Soccer News Archive Update

There have been 111 new issues of Soccer News added to the Soccer News Archive. They have been sourced and compiled by taking photos of the collection housed at the MCC Library which was put together by Roy Hay. This takes the total of editions contained in the archive to 486.

The newly added issues are as follows:

1948 - July 10

1949 - May 7, May 21, May 28, June 4, June 11, June 18, June 25, July 2, July 16

1950 - April 22, May 13, June 17, July 1, July 8, July 15, July 22, September 16, September 23

1951 - April 7, April 14, July 7, August 4, September 8

1952 - June 7, June 9, June 21, July 26, August 16, September 6, September 20

1953 - April 4, April 11, May 2, May 9, May 23, June 27, July 4, July 11, July 18, August 22, August 29, September 2, September 5, September 19

1954 - April 3, April 10, April 17, May 1, May 22, May 26, June 5, June 12, June 19, July 24, August 7, August 14, August 28, September 4

1955 - May 7, May 28, June 25, July 23, August 20

1956 - March 31, April 7, April 14, April 21, May 5, May 19, May 26, June 2, June 9, June 16, June 23, June 30, July 7, July 21, August 4, August 11, August 18, Annual Review

1957 - July 13, July 27, August 10, August 17, August 31

1958 - April 5, April 12, May 10, May 17, June 7, June 21, July 5, July 12

1959 - April 4, April 11, May 9, June 13, July 25, August 8, September 19, September 26, October 10, October 17

1960 - April 23, May 7, June 25, August 13, September 24, October 1

As usual, any information on borrowing any Soccer News issues not found in this archive would be greatly appreaciated.

Evaporating History

Back in 2001 Roy Hay put out this appeal for old issues of Soccer News to aid in football research. It took up about an eighth of a page in Australian and British Soccer Weekly. I think I ended up going to the Oakleigh Public Library to makes photocopies (Pre-Officeworks days) of two issues that I had that he didn't to send to him. His collection can now be found at the MCC Library. I don't think the State Library would microfilm a collection which was so far from being complete.

What staggers, and infuriates, me is eighteen years later no governing body of the game has made any sort of concerted effort to make a similar appeal to redress the vanishing history of our game in this country. In these years how many more old newspapers, programmes, photos and yearbooks have ended up in landfill, many lost forever. We have competition histories that are incomplete and the resources to try and remedy that continue to disappear.

It makes me think of Dr Ian Syson's The Game That Never Happened. We have history rotting away, and only have ourselves to blame. Six paragraphs in ABSW in 2001, in one issue. Today we have social media. The FFA twitter account has 150,000 followers, Football Victoria over 11,000. There is a far greater platform now to appeal for historical documents by these well-staffed organisations, yet there has been absolutely nothing done. If they truly loved the game, these people would be ashamed.

                                      (Click on image to enlarge)