Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 - 1954), Monday 5 July 1937, page 8


£35,000 FOR SEVEN NEW PLAYERS

Sharp Contrasts In Soccer Finance

Bv G. R. TAINTON. A Former Secretary of the Queensland Football Association.

A WEMBLEY Stadium Cup final 'gate' which exceeded the receipts from an English Football Association team tour of Australia by £7000; £50

Brisbane club "gates" £5401 short of the English provincial match record; and the payment of fees up to £10.890 for the transfer of players to other clubs, compared with one known local fee of £10 — such are a few of the strange contrasts revealed in the finances of English and Queensland Soccer Soccer football nowadays is not the buoyant force in Brisbane sport it was a decade ago. Yet, so insoluble Is the tie of kinship, so world famed is the story of Soccer's growth and wealth overseas, that the English amateur team's visit to Brisbane next week is bound to interest thousands who would otherwise not give it more than a passing thought.It It is doubtful, however, whether the English amateurs will prove the same draw in Brisbane as the English professional team of 1925 — the combination which cost Australian Soccer promoters £20.000 to produce. The 'pro'' is an expensive individual on tour. His pay is anything up to £8 a week, exclusive of bonuses. Professionalism, of course, is not unknown to Brisbane Soccer. The now defunct Norman Park Club once tried the experiment of payment for players. The .scale was 10/ for a win and 5/ for a defeat, but financial difficulties soon ended an innovation many years before its time. Professional football and club solvency cannot go hand in hand without finance — and that means big 'gates.' When players like Park, Kyle, May, and McGovern were 'starring' for Thistle, 10 years ago, a £50 'gate' was not uncommon at the Brisbane Cricket Ground, the then headquarters of the code. A satisfactory enough figure for Brisbane, but what a tremendous contrast with the record English provincial club attendance of 84,567 for £5451! The English Football Association final this year brought 400,000 applications for 90,000 tickets, so that 310.000 persons were disappointed. Admission by ticket only to the Cup final was introduced after the Wembley Stadium fiasco of 1923. So great was the crush of would-be spectators for the Bolton Wanderers v West Ham United final that the crowd, out of control, broke into the ground. The 'gate'1 was £27,776, paid by 126,047 persons, but the estimated attendance was 200.000 — a world's record. Thus, in one club match the English Football Association took £7000 more than the whole of the receipts from the English professional team's tour of Australia in 1925. The record attendance for an international match i-n England was with Scotland, at Wemblev in 1936, when 92,267 persons paid £20.395. Brisbane's best 'gate' for an international match is £1900. taken at the Australia v England Test match, at the Exhibition Ground in 1925. BIG TRANSFER FEES

Some years ago a Brisbane club expended £10 in securing the services from another club of Johnny Peebles, a well-known representative player.Ten Ten pounds? What an Insignificant fieure alongside £10.890— and that is what an English team, Arsenal, paid to Bolton Wanierers. In 1928 for the transfer of D. B. N. Jack In three other Instances only has the fee reached five figures, although the transfer 3f Hugh Gallagher, a Scottish International :cntre-forward. from Chelsea to Derby County for £3000 increased the total of such fees [or that player to £20,000. Aston Villa, the original club in Soccer football thrillers by Sidney Horler and other English writers, in 1935-36 snent £35,000 hi seven new players in an effort to avoid lescent from the first division to the second Sivlslon of the English Soccer League, but they were relegated. The fees ranged from £2000 to £9000. And so the fascinating work of promoting ind financing Soccer goes on apace In England under the stern guidance of the English F.A.. backed by assets worth £157.000. while In Queensland Soccer officials inrariably hampered by insufficient finance, :an only dream of what might be the out:omc of the revival the English amateur team's visit seems certain to create. STATE PLAYERS KEEN That the preparations made by the Queensland Soccer Council for the training ind coaching of the Queensland team to meet England excels any previous efforts was the jpinlon voiced by the international halfjack and captain of the Maroons, A. E. ['Bert' I Murray, on Saturday. 'Our chaps are keen to a degree, no trainng task .is a trouble, and all are learning nuch that will Improve their play from thq :oach, Mr. Jack Revle.' said Murray. Mr. Bob Shaw, one of the code's most promnent trainers, and the official trainer of the earn, regards the results secured to date rom the team as the best in his experience, extending over the last 20 years. To-night at Lang Park the team will receive slackboard lectures on tactics from Mr. Alex 3ibb, the Australian selector, who will return rom Sydney this afternoon after witnessing he opening match of the English tour on 3aturday, and from Mr, J. Revle. On Wednesiay the team will play an Instructional gnme mdcr floodlight, and next week will meet a iclccted team In a full-time trial match under :ioodlight at the Exhibition Ground