New book sheds light on Australian soccer origins
Mike Osborne |
A new book about the history of Australian soccer contains little-known facts about the birth of women’s football a century before this year’s home FIFA World Cup.
While the Matildas are still hoping to qualify for next month’s final in Sydney, the very first women’s match in Australia was played in the same city a hundred years earlier.
The inaugural Sydney Ladies Soccer Association was created in July 1921 and a Queensland association quickly followed, according to the newly released Australian Soccer From The Beginning.
The 336-page book, launched on Friday, was written by former athlete, AAP journalist, sports administrator, announcer, official, and soccer doyen Ted Simmons, OAM.
Former Socceroos captain Paul Wade has lavished praise on the book.
“Until now we’ve had to go to Wikipedia for the jigsaw version of Australia’s football history,” Wade said.
“Now we’ve got the factual, passionate, lived and loved version. If I want to have a conversation about who we are, this’ll be my go to.”
Simmons, 95 next week, said the book took him 20 years to compile.
While researching the history of the men’s game dating to 1880 was relatively simple, he found a disappointing lack of information about women’s football.
“There are many books and lots of information about men’s players and coaches, but hardly anything about the women,” he said.
“The more reluctance I faced searching for information about the history of women’s soccer in Australia, the more determined I became.
“I even found match details and images tucked away in forgotten boxes in old storage sheds at various state and regional federations.
“But once word got out, information from women’s clubs and officials started coming from everywhere.”
As a result the book is illustrated with a vast array of vintage images and memorabilia which bring to life the origins of the game.
It also details “the unbelievable bias against women in their efforts to play” including a ban on games at official Football Association pitches because of the old-world belief women should not play sport.
Pip Butler from PB Publishing said she was motivated to take on Simmons’ manuscript because “it’s a landmark publication in Australian sport”.
“I have never seen anything like this level of detail before, particularly in the research Ted did on the development of women’s soccer in every state and territory,” Butler said.
Simmons – a former player, coach, official and referee who was still officiating junior soccer games into his seventies – said he was delighted to have his book launched in Sydney during the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Australian Soccer From The Beginning by Ted Simmons OAM. RRP $45 + postage and packaging https://www.australiansoccerfromthebeginning.com/
AAP
