Cumberfords and Gibb
The year is 1922. Australia travelled across the Tasman Sea to play a series of matches against regional teams and three against New Zealand itself. They were the Kiwis' first full international games, initially at Dunedin, then Wellington and Auckland, two won and a draw. And they were Australia's first too, which meant that the goal scored before halftime in the forty-fifth minute of the Dunedin encounter became Oz's first ever in an international. The marksman was the centre-forward, Bill Maunder, known as Podge. However, he was not the first to hit the target for Australia. That honour had fallen three weeks earlier to John Cumberford in a match against Wanganui. He had been at inside-right that day just as he would be at Dunedin. Nor in both games would he be the only Cumberford on the pitch. At left-back was David and he and John both playing their football in Brisbane for the Thistle, a club, it appears, almost exclusively comprised of Scots immigrants, were brothers. Indeed in the 1920s Thistle, now called Grange-Thistle after the suburb, in which it is still to be found, would also contribute Billy McBride, Jimmy Love and Glasgow-born John Peebles to the national team.
Association football in Brisbane, soccer in Queensland had by the 1920s already a forty year history. It had begun in the early 1880s with a group of mostly Scottish immigrants playing at the city's Queen's Park, which , I am informed by local football historian, Peter Eedy, is now part of the city's Botanic gardens. And it was they who in 1883 had formed the club, the Scottish Football Association, in an apt place for "first seeds", followed in 1884 by the foundation of the Anglo-Queensland Football Association and its first member, the St. Andrew's Football Club. Moreover, we not only have the announcement of foundation of both St. Andrew's and the Anglo--Queensland FA.
"A MEETING of those favourable to the "Association" game of football as played in the home countries was held at the Australian Hotel last night [Thursday 1 May] ... The chair was occupied by Mr. W. McLauchlan. Among those present were a number of Scottish Association footballers who had recently arrived in the colony ... [I]t was resolved that it was desirable to form an Anglo-Queensland Football Association, and as a beginning the meeting formed the first club, the name selected being "St. Andrew's Football Club." Mr. D. McCreadie - a Queen's Park (Glasgow) player was elected president and captain of the club .."
but also, with that same year the Scottish Football Association changing its name to Rangers we even know the members of its initial team,
Middlebrook and Wordie, J. and W. Cairns, Anderton and Millar, the captain, Rankine, Allison, Russell, Irvine and Gemmell
also know that a third club, Queen's Park, was formed at much the same time, have a record of the first game played under the auspices of the new organisation,
can read that the match was refereed according to the convention of the time, with an umpire from each side on the pitch and the referee in the stand, know the Queen's Park team was,"The first match under the auspices of the Anglo-Queensland Football Association took place on the Pineapple Ground, Kangaroo Point on Saturday, the contending clubs being the Queen's Park and St Andrew's. The clubs played eleven aside, being the usual number in matches under this association. The colours were-for St Andrews dark blue and for Queen's Park blue and white. Mr Shiers was umpire for the Queen's Park, and Mr Curry filled the same position for the other side, Mr Hudson being referee. The attendance numbered about sixty, and most of them took a lively interest in the game."
Brooks, Wearne (backs); Pywell, Copp (half-backs), Pearson, Holland (centre forwards), Bell, Allison (left wing), Sharp, Princeps (captain, right wing), J. Wharrie (goal),
that St. Andrew's included,
R. Wylie, the captain, McCreadie, presumably D. McCreadie, Menzies, Kyle, Currie and Angus
and that not only did St. Andrew's win 7-0 but, just to emphasise the source of the emerging game's energy, these pioneers on and off the field were known specifically in Brisbane by participants in the other footballing codes, rugby and Australian Rules, as the "Scotch rulers".
Furthermore by 1886 other teams had formed and were forming. It was a season that St. Andrews not only won ten of ten games but also the inclusion for the first time of the Brisbane club, the Swifts, and from Ipswich, Queenslanders and Bundamba Rovers. Whilst in 1890 the Anglo-Queensland FA reformed as the Queensland British Football Association and the following year it was joined by three more teams from Ipswich, one of which was probably Bundamba Rangers. In 1895 it won "the badges, that is finished as top club, beginning a period of domination of Brisbane football by clubs, when participating, based on collieries, another of which was South Brisbane. And meanwhile 1887 had seen the emergence as a breakaway from St. Andrew's of a new power in defeating Bundamba Rovers in the AQFA Cup Final that same year. The new club was Thistle F.C.
So it was that against this Queensland background that some thirty years later John and David Cumberford emerged as club and in 1922 as international players. However, like the game itself, the Sunshine State was not where they had begun their lives, both familial and footballing with the clue in John Cumberford's nickname. He was known by all as Jack or Jock and had arrived on 1912 in Australia at the age of eighteen with David, six years younger, and the remainder of the family. Their father was a miner, who had taken advantage of the Assisted Immigration scheme and with his wife Margaret and their five children, Jock being the eldest, had come from Holytown by Bellshill to hew New World instead Lanarkshire coal. They were Scots and more than that, if David had in part to learn his game in Oz, Jock at least arrived as more or less a fully-formed player adding his specifically Scottish-developed expertise first to the Scots-pioneered Brisbane footballing pool and then to Australia's.
But the Cumberfords' first international in 1922 had also seen another and equally important contribution from both Brisbane football and Scotland. The captain that day from the left-wing had been Alex Gibb, one of six caps he would win, all of them with the arm-band. He would also coach the international team, which contained another Gibb, Angus, said to be American-born but who knows, and be its manager in 1933 in the series again against the Kiwis. As for his club football it was spent at Bundamba Athletic, Bundamba Rangers and South Brisbane Scottish. The two Bundamba teams were because he came from there, then a pit-village by Ipswich, twenty miles up the Brisbane River from the Queensland capital itself. The South Brisbane Scottish connection was due to Gibb himself. He is said have been migrated to Australia before the Great War, possibly in 1911, presumably from the Edinburgh area since he is also said to have played for Musselburgh Juniors. Moreover he is further said to have been born in Scotland or in Ireland of Scots parents. It means that, although his early life might be a little hazy, the source of his football is not. It was Scotland. Indeed the Scots influence, having begun well before Alex, would continue beyond him. His son, also Alex, known as Lex, having played and playing with several Ipswich clubs, including Bundamba Rangers, and a couple from Brisbane, like his father on the left-wing as well as a Diasporan centre-half and half-back would between 1938 and 1948 win eight caps, including again like his father touring New Zealand.