The rediscovery of the Soccer Ashes, a trophy played for between Australia and New Zealand from 1923 until its disappearance circa 1954, has highlighted the close links between soccer in Australia and the first World War. Inside the elegant wooden cabinet is a razor case containing the ashes of cigars smoked by the captains of the Australian and New Zealand teams in the first international soccer series in Australia. The razor case was provided by William Fisher, the Secretary of the Queensland Football Association, and had accompanied him on the landing of Gallipoli eight years earlier. The razor case in his possession that day is the physical embodiment of the commitment and sacrifice of the Australian soccer community made to the war effort.
While sports historians celebrated the rediscovery of this precious object, it presented a problem for the Soccer Anzacs project. On the assumption that it was lost forever, this project had established the Ashes as a holy grail, the search for which would unearth substantial stories and knowledge but which would never find the grail itself. Holy grails by definition and design must remain elusive.
Finding the Ashes barely a month into the project was not on our bingo card and it forced a rethink and reformulation. We took a breath and realised that now Football Australia had the Ashes in its possession we held an object that symbolises the process we are undertaking. While not directly created as such, the Ashes effectively represents every Australian soccer player who served in World War One and provides a capstone to our project. The fact the trophy contains an object possessed by William Fisher who rowed in one of the first boats (if not the first) to land at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 is profoundly symbolic.
The Soccer Ashes trophy was played for between Australia and New Zealand sporadically until 1954, before disappearing before the 1958 series. Rediscovered in 2023, it again became an active trophy when Australia Men’s team beat New Zealand later that year.