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From the origins of the coalfields, where miners would emerge from the dark depths during the week to play football on their days off, comes a story of grit and determination, a battle of the underdog overcoming prestige and money to emerge victorious.
The setting is not in the suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne, often cited as the heartlands of the old National Soccer League, but in the city of Newcastle, at times forgotten in the annals of football history among many self-proclaimed aficionados.
Newcastle’s place in Australian football is as strong as they come. Two of the country’s oldest clubs hail from the Hunter, the oldest of all being Minmi Rangers, formed in 1884.
The second is Adamstown Rosebud, formed in 1889, whose exploits in the mid-1980s are one of Australian sport’s most heartwarming stories.
But to understand their achievements, it’s important to revisit their predecessor – Newcastle KB United.
KB United had become the first community club to compete in the NSL in 1978, and they soon recorded the largest crowd for a regular season match – 18,357 – which was only broken at the introduction of the A-League.
Football in Newcastle began with the Anglo-Saxon descendants, the miners and sons of convicts who pulled black coal from the beautiful Hunter Valley landscape from the 1800s.
Soon, however, football in the region was richened with the arrival of Italians, Greeks, Macedonians, Croats, Poles, Serbs, Germans and Dutch. Where ethnic tension has at times gripped Australian football and splashed newspapers with damaging headlines, the same was rarely the case along the Hunter River.
Of course, the Greeks had Hamilton Olympic, the Macedonians had Broadmeadow Magic, and the Italians had Highfields Azzurri, now Charlestown City Blues, but there has never been the same tales of exclusivity in this bastion of Australian football.
Joe Senkalski, captain and playmaker, said last year that there was nothing like KB United in the NSL at the time.
“There were a lot of Newcastle players who starred in State Cups and the history of Newcastle football was already there,” he said.
“What KB United did was to bring the people to follow a one-town team – that model compared to the suburban teams in Sydney or Melbourne was a huge difference.”
So it was that KB United took hold of the hearts and minds of all Novocastrians, from the white boys to the wog boys, Sheilas and blokes. Sir Bobby Charlton enjoyed a stint with the club, as did local hero Craig Johnston.
Yet financial instability robbed the city of their beloved KB, leaving an empty hole that desperately needed filling as the club disbanded in 1983.
Enter the aforementioned Adamstown Rosebud, an amateur club playing local league football, who emerged from the ashes of the defunct KB United to take up the mantle of Steel City in the NSL.
They weren’t given much hope, but they took on the challenge all the same, making use of big hearts, fast legs and tough heads to form Newcastle Rosebud United.
Many expected them to be the whipping boys of Australian football. However, the established big clubs didn’t account for a fighting spirit that overshadowed any amount of skill and technique.
“We weren’t a flash team,” goalkeeper Clint Gosling told Fairfax Media in 2008.
“We just worked our nuts off for each other.”
Rosebud never really competed at the top of the table in the NSL league, though managed a respectable mid-table finish in their first season in 1984.
“It was a club on a shoestring,” Gosling said.
“Basically, we were amateurs. We didn’t get a zack for the whole season.”
Yet the league was just a sideshow to what was happening in the NSL Cup, with Rosebud fighting their way through to the final, and with it a showdown against powerhouse Melbourne Knights.
They’d played all their cup games on the road, and hurdled every superior side in their path, though the unfancied side from the coalface were still written off by experts and fans alike.
But on a cold mid-winter’s day at Olympic Park, Newcastle Rosebud went out to claim history.
Coached by the fiery Willie Gallagher, led in midfield by Senkalski, with Gosling in goals and Michael Boogaard, father of Nigel Boogaard, in defence, Rosebud did the unthinkable.
“We were complete underdogs,” Boogaard told Fox Sports last month.
“The bus driver who took us to the ground only got us there with around 45 minutes to spare ahead of the game. I think he went the long way from the airport. Our coach, Willie Gallagher, was filthy.
“We never expected to win – even in the paper it was all about the opposition.”
The man who grabbed the decisive goal was English striker Derek Todd, poking home the rebound of his own shot in the first half, with the score ending 1-0 to Rosebud.
The celebrations in the stands were understandably muted, but on returning back to Newcastle the party began at Adamstown’s licensed club.
Unfortunately, further financial woes meant Rosebud disappeared in 1986, despite finishing fifth in the northern conference. It was just two years after their historic triumph, and Newcastle was starved of football for four years before the Newcastle Breakers were born at Birmingham Gardens.
Now it’s the Newcastle Jets, and with the financial trouble ongoing at club with Nathan Tinkler, and Con Constantine before him, it’s worth remembering the Rosebud class of 1984, and tipping your hat to Newcastle’s football history.
It’s a major reason why KB United still has a special place in the hearts of Newcastle fans with long memories or a keen interest in history.
This city has deep roots in the sport, and a major reason football still has a large following in the Hunter is because of Newcastle KB United and their successor Rosebud United.
There’s a lot of love for those teams of the past, which continues to shine through for the Jets. In these times of woe and misfortune for Newcastle football, it’s moments like the NSL Cup win that helps lighten the mood, and reminds us of the game’s origins in the coalfields.
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