The day an errant kick nearly brought World War I to Sydney

Kanga, see Grobbelaar's comment with link above.

nice, thanks Kanga

I believe the Ffa did nothing.

thanks Kanga. So did it ever get published? If so what has the FFA done with it?

Hi Paul Your work today , has just rekindled my interest in reading pre war football. I have just found some of mr Syson work , what a gem. I always thought Newcastle was the origin of football in the colonies, but Melbourne and Sydney can predate Newcastle I believe. I have copied some poems which hopefully add to the ww1 theme of your article today . Cheers

Warwick Daily News 26 September 1921, page 5. Sourced from Trove nla.gov.au Australian women’s football can be traced back over a century. They played informal games during WWI, the Great Depression and WWII. Organised games were reported in NSW and QLD during the early 1900s; in 1921 a Gabba crowd of 10,000 witnessed a game between North and South Brisbane. Yet it wasn’t until the 1970s that women’s football took on a more structured form. This was the decade in which women’s football began to take a foothold worldwide. During this period the Matildas took their name.

Mods. It is so relevant to this historical piece by the author . Please have the courtesy to submit this . Thank you Re: The Game that Gave its All I lecture in writing at Victoria University in Melbourne and in 2009 completed a six-month stint as Writer-in-Residence at the FFV in Darebin. I have been and still am involved in the writing projects around the 125 years of football in Victoria. In the course of my research I have discovered an angle which I believe would be of great benefit to football in Australia were it to be developed and exploited to the full. While the historical record of football is patchy up until the First World War, it is a noble one of pioneers striving against great odds to introduce the game across Australia. They are bedevilled by war and Depression as well as resentment and resistance from more entrenched codes. Yet they keep on striving. A calamitous disruption to our game was of course the First World War, in which a great many footballers enlisted – to such an extent that the game went into recess across the nation in or around 1916, only to be resumed, fitfully, once hostilities ceased. There are many personal tragedies involved in this mass enlistment. A great many footballers were never to return. After only brief research it is clear that our game sacrificed much for the ANZAC cause. For example, the Caledonian club in Perth lost eight players. Tiny Irymple lost five of its eleven, one of whom was killed at Gallipoli. The Broken Hill Club lost at least one member. It is a story repeated across Australia and it needs to be uncovered. There is immense value in documenting all footballers who played in Australia prior to 1916 with the intention of creating a database and analyses that demonstrated the numbers of footballers who enlisted in the war. For example, 230 of the 340 men who had played the game in Adelaide in 1914 had enrolled by 1916. I suspect we would find a story of great sacrifice and commitment to the nation’s development within our game. From the research I will publish a substantial book, the working title of which, The Game that Gave its All underlines the message. It strikes me that football in Australia has an uncomfortable relationship with its own history. That is understandable. There is much that is unpleasant and embarrassing to be found in our annals. What I suggest is a means of delving into an unquestionably honourable chapter in our history that would have the benefit of demonstrating just how much football is tied to the tragedy of ANZAC. It would lock us in as a vital contributor to what is seen as the single most important moment in the development of our sense of nation. I believe that once this research is completed and disseminated, the notion that football is some kind of new or foreign or unAustralian game could be done away with for good. With the centenary of ANZAC (2014) looming, the research would be well timed for outcomes in that year. As an academic researcher I am well placed to do this work. As an ex-player, football supporter and soccer-dad I am committed to promoting and developing what is good about the beautiful game. I would be happy to follow this up with a discussion should you be happy to talk further. Yours faithfully, Dr Ian Syson I found this regarding ww1 and football in Victoria. This man Ian Syson appears to be a great football historian .

I severely doubt that all British born clubs are gone in Sydney, they just might play in the lower divisions nowadays The original club in Sydney were the Wanderers in 1880 , how’s that for longevity, Wanderers are still going in 2018 Minmi rangers in 1884 in Newcastle Adamstown rosebuds are still going strong after 125 years , the rosebuds famously played Manchester utd . They have produced ray baartz and col curran . There are many football/ soccer clubs in Newcastle that are 100 years or older . They were in existence before any rugby union or league was assembled. Would be interesting to find out about which players / clubs in the region were affected by men going off to the war..

Futher to what I just wrote, interesting article in latest 442: https://www.fourfourtwo.com.au/news/ffas-house-of-cards-481305 FFA'S HOUSE OF CARDS... By Staff Writer Jan 17 2018 The House of Cards built up by Steven Lowy and David Gallop is perilously close to collapsing after key state federations rebelled against the chairman and chief executive to demand change.

Midfielder Rightly or wrongly, the answer to your question, at least in part, is continuity and longevity, or lack thereof. Many of the British clubs which existed pre-WWII are gone, at least in Melbourne, the original league may even be gone. New clubs arise post-WWII, then a brand new national league is established in 1977, clubs come and go, and then that comes to an end, and new league and clubs are formed. No continuity, no longevity.

The tales of the pre 1972 Socceroos I read about, possibly from Johnny Warren book , but there is so much history of football in Australia pre dating ww2 immigration . I’ll do some research, but I think some good books have written about the evolution of football/ soccer around Newcastle with the British migrating to the coalfields throughout last century. I think football doesn’t celebrate how strong the game has been and still is .....I guess from a New South Wales heritage at least . And midfielder you are correct in saying that the Newcastle print and television media although highly supportive of the breakers , kB United, and now the jets and has genuinely given football a very fair share of coverage during the last 30 years . ..., I think it’s just a country / regional thing to do .

The tales of the pre 1972 Socceroos I read about, possibly from Johnny Warren book , but there is so much history of football in Australia pre dating ww2 immigration . I’ll do some research, but I think some good books have written about the evolution of football/ soccer around Newcastle with the British migrating to the coalfields throughout last century. I think football doesn’t celebrate how strong the game has been and still is .....I guess from a New South Wales heritage at least . And midfielder you are correct in saying that the Newcastle print and television media although highly supportive of rugby league has genuinely given football a very fair share of coverage during the last 30 years . ..., I think it’s just a country / regional thing to do .

MF I cringed when she was asked about AFLW. I mean talk about elite level sport and bringing backyard fumble ball into the same conversation. Ch 7 and their relentless cross promotion of their own "products" (as opposed to relevance and significance) is one of the reasons I stay away from msm as much as possible

G You raise a hhhhmmmm the right word fails me but interesting [way to light a word] in that Football's history across Australia is largely both unrecorded by say the media and key players in Australian culture... The Vietnam match is another the springs to mind.... The control of the media and how that in turn plays out into how latter day academics think and study is an !!!???? not sure ... In part no mainstream media network be it radio, TV or newspapers from say from the early 1920's till maybe only a few years ago was often openly hostile to Football..... to my knowledge only the Hunter / Newcastle region maintained a balanced media over this time.... SBS came along and they seemed to ignore pre 60's Football history often openly stating it was the European migrants of the 50's / 60's / 70's that grew and made the game... so even our own media ignored our history... A classic example of this media control was last night in the tennis... Australian (Russian immigrant) Daria Gavrilova wins her game and in the post match all the Channel 7 commentator wants to ask about is some relative that plays in the AFLW. Another was when Port Adelaide [I think] played a match in China the coverage was massive and in the news constantly yet A-League AFC matches and International matches receive a fraction of this coverage... On the Port match the morning host on channel 7 who is also a director of Port said on the 7 morning show that the match between in China would be the first truly professional sporting match held in China or words to that effect and like wow how he was not laughed off the air is amazing... So yer how we get our history known is IMO part of the evolution that needs to happen ...

Thanks Grobbelaar. Good link too, with layered links all interesting. That a large number of our Servicemen in WW1 and indeed in WW2, were British born is an indicator that football would have been a major sport played by them. It's not unusual, when looking at Unit Association websites where you find the more personal photos rather than the official ones, to see photos of Unit football teams with several divisions. There's a good book about WW2 POWs playing sport, The Sportsmen of Changi by Kevin Blackburn, which plays up Ausy Rules and Rugby (League more so), but both sports were banned within 12 months at Changi due injuries. Soccer then became the major sport, with cricket although as in your comment, I think more soccer was played more than the book indicates. Our forces were part of the British contingents after all, in both WWs. Historically, of the football codes, Rugby Union is the major one played by the Services mainly because of the strong influence of private school old boys in the Officer corps. When the enlisted men ran the show, as in POWs, rugby league more so.

a picture of them playing was published just recently (over Christmas)

Enjoyed the read

Ww1. During the Christmas truce It is recorded that British and German soldiers played football on the infamous No mans land in France .