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.

History

Mid-1800s: first football games in Brisbane

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):

ANNIVERSARY. TO the SPORTING BLADES of BRISBANE. BEING determined that the Anniversary [now called Australia Day] shall not pass over without a little fun, in addition to the usual English Sports, the Lads of Kangaroo Point CHALLENGE all comers to a Game of Foot Ball – preliminaries to be settled at the Commercial Inn, Kangaroo Point, on the evening of the 24th.Moreton Bay Courier – 20 January 1849

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.

1866: club formed 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."Brisbane Courier 25 May 1866

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."Brisbane Courier 2 June 1866

Original club members included: S. Hart, W. G. Macnish, W. H. Ryder, Charles Edward Wallen, G. Cowlishaw, and Tom Board.

Choice of Rules

It is not recorded why the club chose to adopt the contemporary Melbourne, rather than the Sydney, version of football. However Victorian football was far more popular and widespread than Sydney's of the time. There was regular competition with more than 14 clubs across Victoria and several schools playing it, whereas Sydney had just one club playing under Rugby School rules (and Rugby union was not formally codified until 1871). Several factors may have influenced the decision to adopt the Melbourne rules but it is significant that several of founding committee members were either Victorians, Victorian footballers and/or cricketers and some were involved in the early years of the code in Victoria. The timing of the Melbourne committee's redrafting of the laws was coincidentally drafted on 8th May which gave significant impetus for clubs across Australia to follow suit.

One of the members of Brisbane's rules committee, Charles Edward Wallen, was schooled at Scotch College in Melbourne, and played in experimental rules matches umpired by Melbourne Football Club founder Tom Wills in 1858. Tom Board and George Clencross-Smith were also both teammates of Wills at Geelong Football Club. Founding chair David Watterston was schooled in Melbourne after arriving in Australia from Scotland in 1853 before moving to Ipswich in 1860 working as editor of the Ipswich Herald then joining the Brisbane Courier in 1865. Watterson was a member of Brisbane's Victorian Cricket Club (formed 1863 and consisting of ex-Victorian players). The Victorian Club had on 26 May proposed that cricket ground make way off-season for football. Board, Ryder, Cowlishaw and Macnish were also all playing members of Victorians Club. Significantly, on 1 June 1866, the Brisbane Courier published the Melbourne Football Club rules as the official rules for the Queensland colony.

First games The club had its first game on Saturday 9 June 1866, as reported in the Brisbane Courier a week later:

About thirty members of the Brisbane Foot-ball Club mustered in the Queen's Park [now part of the City Botanic Gardens – see image below] on Saturday afternoon, and played a scratch match. This was the first general turn out of the new club.Brisbane Courier 16 June 1866

The club also played matches on the 'cricket ground', located in the area then known as 'Green Hills' (beside Countess Street Petrie Terrace opposite the Victoria Barracks – now occupied by the Northern Busway), where cricket matches were also played since at least the early 1860s.

The Brisbane Courier reported in July 1866:

THE members of the Brisbane Football Club had a turn out on Saturday afternoon, and played several games. The place of meeting was the cricket ground. Though the muster was not large, the play was conducted in a spirited manner; and there were many good struggles before a goal was kicked. The ground was slippery in many places, and, as a matter of course, several "spills" occurred. There will be a practice at the Queen's Park this afternoon, the cricket ground being rather too far from the centre of the city.Brisbane Courier 2 July 1866

The club initially played intra-club matches, with teams selected arbitrarily. A second club was proposed, and shortly later Civil Service appeared, formed possibly after 19 July to facilitate scratch matches between the two clubs.

A newspaper report listed the players for a 'Civil Service' team (Messrs. Boyce, French, J. Bourne, Scarr, Perse, Hill, T. B. Watterston, Mills, Coley, Stewart, Bunton, Gill, Burrowes, Ryder, King, Pugh, Darvall, Costello, Pounden, Somerset, Bourne, Kellett, and Miles) to play the 'All Comers' team (Messrs. Munce, Cowlishaw, Garbut, Horsley, Sheridan, Board, Faunce, Highfield, Watterston, Sheehan, Hart, Tregurtha, Zillman, G. Smith, E. Webb, H. Webb, Fowles, Kelly, Macquarie, Cotham, Millar, Miskin, and Everest).Brisbane Courier 21 July 1866

The Brisbane Courier further reported in late 1866: "ON the football ground [Queen's Park], on Saturday afternoon, there was no match; but two sides were chosen, and a very lively game was played ...Five goals were kicked ... The football season will end in a few weeks and the committee of the club contemplate getting up some athletic sports as an appropriate finale."Toowoomba, Brisbane Courier, 13 August 1866

In 1867, the club was already experimenting with multiple codes, including, by all appearances matches in the 11 man British Association rules against the Volunteer Artillery club which included players from around the world.

By early 1868, it appears the club was struggling somewhat – at its second annual meeting, Chairman Watterston reported that "Your committee ... though not able, in speaking of the operations of the past season, to refer to them as a perfect success ... can yet congratulate the members upon the satisfactory manner in which the game was carried on during the greater part of the season ... The number of paying members on the list at the beginning of last season was 68, and 15 new members joined the club in 1867. The total number, however, was reduced by 31 who resigned or left the city, and by 7 who were struck off in consequence of their subscriptions being unpaid. The total number of paid members to begin the present season with is 45."

It was also noted that "Your committee have still to regret the absence of a rival club ... Perhaps, considering the number of names on the books last year, the formation of a second club would rather retard than advance the game in Brisbane just now." The Queenslander 30 May 1868

However, it appears the 1868 season was more successful – at the annual general meeting held at Lenneberg's Café, Queen Street, on 28 May 1869, chairman Watterston reported "Your committee ... feel that they have cause to congratulate the members on the continued interest manifested in the game during the past season, as will be seen from the large attendance at all the practices ... Three first-class matches have, however, been played – two with the Police ... and the other by the club, and one with the 50th Regiment (Queen's Own), in which the club proved victorious." The Queenslander 5 June 1869

The club competed against four ad hoc teams in the Brisbane area between 1868 and 1869, including Volunteer Artillery, the newly formed Brisbane Grammar School (then located on land which is now the Roma Street railway station) a Civil Service team and a police team, playing eight games in its inaugural 'inter-club' season. Brisbane Courier 11 July 1868

1870s: Opposition clubs formed

Dr Kevin O'Doherty became president of the club in 1870. He would continue his presidency until returning to Ireland in 1885, a couple of years before the club folded.AFL in Queensland

By 1870, the Ipswich Football Club had formed and became the only other organised club in the region and hence the Brisbane club's only competition. The Queenslander 28 May 1870 Brisbane won the first three games of that season.

By 1871 the club was acting as the governing body for the code in the colony, convening a committee of clubs to govern the rules of the game locally.

First Soccer match in Queensland (1875)