HISTORIC FOOTBALL PHOTOGRAPHS IDENTIFIED: The
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HISTORIC FOOTBALL PHOTOGRAPHS IDENTIFIED The Charles Boyles Collection – State Library of Victoria Research by Ken Mansell. May 2010. --------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS Introduction. A Note on Identification. A Note on Competitions. The Boyles Collection Identified. Select Bibliography. Identifications. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION Not quite two years ago, the State Library of Victoria received a donation of hundreds of glass plate negatives that had belonged to the photographer Charles Edward Boyles ( 1888-1971). For a period of over thirty years, through the depression and war years and into the early sixties, Boyles devoted himself to capturing on film the social life of ordinary Victorians. His main preoccupation however was sport, and in particular Australian Rules Football. Boyles became the ‘unofficial official’ photographer of VFL and VFA clubs, taking hundreds of photographs of teams assembled on the benches before matches. His work was not restricted to the elite competitions and he ventured into the suburbs and the countryside to record football life in its entirety. In 2008 his son Harley Boyles retrieved the historic glass plate collection from his back shed when moving house and donated to the State Library. The State Library had already commenced a two-year project to digitise its enormous collection of 40,000 glass plate negatives.1 It has made the Boyles collection available to the public as a digitised online resource. The 225 high- quality digital images of footballers can be downloaded without charge as high resolution files by anyone. We are blessed that most of the images are delightfully clear. A small percentage are blurry, out of focus, or fading. A significant number of the glass plates have some level of emulsion damage – obscuring faces in a few cases – but this does not detract from their historical value and only makes us all the more grateful the glass plates survived at all. The State Library’s Boyles football collection adds significantly to the social history of the game in twentieth-century Victoria. Almost all of the Boyles photos have probably never been seen before. They throw fresh light on the football story. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A NOTE ON IDENTIFICATION The vast majority of the Boyles images have not been identified. Firstly, only a very few images have the photographer’s markings indicating the team and date. Secondly, a considerable number of the State Library’s attempted identifications and date estimates are wrong. Researchers and publishers need to tread carefully. No one person can hope to single-handedly complete the identification of all Boyles images. A collaborative effort involving as many football historians and club history committees as possible is the necessary next step in unravelling the awaiting heritage. I have nevertheless been able to identify 145 of the 225 images. But a relatively small number of my identifications are perfect. They are mainly ‘positive’ to varying degrees, and ‘partial’ to varying degrees. A ‘positive identification’ is defined by 1. identification of the club and competition. 2. identification of the team with a degree of certainty. 3. identification of the date with a degree of certainty. 4. identification of a significant number of individual players. A listing of my 145 identifications ( and the twenty-six significant SLV mistakes ) is provided below. I have used various tools and methods for identification, starting of course with clues ( for example, grandstands ) displayed in the images. I have drawn mainly 1 State Library of Victoria News, No. 42, November 2009-February 2010. on the existing football literature. A bibliography of sources of information about football in Victoria ( circa 1930-60 ) is provided below. Jim Main and Russell Holmesby’s Encyclopaedia of AFL Footballers was probably the most useful source. Much of the biographical information provided below, particularly information about a VFL/AFL player’s number of senior games and years of service, derives from this publication. Marc Fiddian’s numerous works were also especially important. For each photo I have listed the State Library’s Accession Number ( and any other significant SLV information ) followed by my own comment ( ‘Comment by KM’ ). Seemingly insignificant observations, relating for example to crowd size or the type of shorts worn, can offer important clues and are therefore often mentioned in my comment. Developments worth noting here are the introduction of the Nineteenth man in 1930, the Twentieth man in 1946, and the VFL Thirds competition in 1946. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 A NOTE ON COMPETITIONS VFL and VFA images predominate in the Boyles collection. These are mainly team photos, but images of individual VFL and VFA players, most often photographed on training nights at near-deserted grounds, are interspersed throughout the collection. VFL Second and Third Eighteens are also well represented. However the photographer also captured teams from Victorian country leagues and Melbourne suburban district competitions. Images of teams of juniors, schoolboys and aging past-players are included. There are also a number of images which one suspects represent the prevalence of workplace-based football teams and Sunday football teams. The main workplace competitions were the mid-week Wednesday League up to 1934, and the Saturday Morning Industrial League ( SMIL ) which surged in influence just prior to World War Two. VFL and VFA players turned out in these workplace- based competitions. The Sunday Amateur Football League which involved workplace and hotel teams thrived in the second half of the forties and through the fifties in industrial areas such as Port Melbourne.3 Another Melbourne 2 The State Library website’s ‘Latest News’ page announced the Boyles Collection with a photo of South Melbourne rover Esmond ‘Eddie’ Lane and the unfortunately misleading phrase ‘one of the many historic VFL photographs’. 3 The workplace-based Wednesday League played matches mid-week and included teams representing Wharfies, the Markets, the Police, and Yellow Cabs. The Wednesday League folded however in 1934. A most comprehensive study of workplace football since its inception in the nineteenth century is P. Burke, A Social History of Workplace Australian Football 1860-1939, PhD thesis, RMIT University ( School of Global Studies ), 2008. Sunday football on the other hand metropolitan competition which should be mentioned is the Melbourne Boys League ( which prior to 1946 included at least one VFL Thirds team ). From the point of view of general social history, perhaps the most interesting photographs are those capturing the impact of war on football life. World War Two Services teams are well represented in Boyles.4 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BOYLES COLLECTION IDENTIFIED Note: All photos are out of copyright. All Accession Numbers below are SLV Accession numbers. --------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Richmond Football Club team photo. grew in Melbourne after World War Two, building on the success of the war-time armed services matches played on Sundays. Burke ( p. 274 ) notes that during 1942-43, ‘workplace football thrived as military and munitions factory teams went at it in fierce competition’ and that these matches often took place on Sundays. According to Ken Linnett, Sunday football took off in South Melbourne and Port Melbourne. By the late forties, eight teams from local hotels were competing in the South-Port Social Sunday Football Association. By the 1950’s, there were at least three Sunday football leagues in Melbourne. The teams mainly represented hotels and workplaces in the inner suburbs of South Melbourne, Port Melbourne, Richmond, Collingwood, Carlton, North Melbourne, Kensington and Brunswick. The finals and designated match of the week were often played at the Port Melbourne oval. Crowds of 15,000 or more were common. The players were paid. See Ken Linnett, Game for Anything – The Tommy Lahiff Story, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1999, pp. 178-179. For the Sunday Amateur Football League, see Burke, p. 275. 4 A number of key football grounds in Melbourne were acquired by the military – for instance the Port Melbourne ground at the end of 1941 and the MCG in February 1942. On the eve of the 1942 football season an armed services competition with at least six teams was being formed in Melbourne. The competition would include many enlisted men from League clubs. A combined Armed Services team played VFL team Richmond at Punt Road Oval on Sunday July 12, 1942. 25,000 barrackers attended and the gate raised 850 pounds for the war effort. See Ken Linnett, Game for Anything – The Tommy Lahiff Story, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1999, pp. 178-179. Estimates of the July 12 crowd size vary – see Photo 8 for a different estimate of 40,000. Accession no. H2008.122/106 ‘Richmond F.C title supplied by donor’. Comment by KM: Somewhat ironically, the very first Boyles photo also turns out to be the most elusively enigmatic Boyles photo. After initially failing to solve the mystery myself, I have consulted several reputable football historians and thus far none of us can crack the identity of this team. In the first place, the donor ( and SLV ) are definitely mistaken. This