
During the past ten months or so we have written a number of stories on the year 1947 but we found there is more to be said.
In that year the NSW Football League (NSWANFL) played TWELVE representative matches – four of which were played on consecutive days over respective weekends (see green shade). Three of these games were played in Sydney and the other in Broken Hill; all were against different opponents. Of course the respective NSW teams that played on the both days of these same weekends were made up of different players.
Now if you have ever been involved with representative football or even club football, putting a team on the field requires a fair amount of planning, commitment and work. The team which travelled to Tasmania comprised of players from Sydney, Broken Hill, Riverina and Albury.
Now granted 1947 was a year of a national carnival, played in Hobart (shaded in yellow) which made up four of the games, but nevertheless the other matches required players, managers, trainers, jumpers, shorts and socks and the list goes on.
In one of our earlier posts about 1947 we mentioned that the league secretary of the time, Ken Ferguson, made a public appeal for ‘clothing coupons’ in order to purchase player ‘clothing.’ Remember, this was just two years after the finish of WWII and the general public were still operating under the coupon system for food and clothing etc.
When the NSW Carnival team returned from Hobart, as if they didn’t have enough football, the league arranged for this side to play “The Rest” on the following weekend.
‘The Rest’ were made up from players not chosen in the NSW Carnival contingent but were Sydney players selected in the other NSW teams whilst the main team was in Tasmania.
So from a competition of seven Sydney clubs a total of 66 players were involved in representative football during that year. A further six were selected from clubs outside the metropolitan area.
Here are the matches:
DATE | VENUE | OPPOSITION | NSW SCORE | OPPOSITION SCORE |
WON/LOST |
1947-05-25 | Sydney | Queensland | 20.13 (133) | 15-17 (107) | Won |
1947-06-01 | Sydney | Broken Hill | 18-15 (123) | 8-13 (61) | Won |
1947-06-14 | Broken Hill | Broken Hill | 12-12 (84) | 11-9 (75) | Lost |
1947-06-15 | Sydney | Canberra | 21-9 (135) | 19-16 (130) | Won |
1947-06-21 | Brisbane | Queensland | 18-22 (130) | 18-24 (132) | Won |
1947-07-30 | Hobart | Canberra | 13-18 (96) | 7-8 (50) | Won |
1947-08-01 | Hobart | Tasmania | 6-10 (46) | 16-10 (106) | Lost |
1947-08-06 | Hobart | South Australia | 14-12 (86) | 17-9 (111) | Lost |
1947-08-08 | Hobart | Queensland | 12-6 (76) | 5-12 (42) | Won |
1947-08-09 | Sydney | Subiaco FC | 8-11 (59) | 11-10 (76) | Lost |
1947-08-10 | Sydney | East Fremantle FC | 20-13 (133) | 15-11 (101) | Lost |
1947-08-17 | Sydney | “The Rest” | 21-18 (144) | 13-16 (94) | Won |
You can see by the last score that the better players in the Sydney competition were chosen for the main NSW team.
All NSW games from 1881-1947, together with all their details, players, umpires and scores are listed here.
Ref.
NSWAFL 1947 annual report
NSWAFFL 1947 Football Records
Metropolitan and Broken Hill newspapers of the day