How Old Are Dinmore Bush Rats?

This is NOT the story of how Bush Rats got their name, though so often was that tale told again and again and again I may as well give a quick summary.

A group of miners who wanted to play soccer cleared trees from a patch of ground near their employers, the New Chum Colliery. The ground was cleared by moonlight, with the miners wearing lamps. One joked they all looked like a mob of bush rats, and the name stuck.

The ground, on the other hand, didn't stick. By 1895, the club which started as New Chum Bush Rats had taken over the ground (and president, and captain) of a rival and now thoroughly extinct club called Dinmore. There is no evidence there was a formal merger.

It was after the move to Dinmore's ground at Nunn's Paddock  in 1895 that the name Dinmore Bush Rats was first used in print. A year earlier "Bush Rats of Dinmore" played a game in Brisbane, though caution should be given to this use of Dinmore here, as it was also often used as the general name of the district in which modern day Dinmore, New Chum and Riverview are now located.

The question we have is not how Bush Rats got their name, but when they were given the name.

How old are Bush Rats?

This is the story of why I cannot give you a definitive answer, or, more accurately, how the answer has been debated and contradicted over the last 130-ish years.

If you ask about in Ipswich today when Bush Rats were formed, you will be told 1888. Probe further, as I did, and you will be told that they know Bush Rats started in 1888 because this was the date given in Reg Erskine's A History of Ipswich Soccer, published in 1980.

Erskine had been a player for Booval Stars in the 1930s and by the 1950s was a Queensland selector. He also wrote for the Queensland Time, which allowed him access to the microfiche archives in preparation for his book. He had the added advantage of being able to tap into the rich, living oral history of Ipswich soccer, the very people he had lived in and around for decades.

Erskine, though, obviously knew his limits. He starts A History of Ipswich Soccer starting with:

"This is not meant to be a complete history of Ipswich Soccer - there are omissions and there may be some errors. I have tried to verify all facts I have been given, but the poverty of written information of the early days is most frustrating."

For our purposes, we are interested in what he has to say about the formation of the Bush Rats.

On this Erskine writes:

"'Old Sport' wrote in 1912 that Bush Rats had been founded 24 years earlier - that put them in 1888, 3rd after Bundamba (not Rangers) and Blackstone."

This, seemingly, is what Tom 'Old Sport Barker, stalwart journalist at the Queensland Times, had written, though thanks to the printing it is a little like one of those optical tricks - is it a 4 or a 1? (I go for a 4.)

There are two issues with Barker's claims. Firstly, there is the strong likelihood that he was not even in Ipswich in 1888. Though Ipswich born and bred, he spent much of the '80s up north making his name in newspapers, not returning to Ipswich until May 1890.

Of course, a good journalist knows how to find information - a pity then he later gives an earlier start date for Bush Rats again.

This later claim of an earlier date comes from an article getting to the nub of the matter - a ding-dong argument in 1923 over which club in Ipswich was the oldest.

George Duck, original Bush Rats, claimed his team had held the honour, though this is related second hand from Barker, with no date nominated. This debate sparked a letter from one John Halls, who interviewed a number of old-time Blackstone Rovers players. These old footballers said Bush Rats had started in 1890. One original Blackstone player, Evan Williams, claimed to have refereed the first match between the two clubs in that year.

Another article three years later also referred to Williams refereeing that match, though it also made the somewhat dubious claim Blackstone Rovers itself had formed 41 years earlier, in 1885.

Halls' letter put the date of Blackstone Rovers formation at an equally unlikely 1887.

For his part Barker's response to the squabble regarding the oldest club was quite short:

"I thank Mr. Halls for his information, but he must not overlook that so far as introducing the Anglo-Australian game (that was how the round-ball was styled) is concerned, Mr "Tom" McMurtrie played the game at North lpswich in 1886, and the Bush Rats were got going in 1887.

Still, there is no harm in comparing notes. I welcome the notes."
Queensland Times, June 6, 1923

As can be seen, nailing the start date for clubs seemed to inflame debate, even at a time when these clubs' formations were in living memory.

For Blackstone Rovers' part, Fred Wort, quoted in the Williams' article as the founder of Blackstone Rovers, did not arrive in Australia until 1887. Then in 1888, the clipped wit of the QT's Town Talk man announced the existence of Rovers - the first record of the club.

As for Bush Rats, the dating got even muddier a mere month later, when another voice added an opinion via the personal recollections of S.I. Ross, one of the major figures in Queensland soccer since 1887.

Ross played for Rangers (Brisbane's original club, not the Bundamba one), then the breakaway Thistles. Later he was honourary secretary of the Queensland British Football Association.

In his widely published article, Fathers of Soccer: When Bearded Men Played the Game, Ross follows the creation of the Normans club in 1889 with:

"The Bush Rats, Dinmore, sprang into existence during the year (their ground being at New Chum, bounded by large tall trees."
The Telegraph, August 18, 1923.

At this point we should acknowledge that depending which article you read, Bush Rats started in 1887, 1888, 1889 or 1890, though none of these sources were quote directly from a single Bush Rats affiliate.

In fact, the first contemporary mention of New Chum Bush Rats in print currently found in Trove was from 1891, when a late season decision was taken to form an Ipswich association and start a competition which included Bush Rats, Silkstone, Dinmore, Blackstone Rovers and a seemingly stillborn Dinmore Stars.

But what year did Bush Rats form?

Trying to work out the correct answer is compounded by the fact soccer reporting, or maybe soccer itself, was at its greatest nadir in 1889 and 1890. Only three games of soccer are reported in Ipswich during these years, and one of them had to use Australian Rules players to make up the numbers. Even the relatively well reported 1888 does not mention a Bush Rats soccer club.

Personally, I lean towards 1890, for two reasons.

The first was an article from 1924 about a Bush Rats club reunion. The article firmly states the club is 34 years old, which would put Bush Rats birth at 1890. The presence of original Bush Rats M. Bailey Joe Skellern and J Campbell could suggest any information given at the reunion should somewhat match historic reality. This article accompanies a report on the reunion itself.

That said, the article lists the clubs competing in the 1891 West Moreton competition incorrectly, with Call Backs not created until 1892, as was Whitwood. There was no team called Bundamba in 1891 the we know about. Again, beware memory, as it seems the article has merged the first three seasons of Ipswich and West Moreton football together.

But the biggest reason for believing 1890 is the correct date is because Ted O'Loughlin, the compiler of the extensive and mostly still correct SoccerMad database says it was.

More specificly, O'Loughlin writes of 1890:

"Another article mentioned that the Dinmore Bush Rats formed & matches will be played at the New Chum field next season."
Ted O'Loughlin, SoccerMad, 2012.

Wherefore art thou is this article? It isn't in the Queensland Times, unless the scan is so mangled to be unsearchable with sensible words. I cannot find it elsewhere on Trove. It could have been from a newspaper not on Trove, such either the Daily or Saturday Observer, locked away in microfiche in State Library's (and not necessarily Queensland's).

It seems O'Loughlin has read something, a clincher clue. I have tried to contact him and am awaiting an answer, though I am probably down his list of priorities. And if I can find the article it could put the birth of the Bush Rats at 1890.

Or it may not.

To finish, though, another quandary for dating Bush Rats.

David Newlands, early player for Blackstone Rovers and Silkstone, claims he helped form Bush Rats.

Newlands arrived in Ipswich in 1889 and then...

"After a few years with Blackstone, Dave, John Lovell, Jacob Tapp, and Tom Baker went to Dinmore Bridge and formed two teams. One team played in Nunn's Paddock and the other was called Wallabies. Next year the teams amalgamated and became known as the Bush Rats."
Queensland Times, December 27, 1952.

It should be noted Tom Barker is likely to be 'Old Horse' (Rovers player, Queensland Rep, inaugural Ipswich soccer association chairman) and not our the cricket player, 2nd iteration Ipswich FC board member and all-round supportive journo 'Old Sport'.

Untangling Newlands claim has proved difficult.

Can I find a Wallabies? No. Who played at Nunn's Paddock - well Dinmore FC, though there is no mention of Barker, Lovell, Tapp or Newlands playing for them. Dinmore are first mentioned in 1891, but could be older. Tom Barker did form a club after leaving Blackstone Rovers, and this was Call Backs in 1892. A few years after 1889 is not 1890 - may be 1891 or 1892?

Is this claim completely unreal? Possibly, but consider this. Around late 1894 Dinmore FC went defunct, after their president W.J. Lynch hightailed it to Bush Rats. Bush Rats subsequently took over Nunn's Paddock and signed Dinmore Captain W. Caddies. The name Dinmore Bush Rats then got some early use. Around the same time other short-lived clubs, such as Booval Enterprise, the second Ipswich FC and Whitwood disappeared.

Who knows what other amalgamations could have occurred at thus time. Was Dinmore Bush Rats a merger of New Chum Bush Rats and other clubs?

Maybe Newlands was right and his two clubs did merge together and form a larger, stronger Dinmore Bush Rats. 

But that is a whole other unknown story.