page_title: Brisbane Football Club (defunct)
section_title: 1870s: Opposition clubs formed
hierarchical_section_title: Brisbane Football Club (defunct) / History / 1870s: Opposition clubs formed
caption_attribution_description: English: Brisbane F.C. (Queensland, Australia) squad. The team switched from rugby union to Australian rules that year.
context_page_description: The Brisbane Football Club is a defunct Australian rules football club, formed in May 1866. Brisbane FC was the first known football club of any code in Brisbane, Queensland.
  The club commenced playing according to what was then known as the 'Victorian rules' football. In 1876 the club adopted rugby rules, to fit in with two newly formed Brisbane football clubs, before reverting to Victorian rules football in 1879.
  The club was to last around only 20 years, disappearing from the public record in the late 1880s, when rugby football was in the ascendancy in Brisbane and Victorian rules football was in decline.
context_section_description: By 1870, the Ipswich Football Club had formed and became the only other organised club in the region and hence the Brisbane club's only competition. Brisbane won the first three games of that season.
  It also appears that the club played at least one game of what was then referred to as "London Association rules" (now 'soccer'): The Queenslander of 14 August 1875 reported that on Saturday 7 August 1875, Brisbane FC played a game against the inmates and warders of the Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum: "… play commenced at half-past 2 ... One rule provided that the ball should not be handled nor carried." Moreover, the Victorian publication The Footballer reported in 1875 in its section on "Football in Queensland" that the “match was played without handling the ball under any circumstances whatever (Association rules)." This is the earliest known game of 'soccer' played in the Brisbane region (and possibly in Australia).
  In 1876, two new Brisbane clubs (Rangers FC and Bonnet Rouge FC) were formed. The Brisbane Courier of 10 May 1876 reported: "At a meeting of the newly-formed football club at Petrie-terrace, held yesterday evening, it was decided to call the club the "Bonnet Rouge Football Club;" the uniform to be a red cap, of any shape whatever. The rugby union rules were finally adopted, as it was understood that these had been decided upon by other Brisbane clubs." These three clubs commenced playing according to rugby union rules, but modified by local customary rules.
  Unfortunately, the Bonnet Rouge and Rangers clubs disappear from the public record after the 1877 season. However, the Excelsior club was formed in 1877 and the Wallaroos in 1880, with both clubs apparently playing according to 'Victorian rules'.
  In 1879 the Brisbane Courier reported that the Brisbane FC had reverted to what had become known as the 'Victorian rules', "in place of the Rugby Union Rules played by the club during the last three seasons".
caption: Brisbane FC ca 1879. In this year the club reverted from rugby union rules to Australian rules
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