australian one, despite the fact that the various codes shared a common heritage and a similar length of time in Australia.

Leagues were established in each of the colonies with those in the capital cities becoming dominant. In 1908 there was a revival in Victoria stimulated by Harry Dockerty, who helped set up a local league and presented the Cup which still bears his name today. The Sydney metropolitan competition was probably the strongest in those early years and they hosted a touring team from New Zealand in 1905. Queensland also had excellent teams and local leagues. Mining areas in all the colonies and states were strong centres of Association football. A national organisation was formed in 1911 and the game was growing when World War One intervened. Many of the very recent British migrants signed up straight away and some clubs lost virtually their whole complement of players. The male game came to a virtual halt, though women working in factories took up the game as a recreation and fund raiser. With thanks to this Written by Roy Hay.