Episode 86 - the rise of women's football in Queensland and Sydney

Download and listen to this episode here.

Paul is here. Ian is sort of here. And the banter is also here.

The big news this week is that Mark Boric has retired from his research, archiving, and preservation work on his blog. For the time being at least however, Mark has committed to keeping up his site.

Ian has an update on a segment from last week's episode, where he digs further into the Edwin Aldred story, and the complicated backstory therein: including a contested military history, changing heights and hair colours, and hard fought insurance claims - a saga lasting even posthumously. Ian also follows up on "Pearce" from last week, finding that it's a Samuel Pearce, where we dig into the socio-cultural environment of Weston during that time, including its soccer, musical, and sectarian qualities. 

After the break we go into 100 Years Ago Today, where we get distracted by the history of accountancy and trade. The nurses at Toowoomba are considering starting a football team; more news of women looking to start soccer teams, and a curious reference to women's soccer in Melbourne; could such a thing have actually happened at that time? And plenty of other coverage of the rise of women's football in Queensland and Sydney, and the different ways in which this manifested itself. And Paul is trying to understand how the idea fermented among these women. Who initiated the discussions? What were the differences in approach and appeal for women from Britain compared to those from Australia? How much did the war time experiences influence the push for women's football? And the question which persists in the early history of Australian soccer: why play soccer in this country? And there's even a poem! 

Then the end of the show gets squeezed, hard.