Soccer’s “greatest domestic treasure” found after 70 years
It took 69 years, but the Soccer Ashes have finally been found.
Australian football has been on the hunt for the treasured trophy since 1954, when it - by all accounts - disappeared from the face of the Earth.
The “greatest domestic treasure”, a title bestowed upon it by Australian football historian Trevor Thompson, is easy enough to miss at first glance. The hand-carved wooden box is small, but like with most things in life, it’s what’s on the inside that counts - in this case, the ashes of two cigars smoked by the Australia and New Zealand captains in 1923 following their first ‘A’ international match in Australia.
The trophy - which is now considered to be a main contributing element in the wider history of Australia’s national team, the Socceroos - serves as the first one ever contested between the rival sides, and was thought up by the then-team manager for New Zealand, Harry Mayer.
His belief that the two sides needed something to play for - similar to cricket’s Ashes - led to its creation. Mayer himself - a trophy maker - constructed the piece, combining the likes of New Zealand honeysuckle and Australian maple, including the iconic imagery of kangaroos and silver ferns on its lid.
Within the box lies a blue velvet lining, and a silver-plated razor case. The case is a main feature of the trophy, as it once belonged to the-secretary of the Queensland Football Association, Private William Fisher. He had been carrying it with him during the 1915 Gallipoli landing.
In the 30 years to follow, the two nations competed for the trophy, and saw it passed back and forth between Australia and New Zealand before its 1954 disappearance. And while some feared it had simply been tossed aside or at worst destroyed, many were not willing to give up on it.
Historians Trevor Thompson and Ian Syson, for example, set out in 2019 on a mission to track it down, armed with the support of Football Australian and government funding.
And to the delight of soccer fans across both nations, they did it.
The family of the late and former Australian Soccer Football Association’s chairman Sydney Storey found it tucked away with a whole host of other treasures - including but not limited to football memorabilia, pictures, newspaper clippings, and other assorted documents - in his garage. It took them a year to identify and verify all of Storey’s vast collection, but it was all worth the wait, with the family reaching out to Football Australia as soon as possible.
In the wake of the joyous discovery, there have been calls for the trophy - or at least a replica of it - to once again be implemented, as well as for the trans-Tasman competition to become an annual event.
As Ian Syson explained, “this trophy is symbolic of something really important, and its discovery is also really important as well.
"Its absence was a symptom of Australian soccer's tendency to forget itself, and for the surrounding culture not to care at all.
"This trophy is replete with sacred significance to a country that is so obsessed with its Anzac mythology. For that to go missing, it says a lot about the way this game manages to shoot itself in the foot all the time.
"And so maybe this is a sign that the game can correct itself, can fix itself, can remember itself - if there's enough people caring about it, if there's enough people taking an interest in the history.
"It means so much for the game."
Images: Twitter