The NSW Australian Football History Committee, a little known group formed just a few years ago to research and preserve the history of the game in Sydney, presented their first lecture on August 16. The `Ralph Robertson Lectures' will be presented annually.
The first presentation, `Ralph Robertson - Missing in Action', was an explanation of who Ralph Robertson was and the important contribution he made to Australian Football in NSW.
The 45 minute lecture was presented by Ian Granland, OAM, the chairman of the committee. Ian has been involved with the game for almost 40 years in Sydney and more recently on the Central Coast.
His presentation was enhanced with visual and sound elements and provided a valuable insight into the life of Ralph Robertson.
Robertson was a player in Sydney between 1903-1914. The game was revived in Sydney in 1903 after a lapse of almost 10 years and generally now, the date widely recognized when the modern records of Australian football began in the NSW capital despite being first played here in 1877.
English by birth, Robertson was raised in Melbourne where he played just two years of junior football before joining St Kilda FC in 1899 aged just 20. He played with the Saints in 1899-1900 before a death in his then Sydney based family brought him north to join them.
Living at Paddington Robertson joined East Sydney and went on to captain the side for a number of years before moving to Neutral Bay where upon he joined the North Shore Club and was subsequently made captain between 1911-1914.
The remarkable aspect of Robertson's footballing life was that he participated in at least 38 representative games while playing in Sydney and included in those were three interstate carnival teams - Melbourne in 1908, Adelaide in 1911 and Sydney in 1914 and was captain in each. This in itself is a remarkable feat.
Carnivals involved each state sending their representative team to a city where each would play in a round robin series against the others over a period of about 10 days. There have been numerous carnivals played every 3 or four years since 1908, however they been proven to be extremely expensive and are not well patronised by the footballing public.
Robertson won a gold medal in the 1914 series as NSW's best player and yet missed the last game against Western Australia following his decision to sign up for the army for WWI. He was noted as best player in games against Tasmania and Victoria despite his age then of 32.
He became part of an expeditionary force which was sent to New Guinea where Germany had several outposts and upon his return to Sydney six months or so later in 1915, there he resigned from the Australian force only to travel to England where he enlisted with the British army to gain a commission as an officer.
Somehow Robertson became an aviator with the Royal Flying Corps and continued on at his training base as an instructor. He was killed in a flying accident in May 1917 over Egypt and with his death was buried the romantic history of his involvement in football in Sydney not unearthed until this year.
As well as touching on history of our game generally, the lecture recaptured how and why Ralph Robertson gained such notoriety in the early days of football; details that were subsequently lost during a decade of turmoil.
The NSW Australian Football Historical Committee will present the next lecture in the Ralph Robertson series in August 2006. Titled, `The Australian Football Ground - Whatever Happened', the lecture will recount how an impressive 12 acre football facility in Alexandria was lost.
Ian GRANLAND, OAM
History Committee
Last Modified on 20/08/2005 09:41