FNQ footy roots run deep
THE most surprising thing Murray Bird found in his 17 years dedicated to researching Aussie rules footy was just how long ago organised fixtures were played.
Bird was in Cairns this week to launch More of the Kangaroo, 150 years of Australian football in Queensland 18662016, an 1100-page, 4.5kg deep dive into the history of Aussie rules, written and researched by Bird and Greg Parker.
“After working on it for so long we were dedicated to get- ting it done by 2018,” Bird said. “It was a relief (when they finished). We just had to finish it, and now we’re done it’s time to enjoy it. It was an enjoyable project, talking to a lot of people and finding out more about the first games.”
While Cairns AFL Club, in its current form, was understood to have started about 1955, Bird’s research indicated the sport had existed in various forms for 140 years.
Essendon’s Charles “Commotion” Pearson, the man credited with being one of the first exponents of overhead marking and recognised as one of the most famous footballers of the 19th century, arrived in Cairns in the early 1880s.
He played for Cairns Football Club in some of the first games in the region, as well as two games against Townsville in 1885 and 1886.
A number of one-off competitions followed over the next six decades, but rugby’s rise and dominance kept the sport in the background.
An eight-team competition was played during 1942-43, comprised of local teams and Defence-oriented teams, but it was in 1955 when the code truly took off.