The earliest known records of regular Association Football (soccer) games in Brisbane date from the early 1880s, when a group comprising mostly Scottish immigrants commenced playing at Queen's Park, adjacent to Alice and Edward Streets in the city (now part of the City Botanic Gardens) and vacant land in Melbourne Street South Brisbane, between Grey and Stanley Streets. This group of players subsequently formed the Anglo-Queensland Football Association in early 1884, and commenced playing fixtures at the sportsfield behind the Pineapple Hotel, in Main Street Kangaroo Point, and at Queen's Park, in June 1884.

 

After a promising start, the game in Brisbane then developed erratically, hampered by the overwhelming popularity of the Rugby football codes: initially Rugby Union, which had commenced in Brisbane several years earlier, then Rugby League from the 1920s onwards. The game also suffered from ongoing periodic disunity, caused initially by disaffected clubs from nearby Ipswich and later by disagreements over funding of the game and payments to players. In contrast with this the game boomed in Ipswich, with clubs from that city dominating Brisbane and combined Brisbane-Ipswich competitions until around 1960.

 

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