Episode 38 - Pandemic catch-up melange

Victorian club Northumberland & Durham,
pictured with the Dockerty Cup in 1914.

Download and listen to episode 38 here.

Paul and Ian are back on the air, from the comfort of their respective homes instead of from in the studio. We get Footscray Park bingo out of the way, with an article from the Argus from 1924, looking at the supposed "rugby-soccer" threat in Footscray as an argument for admitting the Footscray Football Club to the VFL in 1925. The article emphasises both the rapid growth in soccer, and the poor facilities of soccer. The writer perhaps exaggerates the potential of soccer in Melbourne to grow to such a stage where it could obtain enclosed grounds, but the article does show that there's an awareness of soccer as it exists in Footscray, where two of Victoria's strongest soccer clubs were playing out of at the time.

We also look at a high resolution photo of Northumberland & Durham, sourced via an English family collection - and we ponder the possibility of much of Australian soccer photo and artefact history residing in the United Kingdom. Then to the Mark Boric Express, who continues to upload materials to his blog. Kudos also to Simon Boegheim and the Queensland Football History Association and the work they've been doing. The former writer on Australian soccer Jesse Fink has released an abridged digital version of his book 15 Days In June, about the Socceroos circa 2006 and before. Then some general meandering chat about the effects of the pandemic on all of us. Then some theory-based venting and thinking out loud about a particular criticism of Joe Gorman's Death and Life of Australian Soccer, in that he "wasn't there, so how could he write about it".

Walter Pless article from Soccer Action
April 22 1981, looking at Tasmanian
soccer's connection with New Zealand.

After the break, 100 Years Ago Today, where we visit Melbourne and find the paper's get a name wrong, and we look at some match reports - and foreshadowing the difficulty we'll have in getting results for Melbourne games in 1920. Then to Newcastle, with a surprising of amount of Catholic schools in competition; and the goings on at Weston, and consternation about the rules surrounding substitutes. And finally to Hobart, and more members of the Honeysett family than you can poke a stick at.

After that segment, some chat about the collaborative project set up by Tony Persoglia to set up and maintain a database (sorted by state) for interstate competition, and tour games by visiting clubs and visiting ships. We look at some of the strange outlets finding games to put in said database - including New Zealand's answer to OzFootball, Ultimate NZ Soccer. We also look at the historical posts being put up during the lockdown by Walter Pless, looking at key moments in Tasmanian soccer. And finally a shout out to the existence of the Facebook page dedicated to the Darwin Cubs, who participated in the Singaporean league in the mid-1990s.

In the final segment, Ian returns to an early part of his research, looking once more at early soccer in Mildura and Irymple, with new information thanks to some recent updates to Mildura newspapers on Trove - including the referee of Enoch Blount during a game between Mildura and Melbourne representative sides, after he was struck by a ball during the game.