Rugby
in the Colony of New South Wales
Sean Fagan - ColonialRugby.com.au
The Sydney Gazette and the
Sydney Monitor reported in the late winter of 1829 of
soldiers at the Hyde Park barracks amusing themselves most days
by playing football.

James
'Bunty' McMahon - played for New South Wales and Randwick
during the late 1880s and 1890s.
Source: The
Rugby Rebellion |
Intriguingly, the Sydney Monitor
account refers to football being a game "much played in Leicestershire"
- somewhat significant given that the town of Rugby and its famed
school are in the neighbouring Warwickshire county.
The football though played in Sydney
through the 1830s-1850s was traditional folk football, which was
a usual feature of English festivals and holiday celebrations.
Sydney was the first settlement in the Australian colonies, however
by the middle part of the 19th century it had been usurped by
Melbourne in terms of both population and economic power. Consequently,
the movement towards organised football clubs lingered well behind
the Victorian capital and the formation of the Melbourne FC in
1859.
However,
some informal football appears to have been played, with a letter-writer
to The Sydney Morning Herald (5 Dec. 1860) momentarily
digressing from political matters to mention "...for the
bare fun of the thing, the manhood of the colony will have a kick
at the football."
Conducting
its inaugural meeting in 1865, the Sydney FC holds the honour
of being the NSW colony's first football club. The members of
the club played a game amongst themselves on 17 June at Hyde Park.
The
first 'inter-club' match took place between Sydney FC and a team
placed in the field by the Australian Cricket Club on 8 July 1865.
The Sydney FC finished the day ahead one goal to nil, and in accordance
with Rugby School tradition, the game continued on the following
two Saturdays. No report has been found of which club ultimately
won the match, although it is interesting to note that the second
Saturday was played in "the presence of about six hundred
spectators" [The Sydney Morning Herald].
| "Bell's
Life in Sydney" 22 July 1865.
"Judging
from the large number of public who assembled on Hyde
Park on Saturday last to witness the match between the
Sydney and Australian Clubs, we think that it is not likely
to lose ground by its importation from the old country.
The
only clubs at present formed for its promotion are the
Sydney and the Australian."
|
Two
months later, students at the University of Sydney are recorded
playing matches against each other, seemingly in preparation for
a match against Sydney FC held on August 19.
It
has been thought that University* formed a football club in 1863
or '64, however, there is no documented evidence to confirm this.
The University's archives, as well as the contemporary newspapers,
record no mentions of football involving the University, including
matches amongst the students, until after the arrival of Sydney
FC in the winter of 1865.
This
appears to be supported by the Bell's Life in Sydney
report (see above) and comments made by Richard Teece in the Sydney
Morning Herald in 1907 - Teece recalled taking part in the
formation of Sydney's first football club '42 years ago'. Teece
was referring to the Sydney FC team, which is reported in The
Sydney Mail of June 10, 1865 to have been formed after meetings
on May 30 and June 7.
None
of the matches were held entirely under the rules of Rugby School,
though its underlying principles and features were followed. The
Sydney Mail reported in 1874 that Sydney football in the
1860s was a time when "each club had its own rules."
| "The
Sydney Morning Herald" 26 August 1865.
"A
game of football was played on the University grounds
on Saturday last, between the Sydney Football Club and
members of the University. No goal was kicked."
"The
Sydney Morning Herald" 2 June 1866.
"...not
only is the [Sydney] Club favourably looked upon in this
city, but that its fame (principally through the report
of its excellent matches with the Australian and University
Clubs) has extended to the neighbouring colony of Victoria..."
|
In
1866 a move to introduce 'Victorian rules' (later called Australian
rules) to Sydney seems to have caused a rift between the clubs.
In early June the Sydney FC announced it had adopted Victorian
rules, and intimated a inter-colonial match (Sydney v Melbourne)
was close to fruition.
By
1867 arguments over playing rules had left only the University
Club, and a team placed in the field by the Military and Civil
Cricket Club, playing any football at all (which was primarily
based on rugby rules).
All
the matches at this time (a total of four in 1867) were played
on the University Oval and were umpired by John Jackson Calvert.
Calvert was well versed in the various forms of football in England,
particularly the rules of the Rugby School. He had attended Oxford
University and his father was a professor at Cambridge University.
Calvert was a well known man in Sydney, a member of the NSW parliament
and one of the colony's cricket selectors for matches against
Victoria.
Club
football was momentarily revived in early July 1868 with the founding
of a new Sydney FC. The Sydney Mail noted (July 4) that
the club had twenty playing members, and that the enthusiasm to
form the club had been triggered by the growing interest for football
clubs in Melbourne. The Sydney Morning Herald (1 August)
observed that "The old English game of football appears to
acquire attractions for the inhabitants of Sydney every year.
Several clubs are now in course of formation."
It
proved to be a "false dawn" for the sport in Sydney,
and only four matches are known to have been played at all during
1868-69.
The
largest obstacles to growth in the sport were a lack of grounds
on which football could be played and diagreement over rules.
The four matches of 1868-69 were held at the Victoria Barracks,
the Domain (until being refused further use of it) and the University
ground.
With
warmer weather than Melbourne, cricket in Sydney continued to
enjoy a 10-month long season, leaving football just July and August
in which to live a brief existence.
The
Wallaroo FC was formed in 1870 to play "according to the rugby
rules" by William 'Monty' Arnold with his older brother Richard.
Its initial impact was minimal, with the city again hosting a
mere 11 matches through 1870-71. It was however at this time that
schoolboy football began at the King's School and Newington College.
From
1872 onwards saw a rapid growth in the formation of football clubs.
The increase in interest in football coincided with the population
of Sydney rising by almost half by 1871 (from 96,000 in the mid
1860s to just under 138,000) as the city began on the path towards
overtaking Melbourne.
New gentlemen's clubs and private
school teams competed against each other, notably the King's School
(playing on the Parramatta Domain), along with St. Leonards, Lyndhurst
College, Camden College, Sydney Grammar School, Waratah FC, Balmain,
Newington College and a handful of others.
Having football played under the patronage of the schools also
provided a solution to the problem of the lack of playing fields
in Sydney. Credit must also be given to the leaders of the Wallaroos,
who negotiated with the City Council and gained agreement for
the use of Moore Park fields, within which the Sydney Cricket
Ground and Sydney Football Stadium now stand, and the NSW Waratahs
offices and training fields are located.
Lingering arguments over the differences
in the playing rules followed by each club or school reached a
head by 1874. The Wallaroo club proposed a football conference
of all teams to decide on a codified set of playing rules - unsurprisingly
the Wallaroo members pushed for the adoption of rugby rules, without
any alteration. The initiative succeeded, and the Southern Rugby
Football Union (NSWRU) was founded, adopting the English RFU's
laws.
In 1877 the NSWRU had thirteen member
clubs from the twenty-three known to be playing rugby football
in colony of New South Wales. To tighten its grip on the rugby
game, the Union adopted a rule that its clubs could only play
other member clubs - proposed matches against 'non-subscribing'
clubs had to receive prior approval.
During
the 1877 season the Waratah FC met Melbourne's Carlton FC in two
cross-code matches in Sydney, in attempt to showcase the attributes
of both codes in the hope of forging a football unification between
the two colonies. The NSWRU stood firmly against the plan, rejecting
all calls to amend the playing laws of rugby and bring football
in NSW closer to that being played in Victoria. Shortly afterwards,
the Waratah FC and other similarly-minded clubs founded an Australian
football association in Sydney.
| "Observer's
Sydney Items" in "The Maitland Mercury"
11 June 1881.
"Football
is all the rage here now. We have numerous clubs in Sydney,
and three different styles of game are played, viz.: the
Rugby game, the Victorian game, and the English Association
game. The first named is liked by far the best....The
Wallaroo, Redfern, University, Balmain, Sydney, East Sydney,
Burwood, St. Leonards, Parramatta, Glenhead, Newington,
Stanmore, King's School, and Grammar School teams are
looked upon as our best, whilst the four first named are
classed A1."
|
The
NSW rugby team (later called Waratahs) played its first inter-colonial
games in 1882, against Queensland (later called 'The Reds'), before
making a tour of New Zealand. The NZrs visited NSW in 1884, and
a British team toured Australia and New Zealand in 1888.
The exchange of visits led to the
continued growth of rugby, and by the 1890s the code firmly had
hold of the colony, thwarting attempts by Australian rules and
"British Association" soccer to gain the ascendancy.
In July 1907 a crowd of 52,000 filled
the SCG to over-flowing to watch a game between NSW and the New
Zealand All Blacks. The attendance was the largest of any "football"
game held to date in Australia, rivalled the scale of the USA's
Harvard-Yale game, and was only bettered by the English (soccer)
FA Cup Final.
However,
it was this financial and popular success that ultimately led
to a rift in NSW rugby that split the code along the amateur v
professional ideals (rugby league).
*The
conclusion that Sydney University club was not formed until August
1865 (i.e. after the Sydney and Australian FCs) is also found
in "They Ran With the Ball" by Tom Hickie (page
43) and "Guardians of the Game" by John Mulford
(page 11).
References.
Sean Fagan, The Rugby Rebellion
Thomas Hickie, They Ran With The Ball
The Sydney Morning Herald
NSWRU / ARU archives
Keyword related: NSW Waratahs Rugby
©
Copyright
- Sean Fagan - ColonialRugby.com.au
|