Research Random Footy History article thread (Trove/Google etc)

killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Hard labour for playing football in the street:



B.Herbert Richmond:






1608229885052.png


 
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Oct 19, 2020
21,738
31,465
AFL Club
Richmond
Hard labour for playing football in the street:



B.Herbert Richmond:






View attachment 1029804

The playing football in the street article was a ripper .
 

killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
how many times over years did the Richmond boundary fence collapsed?
there's quite a few entries on trove
(1909, 1921, 1927, 1931, 1939, 1949)

More interesting is the bit below it (Williamstown v Elstenwick)




Cycle Polo played at the half time interval Nth Melbourne v Footascray 1904

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Hitt'em where it hurts



Merry Christmas
 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Charles Forrester

Difficult to read so here it is:

FOOTBALL IN 60's

Veteran Looks Back

PLAYERS WORE LONG PANTS

Senior footballers playing solemnly in jerseys and long flannel trousers
Grounds that were mere roped enclosures dotted with potholes and patches of gravel,
with the playing area contracting steadily as the excited crowd moved in.

Back through a vista of 65 years to the momentous day when a pair of scarlet football stockings
were gazed upon with wonder for the first time in Melbourne, is the range of recollection of
Mr Charles Forrester, who, at 84, is the oldest living senior footballer in Victoria.

Mr Forrester consented to bounce the ball for the pre-war veterans' match at the charity sporting carnival today.
Mr Forrester, who is prominent in the real estate world, is a commissioner of the State Savings Bank and a
vice-president and trustee of the Melbourne Cricket Club.

ONLY FOUR CLUBS

"It is so long ago since I played football," said Mr Forrester today, "that my recollection of personalities
in the game, in the distant past is growing a little dim. I played cricket with East Melbourne long ago,
and on looking the other day at a photograph of 14 players with whom I had played I found that I
was the only member of the group who was still alive."

Seventy years ago Mr Forrester completed his education at Scotch College. He took up both cricket
and football in his spare time and in 1868 he first played for the Melbourne club. Football was then in its infancy,
and the captain of the Melbourne team of that year was the founder of the Australian game, the late Mr H. C. A. Harrison.

"There was nothing in the nature of an association at that time," said Mr Forrester.
"We had four football clubs in Melbourne, and there was a kind of unwritten agreement that in the winter we
played one another in a competition. The clubs were Carlton, Melbourne, Albert Park, the forerunner of
the present South Melbourne team, and Hotham (North Melbourne)."

CRICKET FIELDS SACRED

Cricket fields were sacred then. No cricket club in Melbourne in the late sixties would suffer its ground
to be scarred by the boots of footballers. To allow footballers to play on a cricket field was then considered
to be the surest way to destroy it for the playing of cricket. The days when football and cricket clubs
were to work in harmony were still a long way off.

The Melbourne football club, of which Mr Forrester was a member, was not permitted to encroach on the cricket area,
which was the forerunner of the present Melbourne Cricket Ground. All football matches had to .be played outside in what
today is Yarra Park.

"'There were slopes and hollows. and stones and holes." said Mr Forrester, "and football then was a rugged
pastime with a vengeance. H. C. A. Harrison, our first captain, was followed by James Byrne. Then B. Goldsmith
look charge, and I became captain of Melbourne in 1875. "We wore flannel trousers, and special football stockings
were unknown."

Then Mr Larrie Bell, an enthusiast, on a visit to England in 1872, saw football stockings worn in a match there.
He brought back three pairs of vivid scarlet stockings, We were so impressed with them that they were
at once adopted by the Melbourne club. Curious enough, the club In the intervening 63 years has
never departed from red stockings as part of Its uniform, After 1876 there were no long-trousered footballers.

"SCORING TOO HIGH"

"In the seven years in which I played," said Mr Forrester, "we had 20 men a side and only goals counted.
Those goals wore much more difficult to score then than now. It was rugged football and with 40 men on
the field there was not very much chance of opening out the game."

"I think that the scoring is becoming too high nowadays, A cross bar on the goals as in rugby to my mind
would make players earn their goals and would prevent many of those fluky and dribbled goals that
are scored today,"

Mr Forrester said that In the early seventies the average aggregate score in matches between the four
old clubs Would be only three or four goals. Two to one, or, three to two were the customary finishes.

"My football career ended in 1875," said Mr Forrester. "We played a team representing the Army.
They were good chaps, but they put plenty of vigour into their game. I went down in a crush
and got the skin torn off one side of my face. When my employer saw my face he said,
'Forrester, it is time that you gave up that violent game.'

"I played much cricket after that, of course. In fact I have played much more cricket than football.
One sport I do dislike is rowing. I competed for a cup in a rowing race on the Yarra from
Branders Ferry to Princess Bridge in the seventies. I will never forget the strain of that contest,
and I never sat in a boat again."
 
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35Daicos

Premium Platinum
Mar 6, 2011
8,952
11,843
Adelaide
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
Collingwood (VFL), Man Utd.
View attachment 1038570
Lost the tape to this (see above)
From memory Skilton said he kicked a goal with his first kick in league football
Can you confirm this ?
Would he be the most notable footballer to achieve this?
The 2020 AFL Season Guide lists 274 documented cases of players scoring a goal with their first kick. Skilton's name is not there. He kicked 2 goals on debut, so it will be interesting to see if a match report confirms it.

Gordon Coventry, Tony Lockett and Ted Whitten snr. are arguably the most famous names on the list.

Football Record:
1610256549262.png


On This Day: Skilton's debut (sydneyswans.com.au)
1610256715045.png

The match reports in The Age and The Argus say nothing on the matter. South Melbourne did only manage one goal in the first quarter, and it seems Skilton started on the ground. It's pretty clear his first kick in senior football was not a goal.
 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Just the bit about the fence (North Fremantle v Old East)


Dyer

Early Adelaide Football

Elephant

Elephant


1611467625858.png


1611467680951.png
 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
"Confiscated"


Marbles


They must have something against WP (Bingo!)



how did sporting clubs make money if they couldn't raffle a chook ?
 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Royce Hart

 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
"You never get the chance to flatten anyone in soccer," he said.
"The Australian game's much more exciting."



'This sounds like the work of a football fanatic
who has become obsessed with the game," he said today.





WA Footballers (1954)




Jimmy Melbourne (West Perth and Subiaco)




 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
New Guinea 1944



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1616304298784.png





 

killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast


Buried treasure


Broken Hill August 1905

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1617428986105.png



"REFERENCE HAS OFTEN BEEN MADE to the ballet-like poses unconsciously adopted for a split second by Australian Rules footballers in a game.
Here is a comparison that supplies the proof. The girls are from the "Oklahoma!" company."
- Argus July 1949

1617429343465.png
 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
National League 1986


Worrall 1936





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State of Origin 1944


Pratt

 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Colin Martyn master of the Silly turn (Sport Globe)

Various Articles on Barney Grecian (West Perth / Essendon)

Daily New 1934
Worker 1919
Sporting news 1931

Football in the 80s

Football times yearbook 1983 (Adelaide)

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Tjakulpa kuwarritja June 1987 (Papunya community newsletter)

1618199574374.png





Tom Everett East Perth 1956
 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast

between the posts 1924


Northern Territory Times April 1897
the laws of the "Australian' game arrive in Darwin
...20 years later organized football follows
not much happened between

1618568649434.png





"The other boundary consists
of a solid wall of rock, about six feet up
which is a small and narrow path
which leads to two tin sheds for the
spectators' use."

Sound dramatic. Does this place still exist?


 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast

Universal football




Monkey business

Various Mischief
 
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killer

Club Legend
Feb 23, 2001
2,604
584
a van down by the river
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Argus 20 Jun 1907

1622247708890.png



The Bulletin May 1979
Batman's Melbourne : How sinful Sydney got Melbourne's Sunday Footy


Football in Vic more rugged June 1954 Herald

 
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