History of soccer in Brisbane, Queensland

The earliest known records of regular soccer games in Brisbane date from the early 1880s, when a group comprising mostly Scottish immigrants commenced playing at Queen's Park, adjacent to Alice and Edward Streets in the city (now part of the City Botanic Gardens) and vacant land in Melbourne Street South Brisbane, between Grey and Stanley Streets. This group of players subsequently formed the Anglo-Queensland Football Association in early 1884, and commenced playing fixtures at the sports field behind the Pineapple Hotel, in Main Street Kangaroo Point, and at Queen's Park, in June 1884.

After a promising start, the game in Brisbane then developed erratically, hampered by the overwhelming popularity of the Rugby football codes: initially Rugby Union, which had commenced in Brisbane several years earlier, then rugby league from the 1920s onwards. The game also suffered from ongoing periodic disunity, caused initially by disaffected clubs from nearby Ipswich and later by disagreements over funding of the game and payments to players. In contrast with this the game boomed in Ipswich, with clubs from that city dominating Brisbane and combined Brisbane-Ipswich competitions until around 1960.

The large numbers of European and British immigrants arriving after World War II changed the character of the local game dramatically, as it led to the formation of wealthy ethnic-based clubs, which dominated Brisbane competitions during the 1960s and 1970s. This also created a perception amongst many members of the public that soccer was a 'migrants' game' (and as a result, sometimes referred to as 'wogball').^[1]

From the 1980s onwards, the local game thrived in terms of participation by junior and senior males and large numbers of female players, but not at a professional level. Despite a promising start, the Brisbane Roar FC, which joined the re-formed national A-League competition in its inaugural year (2005) and won the premiership in 2010-11 and 2013–14, and championships in 2011, 2012 and 2014, is yet to make serious inroads into the popularity enjoyed by the other football codes.

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