Brisbane Football Club (1866–1887)
Brisbane Football Club (1866–1887)
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Brisbane Football Club (1866–1887)

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Brisbane Football Club (1866–1887)

The Brisbane Football Club is a defunct football club, formed in May 1866 in the colonial capital of Brisbane. Brisbane FC was the first known football club of any code in the Colony of Queensland. It was the first club outside Victoria to adopt what was then known as the 'Victorian rules' football (now known as Australian rules football) from 1866. It is also the first recorded club to have played multiple football codes in Queensland, including soccer (1867–1875) and rugby (1876–1879).

Between 1870 and 1877 it also served as the governing body for football in the colony. Even after it deferred the laws of the game to the Victorian Football Association in 1877 the club continued to have a strong influence on both Australian rules and rugby until the newly formed Queensland Football Association in 1880 officially conferred governance to the Victorian Association.

Following experimentation with other football codes, it re-committed to Australian rules (with occasional rugby matches) from 1879 after which it dominated in the sport. Playing in red and black hoops, in 1883 it earned the title the Invincible Reds. It had an intense rivalry with the Ipswich Football Club. In 1885, the club's junior feeder school Brisbane Grammar switched to rugby and as a result, from 1886 Brisbane FC began to uphold a strong preference for that code, fielding its best players in its rugby side and playing only its seconds in the QFA. Due in part to its lack of playing depth this tipped dominance in favour of Ipswich and the club was regularly defeated by large margins. The Invincible tagline was widely mocked during its final years and its Victorian rules side was known simply as The Reds.

Reputational damage due to its defections to rugby on its identity and damaging losses in both codes ultimately led to its demise in 1887. The club was to last around only 20 years, and its allegiance to rugby signalled the end of Australian rules popularity in Queensland.

Football has been played in Brisbane from very early times, as evidenced by this notice in The Moreton Bay Courier in 1849 (a mere 25 years after the arrival of the first white settlers in the Brisbane region, at which time the population was around 2000 people, many of whom were former convicts and poor Irish immigrants):

Given the inchoate nature of the various types of football at that time, they may have been playing simple mob football. Alternatively, they could have been playing in accordance with the recently published Rugby school rules (1845) or the Cambridge Rules (1848), the latter being the forerunner of association football rules. The game that was to become Australian rules football was not to be codified for another 10 years.

The Brisbane Football Club was formed at a meeting on 22 May 1866: the Brisbane Courier reported that "A meeting of gentlemen favorable to the formation of a Football Club in Brisbane was held on Tuesday, at Braysher's Metropolitan Hotel [formerly in Edward Street near Mary Street] ... a committee was appointed to prepare a code of rules ... The prospects of the club must be certainly very encouraging to the promoters, as already more than twenty gentlemen have joined, and a large number of others have signified their wish to do so."

At a subsequent meeting on 31 May "About 20 members were present; and the first business transacted was the election of twelve new members ... The annual subscription was fixed at 5s ... The uniform chosen was a scarlet shirt, with a distinguishing color for the captain ... A resolution was passed authorising the printing of the rules, as well as the laws of football passed at a meeting of delegates of clubs held in Melbourne on the 8th ult., which latter, it was decided, should be the laws recognised by the Brisbane Club."

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