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.

Episode 85 - Establishing and maintaining Australian soccer history's web presence

Download and listen to this episode here. 

This week Paul is joined in hosting duties in the studio by Greg Stock, and remotely by Garry McKenzie.

Paul notes that he received a present from Greg in the mail, which took so long to arrive that Greg ended up in Melbourne before it. Paul wraps up some Football Belongs feedback, including a tribute at Edensor Park for Ivan "Gilligan" Rendulic. Garry discusses trying to figure out whether there was a family connection between Alec Gibb (Socceroo #51) and Angus "Billy" Gibb (Socceroo #51a) - and an explanation of how mistakes like "missing" Socceroos get made, and then corrected. Greg talks about the process of starting the process of rehabilitating the accuracy of OzFootball's National Soccer League records, and the processes involved in making decisions when informed by sources with contradictory information. We also look at the revamped format of the pages, which will include links to match programs and match footage.

Our main discussion this week focuses on Football Australia's relaunch of the historical online pages, and the status of the equivalent state pages - where they exist. We discuss the holes and shortcomings and mistakes of FA's effort, but we also acknowledge that it's a massive step in the right direction, and we look forward to seeing how future improvements, now that the framework is in place. Especially pleasing is that the Hall of Fame has now been updated significantly from its previous semi-derelict state. And how much information is too much? And what's the next step? And how maybe, just maybe, that the existence of an Australian soccer history community means things like this project happen.

But going around the state federation history websites, and while the situation generally shows improvement from previous efforts, there are still several federations with negligible online historical presence. So far have we progressed since we last did a deep dive on this issue all the way back in episode 6? Who's the benchmark now? What resources are being allocated for improvements? What's going on in the background?

In the final segment, it's a Garry McKenzie curated 100 Years Ago Today, where Garry notes that Ipswich clubs were dominating the main Queensland league competition, and the first mention of the Tristram Shield; then to Weston, and the death of a local soccer player known only as "Pearce"; there's also the death of Edwin (Teddy) Aldred, an English footballer who had played for Leeds City's reserves, an had an extended - albeit contested - history of playing soccer in Australia; and we look at the beginnings of women's soccer in Australia, as discussions start in the press about going ahead with such a project.