The Coping StoneThe First English Soccer Tour of Australia 1925 tells the littleknown but fascinating story of how soccer fought for survival and acceptance in early 20thcentury Australia. In a sporting landscape dominated by rugby and Australian Rules, football was kept alive in the mining towns of New South Wales and Queensland, fuelled by the passion of workingclass migrants. Through the intertwined lives of minerturnedinternational Judy Masters, young Australian administrator Syd Storey, a traditional English administrator John Lewis, and visiting Arsenal player Tom Whittaker, Paul Nicholls brings to life a time when the worlds most popular sport struggled for legitimacy in a country where it was seen as a foreign game. From the trenches of the Western Front to the coalfields of the Illawarra and the packed grounds of Sydney, this is a story of resilience, ambition, and the long journey to secure the "coping stone" a historic tour by an English team that promised to cement footballs place in the Australian sporting landscape.Set against the backdrop of the roaring twenties, and featuring a guntoting hotel manager, a breakaway professional league and a mysterious robbery, The Coping Stone is an extraordinary tale of the first English soccer tour of Australia.

Binding: Paperback;240 pages; Publisher: Fair Play Publishing; Classification: N/A; Weight: 558.17 g; Dimensions: N/A

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