Ian Syson’s book tells the history of Australian football from it's early beginnings in the 1860's up to World War II.

Since the first football was kicked in Australia, soccer has been seen as a foreign sport.

But using historical reports and photographs, Syson's book documents how the game has been present at key moments in Australian history - most notably during World War I.

“The story of Irymple, a town in Mildura is what starts the project of this book off,” Syson told FourFourTwo.

“I discovered this photo (pictured above) in 2009 of a soccer team in Mildura in 1913. That was the first surprise that soccer was popular in Mildura.

"The second surprise is looking at the asterisks below the photo, it shows how five out of the team died in World War I.

“Then I did further research and I found that it was actually nine or 10 that died from that club.

“That was the deal breaker for me. That photo was a real opener for me and is perhaps the inspiration for this book

“I thought, ‘wow I wonder how common this story is. I wonder if this story can be told all around Australia'.”

Indeed, that is what Syson found out. That throughout the country there were stories of soccer clubs whose players sacrificed themselves for their country.

And that images, such as the one below of football being played at Gallipolli, challenges the established narrative that has been used to denigrate soccer.

“I thought if this story was revealed properly and widely we’d no longer have to say soccer is a foreign game,” Syson said.

“That it’s no longer a game that doesn’t belong in the Australian story, that we now know it’s a game that is central to the Australian story.

“These men that lost their lives were ordinary Australian guys that enlisted and died like so many other Australian guys did.

“They are not different they are not unusual they are just soccer players.

“We should be confident that as part of the Australian soccer community that you are part of Australian life, that you are not special, not different, not below, nor are you above the rest of the community, you are just part of it.”

Significantly, Syson’s book uncovers that while Australian Rules and Rugby League continued with their competitions during the conflict, soccer stopped and as a result the game suffered. 

“Footy and Rugby League kept going. Their players avoided going to the war," he said. "Collingwood, Carlton, Fitzroy, Richmond, all kept playing. They continue the game and that kept their infrastructure in place.

“But soccer said no, 'we are going to the war.' Rugby Union said 'no we are going to the war.' They were really vital decisions in terms of the future of these games.

“Because those other sports kept their infrastructure in place, they kept consciousness of the games in place as it was the only game to go to on the weekend.

“But in soccer the infrastructure breaks down, patterns of behaviour breaks down, if you stop following your team for a year, it’s very hard to get going again.

1909 Middle Park Victoria. Football was played in Victoria in the 1860's but the Museum of Victoria incorrectly states that this was the "start of Soccer in Australia"

Syson hopes football fans will appreciate that the research in his book has historical implications for how the sport should be viewed today.

“So, what I’m saying to soccer people is that your game belongs here,” he said.

“Look how much it belongs, see how old it is, see how many soccer players committed themselves to the army, see how many soccer players died in the war in a commitment to something like the Anzac legend.

“We need to acknowledge that Soccer played a very strong role in enlistments in the war. In Melbourne it was something like 500 players went to war. 

“I’ve only scratched the surface and there are so many more stories to be told.

“I intend to do work on the Newcastle Soccer Anzacs because there were 650 players in Newcastle and 550 of them joined up and about 80 were killed. And it had a massive effect on their community.

Syson added," I also din’t look at NSW much, so I want to redress that balance as there were parts of Sydney where soocer was a hegemonic game such as Balmain and Granville.

"Soccer has a strange history. I have to do more work, I have to find more descriptions. I have to find influences and so forth.

"The problem is all of the stories from that period are told by people who are from other sports, who see everything that happens in that period in their own image.”