Brisbane Australian Football Club - 1880: Queensland Football Association

1880: Queensland Football Association

In 1880, the club became a foundation member of the Queensland Football Association (QFA), along with Wallaroo, Excelsiors and Athenians (Ipswich). The new association decided to recognise and play both Victorian and Rugby rules.

However, in 1882, a Brisbane FC representative (Pring Roberts) arranged a Rugby match against the Sydney Wallaroos Rugby club, after the NSWRU (Rugby Union) offered to pay all costs associated with the match. Brisbane advocates of the Victorian rules game reacted angrily and declared that no QFA player would be permitted to play under Rugby rules (which subsequently led to the formation of the Northern Rugby Union (now the Queensland Rugby Union) in 1884).

At the Brisbane club's annual general meeting in 1882, the club secretary, Thomas Welsby, reminded members that, according to their constitution, the club should only play Victorian Rules and urged them to decide whether to adhere to this rule or introduce the Rugby rules. The club ultimately decided to follow the Australian game.

Whilst a newspaper report in late 1886 describes Brisbane FC as "the premier club", the AFL Queensland official history asserts that the club folded that year. However, the last known reference to the club is in the Brisbane Courier of 15 March 1887, where it was reported it competed in the "Combined Football Sports" against Rovers, Excelsiors, Fireflies, Wallaroos, South Brisbanes, Wanderers, Ipswich, Sandgate and Wasps (Fireflies and Wanderers clubs were foundation members of the Northern Rugby Union in 1884). Curiously, it appears that none of the several soccer clubs in the region was invited (unless 'Rovers' refers to the Bundamba Rovers).

It is not recorded, but the demise of the club may have been the result the rapidly increasing popularity of Rugby, with some Brisbane FC players possibly electing to join the newly formed Rugby clubs, Fireflies and Wanderers (followed by the creation of four more Rugby clubs by 1885-86). As Rugby historian Sean Fagan noted:

The defining moment in the code battle came with the 1886 Queensland side, who defeated NSW for the first time in Sydney. “The success of this team undoubtedly won the day for rugby game in Queensland. The Victorian game supporters were struggling hard to uphold the premier position they had gained but after the brilliant performance of the 1886 team, who lost only one match through their tour, the rugby game became very popular and the next season several new clubs were formed and the Victorian game began to wane” (QRU Annual, 1902).

Fagan further noted:

As the decade came to a close, The Queensland Figaro summed up the state of play in the colony as “Rugby, an unbounded success; Melbourne rules very sick indeed, in fact on their last legs; British Association Rules , also in a sickly state but if anything showing more life than the Victorian game.”