Aboriginal People and Australian Football in the Nineteenth Century: They Did Not Come from Nowhere Roy Hay ISBN: 9781527526488 Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK, 2019. Hardback, A5, 315 pages, illustrated. RRP £64.99. Australia $99.00....
History of football
SESA is still in business
SESA is still in business Sports & Editorial Services Australia is saddened that Dennis Jones had to put his distribution company Dennis Jones & Associates into administration recently. SESA benefitted considerably from Dennis and his loyal and proactive...
Vietnam heroes celebrate their 50th anniversary
On 14 November 2017 the members of the Australian football team that went to Saigon and won our first international trophy celebrated the 50th anniversary of their victory over lunch at the Sydney Cricket Ground at the invitation of the SCG Trust. (Click on...
50th Anniversary of victory in Vietnam
50th Anniversary of the victory in Vietnam By Roy Hay In 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War, the Australian government, led by Harold Holt, agreed it would be a good idea if the national football team took part in a tournament in Vietnam to boost morale in some of...
Indigenous players didn’t invent Australian rules but they did make it their own
Aboriginal Australian men playing football in a paddock at Coranderrk. N. J Caire 1837-1918, photographer. State Library of Victoria. (This article was first published in The Conversation on 25 May 2017 and is republished here with permission) It would be wonderful if...
Playground fitba rules
Playground fitba rules We all know the rules to the senior game but do you remember the rules of Primary School playground fitba? (In other parts of the English-speaking world the game is known as football, in Australia it used to be called soccer). Duration Matches...
Who sponsors the AFC Bournemouth Under-10s?
Who sponsors the AFC Bournemouth Under-10s? (An abbreviated version of this story appeared as 'Butler ready to serve', in the Geelong Advertiser, Friday 1 May 2015, p. 58.) Roy Hay The fairy story of English football this season has been the transformation of AFC...
A missing part of a bigger picture
A missing part of a bigger picture Roy Hay This week Australians and others around the world will remember the carnage that was the two world wars of the 20th century and subsequent conflicts in Korea and Vietnam which took the lives of so many. Yet there are many...
A heterodox suggestion about the origins of football in Victoria
A heterodox suggestion about the origins of football in Victoria Roy Hay (This article first appeared in the Almanac on 3 April 2015 at http://www.footyalmanac.com.au/a-heterodox-suggestion-about-the-origins-of-football-in-victoria/ ) As the 2015 football season kicks...
Soccer in New South Wales 1880–1980
Phil Mosely Soccer in New South Wales, 1880–1980 has just been published by Sports and Editorial Services Australia and Vulgar Press, Bannockburn and Carlton, Victoria. It is available from all good booksellers via Dennis Jones and Associates at a recommended retail...
Vale Norm Hobson
Norman Hobson, 1935–5 December 2014 Roy Hay Norm Hobson was one of Australia’s best goalkeepers in the 1950s and 1960s. He arrived from England where he had played with Leeds United in 1955 and joined Moreland, quickly becoming the first choice keeper. He helped the...
Looking for the ideal Christmas present?
Looking for the ideal Christmas present? If you have any interest in the World Game in Australia then Roy Hay & Bill Murray, A History of Football in Australia: A Game of Two Halves, Hardie Grant, Melbourne, 2014 is the best buy. With 310 pages and illustrations...
Castlemaine Goldfields Football Club is 40 years old
Castlemaine Goldfields Football Club is 40 years old Roy Hay Castlemaine Goldfields Football Club celebrated its fortieth birthday with a full house of past and present players and supporters at New Northern on Saturday evening. Club legend Jim Shepherd, who turned 80...
New City go down like old Heart
Melbourne City 1 Sydney FC 3 Roy Hay The new Melbourne City was a bit like the old Melbourne Heart as it went down to Sydney FC at Morshead Park in Ballarat on Tuesday evening in the Round of 32 of the FFA Cup by three goals to one after extra time. On a bitterly cold...
Homage to di Stefano
Homage to di Stefano Roy Hay The death of Alfredo di Stefano at the age of 88 has robbed us of one of the greatest players the world of football has ever seen. Though a modern generation would mention Maradona, Lionel Messi, Pele as incomparable superstars, it is...
Bibliography to accompany A History of Football in Australia
A bibliography of Australian football The following list of books, articles, chapters, reports and other material relating to football in Australia was compiled by Roy Hay, Bill Murray, Paul Mavroudis and Ian Syson as an aid for people interested in the history of the...
Harry Kewell: Star Quality
Harry Kewell: Star quality Roy Hay Harry Kewell is bringing down the curtain on a stellar career at the end of the current A-League season. It is a pity that he could not make it to what would be his third World Cup in succession, but the body which has inhibited him...
Australian sport’s Mandela moment?
Australian sport’s Mandela moment?[1] Roy Hay Nelson Mandela, the recently deceased former president of the Republic of South Africa, was always conscious of the power of sport to symbolise, if not cause, social and political change. Hence his appearance in a...