Birkenmeier was the Cosmos’ starting goalie for three consecutive Soccer Bowls (’80, ’81 & ’82), man united tracksuit and did not concede a goal in any of them. The 1946 season opened brightly, with 31 teams contesting Brisbane senior competitions in three divisions. In 2003, Brisbane Men’s soccer re-structured its senior competition into a semi-professional ‘Premier League’ with three divisions (Premier, Division 1 and Division 2 and accompanying reserve grade competitions) and an amateur ‘Metropolitan League’, with no limit to the number of divisions. Play resumed in 1944, with the ‘A’ Grade comprising six teams: Blackstone, Bundamba Rangers, Corinthians, Eastern Suburbs, St Helens and Y.M.C.A. The teams for the 1940 season included Blackstone, Booval, Bundamba, Corinthians, Easts, Latrobe, Wynnum and YMCA. However, the Ipswich ‘decline’ may have started as early as 1940 (see above). Brisbane City and Brisbane Lions continued playing in the NSL, with little success (apart from 1981, as noted above).
As a part of the announcement, the Union agreed to dissolve their partnership with the Harrisburg City Islanders. A significant development for soccer and adversely for Rugby Union was the establishment of the game as an official sport in the private schools in the early 1990s (see Great Public Schools Association of Queensland). Anecdotally, this move was very strongly resisted by the Rugby fraternity in the schools, as they wished to maintain what was perceived as the traditions of amateur football (Rugby was not to become a professional game officially until 1995). Since that time, the game has developed such that many schools now have as many soccer teams as they have Rugby teams. In 2007, all of the Brisbane soccer bodies (Brisbane Men’s Football, Brisbane Women’s Soccer, Brisbane North & Districts Junior Soccer Association, Brisbane Southern Districts Junior Soccer Association and Soccer Australia Referees (Brisbane)) amalgamated to form Football Brisbane. The senior section of the club then went through a further merger with the Mitchelton football club, with some players rejoining to form Bardon Latrobe senior teams in the late 1970s through to the early 1980s. From the mid-1990s, the club played only in Brisbane junior competitions, but in 2011 rejoined the ranks of senior football, with teams in the Brisbane men’s and women’s leagues.
The Code in Brisbane in the 2000s continues to suffer some disunity, with ongoing disagreements between Brisbane clubs and both the Brisbane and State associations, regarding the structure of various junior and senior competitions and the allocation of resources. The first results recorded for a Toowong ‘soccer’ club were in 1913, whilst reports also refer to a Toowong Caledonians ‘soccer’ club and a ‘new’ Toowong senior club forming in the early 1920s. However, Toowong clubs appear to have disbanded then re-formed a few times over the decades. The Latrobe club first appears in newspaper reports in 1917, playing at Gregory Park (adjacent to the Milton State School). Brisbane Soccer Record, 12 August 1925, article by club president R L Waddell. The State-wide Queensland State League (QSL) was established in 2008 as the second tier below the A-League, and included local teams the Brisbane Strikers, Olympic FC and Redlands Devils in the inaugural season.
In 1979, a Queensland-wide State League competition was commenced, with Grange Thistle winning the inaugural premiership and grand final. This image, from the John Oxley Library at the State Library of Queensland, if correctly dated, is more likely a photograph of a Brisbane ‘Melbourne rules’ team and possibly the Rangers FC, rather than Brisbane FC, which played in scarlet, as noted above (Melbourne rules was played with a near-spherical ball at that time). Oxley club reached its pinnacle in the late 1950s, winning the First Division premiership and a number of cup and shield competitions. The oldest extant club in continuous existence appears to be Oxley United FC (formerly Oxley Soccer Club and Oxley Ramblers) which, according to club records, was established in 1912 or 1913. Oxley first appears in news reports for Brisbane football in 1918, then joined the Ipswich association in 1930 and rejoined the combined Brisbane-Ipswich association in 1937, in which it has played continuously to date. Since only amateurs could take part in the Olympic Games which were to be held in Melbourne in 1956, there was a considerable incentive to ensure that the game was kept free of any taint of professionalism, just at the point when its popularity was taking off as a spectator sport which allowed the emergence of semi-professionalism on a significant scale for the first time.
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