Mosely Quotations

This document represents a series of quotes from Philip Mosely's Soccer in New South Wales, 1880-1980. Each of them either directly references Weston or gives strong contextual material. The way Mosely winds in the discussion of rugby league in the ebbs and flows of Coalfields football seems particularly useful.

P42 [1922]

In 1922 Tamlyn did arrange more home matches for Cessnock, Kurri Kurri and Weston, as required by a directive from the NSW Soccer FA. However, the weekly spectacle of the ‘big match’ remained and was reinforced by Cup ties, finals and representative games.

P77 [1925]

The six principal clubs on the south coast – Balgownie, Corrimal, Helensburgh, Thirroul, Woonona and Coledale – therefore began their professional competition with the backing of the district’s juniors and were joined by the Sydney club Metters and a St George team recruited from the St George District Soccer FA. It had been hoped the south Maitland coalfields clubs would also join and so provide a greater chance of success. However, Kurri Kurri, Weston, Aberdare and Cessnock were not convinced that the time was right for a professional league and this led, within a fortnight of starting, to Balgownie and Corrimal withdrawing and seeking reaffiliation with the NSW Soccer FA. Without any of the biggest clubs the crowds were never more than meagre and by early September the professional competition had fallen flat.
Following the players’ payments issue, agitation began for a State League, a competition for the best clubs in Sydney, Newcastle, the south Maitland coalfields and south coast. The proposal had been raised years before but had been shelved on account of cost and the game’s small spectator base. It was revived as soccer grew more prosperous and popular. Such was the pressure applied for a State League’s introduction that the NSW Soccer FA formed a committee in 1926 to investigate the matter. The most pressure had come from the Cessnock, Weston, Aberdare and Kurri Kurri clubs. They were supported in Sydney by Granville and, eventually, Gladesville- Ryde and St George. Each of these seven clubs had acquired enclosed grounds of their own, be it on leasehold or freehold.

 

P80 [1928]

The leadership of the State League was significant. Its most forceful protagonist and secretary was Bill Beaney. An Australian by birth, but raised in England at Durham, he had returned to Australia just before World War I. A miner at Weston, he served as secretary of Weston FC from 1922 until his appointment as State League secretary in 1928. Beaney’s presidential colleague was Tommy Crawford, an Englishman from around Newcastle who emigrated in 1911. Also a miner, he involved himself with soccer at West Wallsend, Weston and Cessnock. He founded the Northern District Soccer Referees’ Association

P101 [1936]

In 1936 Kurri Kurri and Weston Methodists registered teams with the South Maitland British FA.

P127 [1938]

On the south Maitland coalfields, where soccer had prospered in the 1920s, Kurri Kurri and Weston were forced to amalgamate in 1938 and Cessnock and Aberdare merged to form the Cessnock Caledonians. Only Adamstown and Wallsend remained serious rivals to Goodyear and Metters, both clubs having excellent junior programmes to replace lost ‘stars’ and loyal fans to keep club finances intact.

P135 [1928]

Cessnock, Aberdare, Weston and Kurri Kurri, fellow founders of the new League, also had unprecedented seasons. Cessnock won the inaugural State Soccer League premiership, Aberdare the State League Cup and both Weston and Kurri Kurri figured prominently in every competition. The northern coalfields had the best teams, progressive administrators such as Bill Beaney (Weston), Tommy Crawford (Cessnock), George Winship and Jimmy Earp (both from Kurri Kurri), and the strongest sets of supporters at that time. An indication of the latter was when Aberdare and Kurri Kurri engaged in a marathon five-match semi-final cup tie in 1928. The crowd totalled 14,000 and grossed for the two clubs more than £600.
Yet at the very height of soccer’s prosperity the lockout perpetrated by John Brown and his fellow colliery proprietors began as lean a period as coalminers had ever known.

P143 [late 1920s]

Like Wallsend, soccer on the south Maitland coalfields at Kurri Kurri, Weston and Cessnock was as familiar to the townspeople as the pit whistle. In the State Soccer League’s inaugural year the latter towns in particular had shown how much they loved the game and crowds and gates of 1928 were maintained in 1929. But where Kurri Kurri filled the Drill Hall ground in 1929 with crowds of 3,000, “only a few hundred” attended in 1930. Cessnock’s income was £934 in 1929 but dropped to £747 in 1930.

P144 [1929]

However, the NSW State Soccer League decided to adopt goal average as the system whereby the premiership was decided, and thus elevated Cessnock over Kurri Kurri. The goal-difference system, if used, would have awarded the premiership to the latter and, to add insult to injury, the goal-average margin that separated the two clubs was 0.239.71 This so disgusted Kurri Kurri supporters that many abandoned soccer for rugby league. As Kurri Kurri was one of only four senior clubs in the district, the loss of its fans hit the other three clubs. Each needed the others to ensure capacity crowds at the twelve annual State League derbies and at local cup ties which, as happened in 1928, could involve numerous replays and very sizeable gate receipts.
Cessnock was the second club with a grievance. In 1931 it withdrew its affiliation to the State Soccer League in protest over the club delegate council’s decision to uphold a ruling of the protests and disputes committee. During the season a number of games had been disrupted by walk-offs by players and even a pitch invasion by the crowd. In regard to a walk-off by the Cessnock team, the protests and disputes committee decided to suspend the captain and another player and to award the match to the opposition club, Kurri Kurri. The decision was consistent with previous cases but Cessnock did not agree. They pointed out that their previous clash with Kurri Kurri, which had also been abandoned, had not been awarded to them, despite the pitch invasion by Kurri Kurri supporters. Cessnock reasoned that there was no real difference between players causing abandonment and fans causing abandonment and that the protests and disputes committee was wrong if it did see a difference. The result was that Cessnock took its case to the delegate council but, in losing its appeal, opted to withdraw its affiliation in protest.

 

P145

On the northern coalfields this was very serious for soccer as rugby league was staging local matches against the New Zealanders and English. The Newcastle XIII played the Kiwis in 1929 and 1930 and came close to defeating the English tourists in 1932. Over 10,000 people paid £521 to see that match, despite its being staged midweek. No better sign could there have been of the importance of an international forum than this. Soccer’s failure to provide representative football was to cost it dearly.

P146 [1932]

Such was the confidence among coalfield administrators that in late October 1932 a conference was held to establish a Rugby League of their own. Not content with the Newcastle Rugby League’s insistence on playing all the important games in Newcastle, the coalfield clubs accepted the proposal to form their own League and even got down to such basics as to how the gates would be divided up.84 The big clubs at Maitland, Cessnock and Kurri Kurri and the smaller ones at Abermain, Neath and Weston were in such healthy positions as to do without the Newcastle Rugby League. Their incomes were sizeable, their organisation was established all the way down to schoolboys and their crowd support seemed to be well founded. In all, the mining communities had taken up rugby league with a vengeance.
What had happened during the Depression was that the south Maitland miners had shifted their allegiance from soccer to rugby league. This was not done lightly. Soccer had a long tradition on the coalfields that was deeply rooted in the area’s British, Protestant heritage. Yet, due to some very specific issues, the depth of disillusionment with soccer’s administration was sufficient to persuade many miners to transfer their patronage to a game which, by contrast, had progressive administration and the sweet smell of success.

P147 [1938]

It was estimated in 1938 that every time a major rugby league match was transferred from Maitland the local tradespeople lost out on £600–£700. As Kurri Kurri, Cessnock, Aberdare and, to a lesser extent, Weston failed to win premierships, their sponsors abandoned soccer and channelled their subsidies into rugby league coffers. If soccer’s decline had been due to the Depression then rugby league should have also declined. Had the people who supported rugby league had jobs and soccer’s barrackers been on the dole, then the Depression could be said to have dictated matters. However, the coalfields were a single-industry area. The workers were all miners and one in every three was unemployed.
There was no difference between those who supported rugby league and those who supported soccer. The second half of the decade brought a resurgence among coalfield soccer clubs. Aberdare and Cessnock had been forced to amalgamate but in doing so formed the energetic Cessnock Caledonians. Crowds and gates at Weston and Kurri Kurri grew steadily. In 1935, when Kurri Kurri embarked on a State Cup run that saw them beat the Sydney favourites Goodyear, the Newcastle Morning Herald reported that “it is remarkable how an unexpected result can swing enthusiasm”. Weston emerged from 1935 with revived local support and this continued in 1936 when the club won the State Cup.90

P150 [late 1930s]

The exact degree to which soccer’s re-emergence can be attributed to rugby league’s downturn is difficult to gauge but it is hard to see how they were unrelated. The codes had in common the limited size of coalfield towns. Weston, Neath and Abermain were small, Kurri Kurri had fewer than 3,000 people and Cessnock alone was larger with its 14,000-odd residents. The local population was not large enough to offer high levels of support to two codes at the same time. In the early 1930s there had been a switch in allegiance from soccer to rugby league.

P179

Jimmy McNabb was a native of Weston, born in 1910. At sixteen he joined Weston FC as a junior and remained with the club until his retirement in 1940. Originally a left full-back who represented NSW in that position during 1930, a serious leg injury saw him switch to goalkeeper. He played for Coalfields against Newcastle in 1931, NSW in 1932 and seventeen times for Australia between 1933 and 1939. Injury when playing for NSW against England Amateurs meant McNabb missed the first two Tests in 1937 but he returned for the third Test in which he saved a penalty. At five feet eight inches, McNabb was small for a goalkeeper but he was solidly built.116 This stood him in good stead when, as was the custom during his time, opposing players attempted to ‘charge’ the keeper. Yet McNabb’s sturdiness was no impediment to agility or speed. Moreover, like all great goalkeepers, he rarely needed to produce flashy saves, such was his good positioning and keen anticipation. He had a legion of admirers, some of whom were fond of recording special moments.

I saw an opposing forward fire a shot from close range. Nabby didn’t bother to catch the ball, he drew back one fist and punched it straight back . . . I saw Jim at a second-rate ground one day, the cross bar was distinctly saggy. The ball came high towards the centre of the bar. Nabby jumped up and sprung the centre of the bar down with one hand, so the ball passed over it. [from Raulston]

McNabb was forced to retire in 1940 soon after playing for NSW against Victoria. A nagging ankle injury which restricted his mobility was responsible. Throughout his soccer career he had won just about every honour in the game and was lauded as the ‘doyen’ of all Australian-born goalkeepers.

P354

Beaney, William Blackhall, County Durham, England, 23 Nov 1981.
Born in Australia in 1891 but reared in England, Bill Beaney emigrated to Australia in 1914. A coalminer by profession, he settled in Weston. He was secretary of Weston FC 1922–1927 and the leading personality behind the formation of the NSW State Soccer League in 1928. He served as the League’s secretary 1928–1933 and president 1934. He retired from State Association duties in 1935 but continued as Weston’s delegate to the Association until 1943. After his wife’s death, Beaney returned to England in 1976, where he still lives [this is in the 1980s?].