The Sydney University FC undeniably played an important role in Rugby, but its status as being founded as a club in 1863 and the birthplace of Australian Rugby are doubtful. Wallaroo FC has a stronger claim as Sydney’s first true Rugby club.
While newspapers show that in 1865 the students at the University of Sydney were playing football games among themselves, and one match against a football club, they did not formally constitute a club until 1871—the year after the founding of the Wallaroo FC in 1870.
Today, Sydney University Football Club (SUFC) is recognised as the oldest surviving Rugby club in Australia. However, Sydney’s true Rugby pioneer was Wallaroo FC. Founded as Sydney’s first dedicated Rugby club, Wallaroo provided the decisive leadership that established the game in Australia, anchored the creation of its governing body in NSW, and adopted England’s Rugby Union playing laws in their entirety. By contrast the SUFC dithered over which football code it wanted to play until the 1880s.
THE FIRST RUGBY CLUB
The claim that SUFC was founded in 1863 is one of Australian sport’s most enduring myths. While SUFC is undeniably the oldest surviving Rugby club in the country, contemporary evidence reveals that the title of Sydney’s first true Rugby club belongs to Wallaroo FC, founded in 1870.
Rugby football was first played in the Australian colonies at Christ’s College in Tasmania in the late 1840s [link], and in Victoria during the 1850s, notably through clubs such as South Yarra [link]. Neither of these though have any continued lineage to today’s Australian Rugby scene.
1863: THE GHOST DATE
Despite the “1863” on SUFC’s badge, contemporary newspapers contain no mention of a University football club in the 1860s at all. The University in the early 1860s simply lacked the student numbers necessary for two in-house Rugby teams.
While it is clear that there was a University football team in 1865, when Sydney newspapers listed the city’s established clubs, the University was tellingly absent. These sides were consistently described as “undergraduates” or a “team.” As such the footballers had not yet formed as a club, nor were they regarded as a club in the sporting sense of the word. At most they were a club within the University—a closed, student-exclusive campus organisation only, who on occasion disported a team against external football clubs.
“A football club, the first in the colony, has recently been formed and named the Sydney Football Club.”
— The Illustrated Sydney News, 15 July 1865
“The only clubs at present formed for its promotion are the Sydney and the Australian (the latter in connection with the cricket club of that name).”
— Bells Life in Sydney, 22 July 1865
“A game of football was played on the University grounds on Saturday last, between the Sydney Football Club and members of the University.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 1865
“…a match between the Sydney Club and the University, these sides met on Saturday afternoon, on the University ground. Mr. Howitt led the Sydney Club, and Mr. Thomson the University men.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 August 1868
SUFC’s claim to antiquity didn’t begin until 1876, when they retrospectively dated the club to 1865, relying on newspaper reports of games having been played, but no evidence of a club.
“The committee of the University Club, in presenting this their eleventh annual report…the club both as regards the number of members and strength in the field has never been surpassed during the eleven years of its existence.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 April 1876
The further jump to 1863 remains entirely unsupported by history. Tellingly, when the founding was back-dated to 1865, no one came forward to correct it to 1863.
THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE REALITY CHECK
The absurdity of the SUFC’s 1863–65 foundation claim is highlighted by looking at the prestigious universities that inspired the Sydney group.
Even at Oxford and Cambridge, formal Rugby clubs were not established until 1869 and 1871 respectively. These institutions only formed official structures once external clubs emerged as competitors and to arrange fixtures with. There is no evidence that football in 1860s Sydney outpaced the very English institutions at the heart of the game’s origin. In 1869 the city had no football clubs at all.
The Melbourne University FC (MUFC) may well have been a formal club at this time, but it is clearly in a city with many other clubs and it is engaging with them as a peer. Indeed, in the 1860s the MUFC was actively involved in meetings with other clubs over the city’s football rules and had its club meetings reported in the newspaper. So too in the late 1860s does the Sydney University Cricket Club, while anything similar for the purported SUFC is noticeably absent.
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY FOOTBALL IN 1865–69
Between 1865 and 1869, student activity in football was sporadic, lacking any consistent code across their games played against the city’s few football clubs and football teams of cricket clubs, and sides formed by visiting military units and ships.
Across the late 1860s the University team’s rules were said to have been a varied form of the Rugby School code.* Whether they were ever written down remains unknown, and while these may have been used for in-house games, in outside matches they played a vague mixture of Melbourne’s Victorian rules and “a strange combination of Rugby and other rules”.
In those times, rules for the day were at the whim of the opposing captains. It was football by pub crawl: enjoy whatever the host had on tap.
This era of shifting rules dissolved with the 1870 arrival of Wallaroo FC, founded by manic Rugby School old boys. When University eventually faced them, Wallaroo insisted upon playing by their club’s strict, uncompromising Rugby rules, forcing the undergraduates to finally fall in line.
“The rules adopted by the Sydney club, and it is understood by the Australian club, are the same as those under which the game is played in Victoria.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 June 1866
“I must here say that the code of rules under which these matches are played, a strange combination of Rugby and other rules, is not by any means the best that could be selected.”
— Bell’s Life in Sydney, 27 July 1867
Significantly, none of the matches involving the University team — or any other side — in the 1860s can reliably be described as the first game of Rugby in Sydney.
“As may be imagined, the game did not thrive under such a state of things, and the University Club died away. In 1870 a few enthusiasts— l amongst the number— met together and formed the Wallaroo Football Club. The formation of this Club had the effect of reviving the University.”
— Richard Arnold, co-founder Wallaroo FC, letter published in Otago Witness, 12 July 1879
WALLAROO: THE FIRST ‘OPEN’ CLUB
In May 1870, Wallaroo FC was formed as Sydney’s first “open” club explicitly dedicated to Rugby. Their mantra was absolute: they would play Rugby rules or not at all. Their inaugural match in June 1870 stands as the first documented game of Rugby football in Sydney.
“In 1870 the first football club, the Wallaroo, was formed. Before that the University students, although they had no regularly formed club, played several scratch matches with members of the army or navy or any team that could be got together. After the formation of the Wallaroo Club the University formed a club…”
— Australian Town and Country Journal, 16 December 1893
Under Wallaroo’s example new clubs were founded. In 1874, Wallaroo led the formation of the Southern Rugby Football Union (now the NSWRU), driving the establishment of the first governing body of any football code in Australia.
University players in 1871 had been each issued with a copy the Wallaroo FC rules booklet, evidencing the lead that club was taking in Sydney football.
SYDNEY UNIVERSITY FC FOUNDED IN 1871
The first newspaper reference describing the University footballers as a formal “club” appears in 1871, a year after Wallaroo’s establishment.
The language used—consistent with a formal meeting held in a city hotel rather than on campus—indicates a clear transition from an ad-hoc student group to a constituted club with membership, officers, and rules.**
The 23 June 1871 meeting at the city’s Metropolitan Hotel marks the true organisational founding of the modern SUFC, not 1863.
SUFC: A FOOTBALL CLUB, BUT WHICH CODE?
As we’ve seen, the University’s teams in the late 1860s did not play any of its outside games under Rugby rules. Yet, even after the SUFC was founded in 1871, its commitment to Rugby continued to flail.
With the football season already underway, delays beset the NSWRU’s inaugural 1874 meetings to establish agreed-upon local Rugby rules to play by, largely because SUFC was unready to dispatch a delegate. In the meantime Wallaroo FC successfully forced the issue, advocating that the new Union bypass further debate and adopt the RFU’s laws from England holus-bolus.
In 1877, SUFC delegates at the NSWRU proposed rule changes to end what they saw as the relentless scrums and ball-carrying game, at the expense of “football proper” including the art of drop-kicking. In effect it was arguing for a change that would have caused the NSWRU ceasing to exist, the link to the RFU severed, and switching to Melbourne-rules, soccer or taking the first steps on a path to a unique NSW football code.***
“…therefore would enjoin on your delegates to the S.R.F. Union [NSWRU] to seek to obtain such rules passed as will mitigate this growing evil.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 April 1877 (SUFC annual meeting)
In 1878, SUFC continued to discuss at its annual meeting the possibility of devising a new code between Rugby and Melbourne-rules, and negotiated a match in Sydney against Melbourne FC under the latter’s rules. The game fell through only because the student club could not financially guarantee the Melbourne party’s travel expenses or potential losses.****
Then, advancing on these activities, in 1880 the club was seen to be supporting moves to establish the Melbourne-rules code in Sydney, until finally at the last moment declaring it was remaining loyal to Rugby. Yet, curiously, it then urged the city’s footballers and club delegates to stay silent if they disapproved of the rival code forming an association and clubs.*****
Both times, Wallaroo FC led the opposition, saving Rugby in NSW (the code’s only stronghold) from the club that now claims to be its Australian birthplace, and indeed, rescuing SUFC from itself. It was only after the winter of 1880 that SUFC finally settled into a firm and lasting commitment to the Rugby code.
SUFC is our oldest continuous Rugby side, but Wallaroo FC was Sydney’s first Rugby club and the true founder of the game in Australia today.
Once ye were the Scholars, with history tailored for ease,
Now with a ghost-date carved on your badges, play without academic degrees!
‘Tis a grand, retrospective boondoggle, a humbug ye spun out of thread,
While Wallaroo anchored the tackle and pioneered Rugby instead—
Yet ye birthplace the praise and the laurels in cloistered stone-walled ease!
* Australian Town and Country Journal 2 July 1870 (“framed from the Rugby School code”), Bell’s Life in Sydney 21 August 1869 (“adhering pretty closely to the Rugby Code”) and Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 July 1867 (“To the uninitiated, the Sydney University cum Rugby Rules are most confusing”).
** SUFC 1871 meeting – see The Sydney Morning Herald 23 June pg.1, 24 June pg.4 & 12 July pg.5; The Empire 26 June pg.2
*** See The Sydney Morning Herald 28 April 1877 & 13 April 1878 (SUFC meetings) and 8 May & 30 June 1877 & 3 May 1878 (NSWRU meetings)
**** SUFC 1878 meeting – The Sydney Morning Herald 13 April 1878 and Australian Town and Country Journal 20 April 1878
***** The Sydney Daily Telegraph 1 July 1880
Note 1: A Sydney University football club playing under Melbourne-rules existed from 1887-89, however there is no indication that this arose from a split within the University’s Rugby club and players. The club was founded as the ‘Sydney University Australian Association Club’ in July 1887. The movement had the support of the Melbourne University FC. After thre games at the end of 1887 season, 1888 was a full schedule plus going to the Victorian capital for three games into versus the Melbourne University FC in Australia’s first inter-varsity game in any football code (played on 3 September 1888 at the Melbourne University Cricket Ground, the home side won by 4 goals & 8 behinds to 3 goals). A promised return visit from Melbourne University FC to Sydney in 1889 did not materialise. The Sydney University club played its final matches in late July 1889.
Note 2: There is no contemporaneous reports to verify claims that in 1869 the Sydney University played Newington College (Wesleyan Collegiate Institution) in Australia’s first rugby game. The story first appeared 70 years later in The Referee on 3 December 1930 and states it was “played under University Football Club rules — twenty aside”. The latter is not confirmation it was a rugby game as none of the University’s 1865-69 external games have been verified as rugby. a copy of the University’s rules of the 1860s have never been found, and the first documented mention of the University having Rugby School devised rules is in 1870 (although the same description had been commonly said of the Melbourne FC rules). In the book ‘Guardians of the Game‘ by John Mulford he reproduces an undated notice of such a match “to be played according to the rules of the University. Twenty a side.” Mulford also includes a Newington football team photo which he ascribes as the 1869-70 rugby team, noting the round ball in the photo is result of rugby balls had to be imported and were often not available. However, contrary to that, a round ball was no easier to make locally either, and the use of a round ball was common to many Melbourne rules clubs until the 1870s. Per the College’s own history the headmaster at the time (1866 to early 1869) had been George Metcalfe, a former player and vice-president of the Geelong FC in Melbourne, and “he also introduced an early form of Australian Rules Football” to the young men [link]. Metcalfe departed Newington early 1869 well before winter football, the lead then being left to Joseph Coates. Despite the increase in reporting of football matches from 1870 onward, there is no mention of the College playing externally at all until meeting The King’s School in 1873 and then Wallaroo FC and University in 1874. If the 1869 game did happen, these were in any event not football clubs i.e. they were teams of students from education institutions.
Note 3: The Daily Telegraph of 13 March 1899 suggested it was Richard Arnold who, upon his return from Rugby School in 1867, organised Sydney’s only football matches of the late 1860s prior to the Wallaroo FC formation.
WallarooFC1870.com – All website text & content © Sean Fagan
[ site homepage ]
