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Soccer Ashes thread

HappyGuus said:
Had he actually already heard of "Ashes" series with South Africa? Or is this news to him?
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I did know about the intensity of the rivalry but I had let the use of the "ashes" term slip by. The term was frequently used across Australian sport to designate the winner of a local or regional rivalry during the fist half of the century. But I won't discount the idea of an actual trophy and will be attentive to the possibility
 
ian syson said:
I did know about the intensity of the rivalry but I had let the use of the "ashes" term slip by. The term was frequently used across Australian sport to designate the winner of a local or regional rivalry during the fist half of the century. But I won't discount the idea of an actual trophy and will be attentive to the possibility
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The idea of another missing trophy certainly crossed my mind when it said in that 1947 article that it was our first Soccer Ashes loss in 22 years. Especially when we hadn't played NZ in 1925 looking at the stats.
 
HappyGuus said:
The Ashes with South Africa began pre-apartheid, but still a good point.
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It bears keeping in mind that modern South African football has largely-disowned its apartheid-era history, somewhat analogous to how our🇦🇺 pre-European migrant-influx footballing history is old-soccer’s old-soccer so to speak.

And frankly I don’t blame them - from what research I’ve done it looks like a joke: their NT was also called the Springboks(right down to wearing the same kit!) and made up of Afrikaner/Saltie blokes who most likely only took up ⚽️ bc they weren’t tough enough to play rugby😏
 
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Having said that, there are some eye-catching footnotes about 🇿🇦⚽️-history in that now-distant era:

* Their NT’s(of course now known as Bafana Bafana) full-international debut was against Argentina as part of a South American tour in 1906..with South Africa winning 1-0!😮 In fact the Saffas won all but one of the 12 matches of that tour, 16 years before the Socceroos debuted on the world-stage.

* The two countries met again in 1976, at the Rand Stadium in Soweto(only 3 months before the uprising there), and SA won 5-0 with NY Cosmos star Jomo Sono scoring 4 of the goals👀

It should be noted that wasn’t a fully-recognised 'A' international due to SA’s suspension from FIFA, as well as the South African FA of the time not recognising it as such due to the non-segregated nature of the squad.

* Of direct relevance to us🇦🇺 is that during the late-‘70s/early-‘80s, some NSL clubs took advantage of South Africa’s suspension from FIFA to sign players from their league without paying transfer-fees; Tony Henderson and Ron Tilsed probably the two best-known examples of this.
 
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BA81 said:
Having said that, there are some eye-catching footnotes about 🇿🇦⚽️-history in that now-distant era:

* Their NT’s(of course now known as Bafana Bafana) full-international debut was against Argentina as part of a South American tour in 1906..with South Africa winning 1-0!😮 In fact the Saffas won all but one of the 12 matches of that tour, 16 years before the Socceroos debuted on the world-stage.

* The two countries met again in 1976, at the Rand Stadium in Soweto(only 3 months before the uprising there), and SA won 5-0 with NY Cosmos star Jomo Sono scoring 4 of the goals👀

It should be noted that wasn’t a fully-recognised 'A' international due to SA’s suspension from FIFA, as well as the South African FA of the time not recognising it as such due to the non-segregated nature of the squad.

* Of direct relevance to us🇦🇺 is that during the late-‘70s/early-‘80s, some NSL clubs took advantage of South Africa’s suspension from FIFA to sign players from their league without paying transfer-fees; Tony Henderson and Ron Tilsed probably the two best-known examples of this.
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A not so fun fact for us is South Africa's biggest ever win was 8-1 against us 🇦🇺 in 1955.
 
@grazorblade It may be worth contacting South African football historian Chris Bolsmann. The bloke seems to have an extensive knowledge of South Africa's past football history and if anyone who may know about South Africa's involvement in the Soccer Ashes or if a second trophy is missing it'd be him.
 
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