The Books of Doug Butcher

It is with great pleasure that I am able to share with you all the brilliant work of Sydney football historian Doug Butcher. Doug has produced several booklets based on his research into early Australian representative games and international teams that toured the country. The links to the booklets can be found below:

Australia's International Socker Results 1922-1929

Australia's International Soccer Results 1930-1939

Australia's International Soccer Results 1940-1949

Soccer Touring Teams to Australia Results 1905-1929

Soccer Touring Teams to Australia Results 1930-1939

Soccer Touring Teams to Australia Results 1940-1949

These expand in greater detail what can currently be found on OzFootball. They also contain searched and explanations for the issues behind various name discrepancies amongst touring players. In the early part of last century newspapers often had various spellings for simple British surnames, so it's no surprise that more exotic foreign names posed problems. Christian names were not always published, in fact sometimes even an initial didn't appear and Doug has endeavoured to uncover as much about these players as he can.

He also explains the make-up of the touring sides, in a time when match organisers were part-wrestling promotors, looking to add more lustre to their teams. This is when the public accepted Hajduk Split being billed as Yugoslavia, and Bohemians of Prague were advertised as a Czechoslovakian national team.

In the days when travel was more by boat than plane, we see how tours were longer as teams were made to make the most of having made long voyages. These were not one-off friendlies, but massive tours often with a series of test matches.

Thanks to Doug for sharing, hopefully a few more people get as much out of going through these booklets as I did.