Grange Thistle SC

Grange Thistle is the last of three football clubs which have carried the Thistle name since the earliest days of organised football in Brisbane. However, the present club's history goes back only as far as 1920 and it is not connected in any way with these forerunners. The first Thistle club was formed at a meeting held in the Criterion Hotel on 2 June 1887.[1] At the time there were two Brisbane clubs believed to have Scottish connections, St Andrews and Rangers, which was originally formed as the "Scottish Football Association" in 1883.[2] Later reports differ as to whether the original Thistle club came into being as a breakaway group from Rangers [3] or St Andrews. A third possibility is that the club was a new entity having no link to either of these clubs.

The first Thistle club disappeared during the 1890s but re-emerged by 1911 as Merthyr Thistle, a club based at New Farm Park.[4] Merthyr Thistle had a brief but successful career, winning the Brisbane first grade competition and Charity Cup in 1915 [5] and reaching the senior division grand final in 1919, the first season in which senior football resumed in Brisbane after World War I. In the decider, played at the Brisbane Cricket Ground on 4 October, Merthyr Thistle’s hopes were dashed in a 3-1 defeat against Pineapple Rovers.[6]

Two weeks later the club rounded off the season on 18 October in the final game of its existence, a challenge match at Bulimba against Bush Rats, from Ipswich, losing 1-0.[7] No further references to Merthyr Thistle have been traced until 9 February 1920, when indications of a crisis emerged in the form of an advertisement in the Daily Standard. Under the heading Merthyr Thistle Football Club, the advertisement called “all players and members” to a meeting just two days later on 11 February.[8]

The sense of urgency was apparent when this advertisement was repeated in the same newspaper the next day. However, no report of the meeting, if it did take place, or further mention of Merthyr Thistle, has been found. A club did re-emerge in the early 1920s at New Farm Park, where Merthyr Thistle had been based, but only at junior level where it operated under the name Merthyrs (in competition against the new Thistle club’s junior teams).[9]

On 3 March 1920, six new clubs affiliated with the Queensland British Football Association at its adjourned annual general meeting. Merthyr Thistle was not represented. However, J Peebles, representing Thistle, was appointed as one of four club representatives on the executive committee.[10]

Two weeks later, a press preview of the season listed nine clubs in the senior competition, including Thistle but not Merthyr Thistle. The inference is that the new club was formed at, or subsequent to, the meeting of Merthyr Thistle players and members called for 11 February 1920.[11]

On 20 March 1920, the new Thistle club played its first match, a friendly against Brisbane City. The game, at Heath Park, was drawn 2-2, W Nicholls scoring the new club’s first goal.[12]

Four days later, the Queensland British Football Association placed its 30 registered junior clubs into three grades for the forthcoming season. Thistle’s second-string team was placed in the second grade but Merthyr Thistle did not enter any teams in either the senior or junior grades.[13]

On 27 March Thistle played a second friendly, against Queen’s Park, also at Heath Park, where the new club had established its headquarters. The match was drawn 2-2.[14]

On the official opening day of the 1920 season, 10 April, Thistle played the club’s first competitive match, defeating Queen’s Park 3-1 at the Brisbane Cricket Ground, with the following lineup: H May, W McBride, G Mackay, D Ross, J Peebles, J Lambert, J Cumberford, A McMillan, R Craig, A Thompson, W Nicholls. Centre-forward Craig scored a hat-trick.[15] The highly successful first season ended with 10 wins, two draws and three defeats to place Thistle in second position behind Corinthians on the premiership table. Thistle’s tenure at Heath Park was confirmed the following season when an application for use of the ground was approved by the Brisbane City Council, at an annual rent of one guinea.[16]

By 1922 Thistle had amassed one of the most powerful teams in the country and were locked in a neck-and-neck premiership battle with Bundamba Rangers, both teams having won their first seven matches.[17] However, Thistle eventually finished as runners-up to their Ipswich rivals, having paid a heavy price in mid-season while five players were away on representative duty (Jack Cumberford, Dave Cumberford and Billy McBride with Australia in New Zealand, along with Johnny Peebles and Jimmy Love on tour to New South Wales with Queensland).

But Thistle made no mistake just one season later, annexing their first major honour by claiming the 1923 Brisbane premiership with a 5–1 win in the grand-final replay against Bundamba.[18][19]

In those first few seasons, Thistle’s remarkable performances for a fledgling club marked it as one of Australia’s most powerful squads. By the early 1930s, nine Thistle players had represented Australia, including the Cumberford brothers, Jack and Dave. Jack Cumberford, who coached the Queensland team after World War II, earned a unique honour when he was awarded a special medal for scoring Australia's first international goal in a 3-1 win against Wanganui in the opening game of the tour of New Zealand in 1922.[20] Other Thistle players who earned selection for Australia during that period were Jimmy Love, Billy McBride, Angus Marshall, Andrew Park, John Peebles, Jimmy Robertson and John Steel.[21] Peebles and Steel were both destined to make a long-term mark on Queensland football as senior administrators.

Press reports during the 1920s also provided confirmation that the Thistle club was not linked in any way with the now defunct Merthyr Thistle. A press profile of Thistle’s international forward Jack Cumberford stated that he had played for Merthyr Thistle in 1919 but “the following season saw the club disband, and the present Thistle club formed”.[22]

Two years later, in an article outlining Thistle’s achievements, co-founder Bob Waddell stated that the club was founded “as recently as 1920” and listed its complete playing record, season by season. He also recalled that the first competitive match played by Thistle was against Queen’s Park in 1920.[23]

The following year, conclusive evidence was provided that no link existed between Merthyr Thistle and the club formed in 1920. Under the heading “The Story of the Thistle Club”, Bob Waddell stated the following: “In the 1919 season a club by the name of Merthyr Thistle was formed, but owing to great dissension among the officials and players, the club only reigned one season, and the players, with one exception, decided to break away the following year. A meeting was convened by J Cumberford, J Scott and R L Waddell, and it was decided unanimously that we form a Thistle club — an entirely new club having no connection whatever with the club known as Merthyr Thistle. J Lang (now a referee) was elected chairman, R L Waddell honorary secretary and J Scott honorary treasurer. The first season saw the club just failing to annex the hon¬ours both in the premiership and Charity Cup competitions.” [24]

By the late 1920s, Thistle’s strength had waned and after finishing bottom of the first division premiership the club was facing relegation. However, the following season saw one of the code’s periodic upheaveals in Queensland when Brisbane’s leading clubs, with the sole exception of Thistle, decided to break away from the state governing body and form a company to run their affairs. Thistle declined to join the breakaway and at a special meeting held on 11 February 1930, it was decided to join the Ipswich and West Moreton Association instead.[25]

At the start of the 1930 season Thistle moved to its current home Lanham Park[26] which was described in April 1930 as "an open paddock".[27]

By the end of the 1931 season, however, the club was struggling on and off the field, having finished last in the 10-team Ipswich competition and facing severe challenges during a period of world-wide recession. In March, 1932 the Sports Referee reported that although members at the Thistle annual general meeting were determined to continue, the club was in deep financial difficulty, with a credit balance of £1/5 and liabilities of £4/10. Poor attendances at Lanham Park meant that only £8/16/4 had been collected during the entire preceding season and travel expenses for regular trips to Ipswich had also depleted the club’s resources. The AGM was adjourned.[28]

Impending doom loomed by April 2 when Thistle’s match against Toombul at Lanham Park was postponed in view of uncertainty about the club’s future. Three days later Thistle’s adjourned AGM decided to suspend operations because of the club’s financial difficulties. President H M Herald indicated that the club intended to re-form if the dispute between the Ipswich and Brisbane organisations was ended.[29] However, this rift was not healed until several years later, by which time the Thistle club had effectively become defunct.

No written record has been found to explain how or when the present club re-emerged at Lanham Park. It is believed that Neil Mackay and former Thistle and Queensland goalkeeper Jimmy Perotte were instrumental in starting a junior team at Lanham Park in 1942. No formal fixtures could be played because these had been suspended during World War II. By 1944, however, when competitions resumed, Thistle were able to field a team strong enough to win the junior division and earn promotion to the first division ranks for the 1945 season.,[30][31]

For the next 32 seasons, from 1945 to 1976, Thistle retained top division status in Brisbane without being able to add to their premiership honours. However, the club did have several major cup successes, including three consecutive Tristram Shield wins from 1950 to 1952 and a 6-1 thrashing of Azzurri (later Brisbane City) in the 1966 Ampol Cup final.

The only blip during this period came in 1961, the year in which Grange was added as a prefix to the club’s name and the shirt colours were changed from the traditional Scottish blue and white to tangerine and white.[32] Once again the club faced relegation after finishing bottom of the table, and once again a split in Queensl;and football came to the rescue. Formation of the breakaway Queensland Soccer Federation at the start of the 1962 season enabled Thistle to join other leading Brisbane and Ipswich clubs in an eight-team semi-professional competition in which a respectable mid-table position was secured. This was largely due to the influence of diminutive Scottish captain-coach Norm Tran, whose acquisition from East Fife provided the impetus for a club revival. Tran represented Queensland several times that season before departing to join Sydney first division club Auburn.

But by 1976 club fortunes had again declined and Grange Thistle were relegated to the second division for the first time. Once again, a Scotsman was instrumental in enabling the club to bounce back immediately by winning promotion. This time the catalyst was the signing of Jim Hermiston, a member of the Aberdeen team which beat Celtic 3-1 to win the Scottish Cup in 1970.[33] Although Hermiston left after one season to play in the National Soccer League, Thistle enjoyed a period of great success in the short-lived Queensland State League (1979 to 1982), winning consecutive grand finals against Mount Gravatt in 1979 and 1980. During this period the club qualified for the national cup competition twice, losing each time to Brisbane Lions in the 1980 and 1981 NSL Cup competitions. The club left the State League and dropped back to Brisbane competition in 1982, winning their first Brisbane Division One premiership since 1923.[21]

Grange Thistle also had further cup success, claiming the Ampol Cup for a second time in 1981.[34]

Grange Thistle competed in the Brisbane Premier League for all but three seasons from the commencement of this league in 1983 until 1996.[35] Since then it has played in the second and third tiers of the Brisbane competition until achieving promotion back to the Premier League by finishing in second place in Capital League 1 in 2016.

In 2018, Grange Thistle were crowned champions of the Brisbane Premier League after finishing second in the league and going on to win the finals series. They also won the Canale Cup for the first time since 1981, when it was known as the Ampol Cup, and retained this trophy in 2019.

Grange Thistle’s badge and official web site still indicate club’s the foundation year as 1919. As shown above, this date is incorrect. However, there remains uncertainty as to whether the correct date is 1920 or 1942. From 1947 to 1960, Queensland Soccer Football Association yearbooks all list 1942 as the year the club was founded. No mention is made of 1919 or 1920. This is significant because Neil Mackay, generally regarded as the founding father of the present Thistle club, was president from approximately 1942 to 1953 and again in 1955. The consistent use of 1942 as the club’s foundation date during Neil Mackay’s lengthy tenure as president indicates that he did not link the present club to the original Thistle club which existed from 1920 to 1932.

In 1964, for the first time in 32 years, suggestions emerged in print of a link with the original Thistle club formed in 1920. However, the incorrect year of 1919 was given, apparently because of confusion with Merthyr Thistle (see above). The club foundation date was henceforward listed in Queensland Soccer Federation Yearbooks as “1919, re-formed 1942”. This information was provided to the Federation by Thistle officials of the day, who evidently believed on the information available to them that the club was reactivated in 1942 rather than founded anew. However, no documentary evidence has been found to support the reference to 1919. Given that reference materials now available could not have been easily accessed at that time, the one-year error in recording the foundation year is understandable.

Men's flagship team:

Source:[31]

Women's flagship team:

Source:[31]

The tier is the level in the Australian soccer league system

Due to frequent restructures and re-classifications of divisions in Brisbane football, the club's first team honours below are listed by tier in the Brisbane football pyramid.

State Tier

• Queensland State League – Premiers and Champions 1979
• Queensland State League – Champions 1980

Brisbane – Tier 1

• Brisbane Division 1 – Premiers 1923, 1982; Champions 1982
• Tristram Shield – Winner 1950, 1951, 1952
• Ampol Cup – Winner 1966, 1981
• Pig N Whistle Canale Cup – Winner 2018, 2019

Brisbane – Tier 2

• Brisbane Division 2 – Champions 1977
• Capital League 1 – Champions 2016

Brisbane – Tier 3

• Brisbane Premier Division 2 – Premiers 2007

• Samuel Xinis
• etc.

• Club Website