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The 1910 US rugby team that toured Australia. Ken Dole is in the back row, fourth from the left.

An American rugby player in Maitland, 1910

In 1910 things were tense between two rival rugby football competitions in New South Wales, Australia. For some years the game styled on that originally played at the Rugby school in England had been administered by the so-called Rugby Union, but the conservative reign of the union bosses was being threatened by a breakaway group of rebels who played the same game but called themselves the Rugby League.

The main reason for the rebellion was the same as that which had precipitated the formation of a breakaway rugby league in England – an argument over whether players should be strictly amateur or whether they could be paid for their football skills. This argument was pressed somewhat to extremes, with administrators insisting that players should not be paid – not even reimbursed for their out-of-pocket costs or helped with expenses if they were injured – a common occurrence in a notably rough sport. And yet, it seems the policy was enforced a little unevenly, with “working class” players from working class areas the most policed by competition scrutineers on the lookout for signs of payments and inducements that would break the rules. Many players felt hard done by. They saw large crowds paying good money to attend games but none of that money benefited them. Indeed, by playing they enriched those administering the sport while themselves losing money – sometimes catastrophically. Requests for injury compensation or insurance were flatly refused, generating considerable resentment.

The new “league”, on the other hand, was unashamedly in favour of players being paid and, little by little, the new competition began to prevail. The rules it played by also gradually changed, leading rugby league ultimately to become a quite different game from rugby union.

The Union did not give ground willingly. It instituted harsh bans on rebel players and tried other means to prevail over its new rival. One method it tried was encouraging tours by rugby players from other states and other countries, as well as reciprocal tours by NSW and Australian teams overseas. One such promotional tour was the 1910 visit by a team of American university players. It may seem surprising, but at the time rugby was a very popular game in parts of the United States – notably California.

Souvenir of the 1910 Rugby Union promotional tours, including the American team. Image from Jarrod Bergstrom, USA Rugby

An Australian team had visited California for a few matches on their way home from a tour of England in 1908-09, so the return visit by an American combined universities team – made up of players from Stanford, California and Nevada – seemed a good idea to foster the game. It might also, perhaps, have boosted ties at a time when the USA was making a concerted “pivot” to the Pacific region in the wake of Japan’s naval victory over Russia in 1904-05. The 1907 visit to Australia and New Zealand by “the Great White Fleet” of US battleships was a major element of this pivot, reassuring the southern colonial enclaves that that they had a powerful friend in Uncle Sam.

The Americans in action during their 1910 tour. Image from Jarrod Bergstrom, USA Rugby

The all-American rugby team, the first to play outside the USA, played 16 games, winning three and drawing two. Their first win in Australia was 10-9 against a Hunter Union team on West Maitland’s Albion ground. A detailed account of the match and the banquet that followed can be found here, in The Maitland Mercury. Notably, a lot of the speeches concentrated on the virtues of amateurism and the evils of professionalism in sport – an obvious swipe at the rival League competition.

One of the American players was Stanford University’s Ken Dole, a hefty forward who was soon to become Stanford’s captain. Dole wrote a letter, on the stationery of West Maitland’s Grand Central Hotel, that was intended to be sent to a friend named Harriett back in the USA. Evidently the letter was never sent. Somehow it survived more than 100 years without even being folded. I bought it from Sydney-based sporting memorabilia dealer Tony Burgess. The text of the letter, which makes some interesting observations about Maitland and its inhabitants, follows:


West Maitland, Jun 30, 1910

Dear Harriet,

This is going to be just a little note because if I start to tell you all about my trip thus far I’ll never have time to finish. That will have to wait till I get back. Suffice it to say that we won our first game in Australia yesterday after losing four in succession in Sydney. The score was 10-9. We ought to have beaten them by double the score but we put up a bum exhibition of football. The West Maitlanders think their team is the only one on the face of the Earth so they think we are pretty good. The town is 130 miles from Sydney and the inhabitants are the biggest bunch of “home products” boosters you ever saw. They couldn’t see any other place on the face of the Earth for a minute. They have got good land round here. We took a drive yesterday morning on our arrival and went out through rich looking pasture lands, vegetable gardens, orange groves, alfalfa fields and rolling country covered with scattering eucalyptus trees. Change the eucalyptus to oak and you’d have a scene in California exactly, climate and all. It was really quite home-like. In the afternoon we played and it rained and blew alternately during the game and, as I said, we were for the most part pretty punk but they were punker. In the evening we had the usual after-the-game banquet where many toasts are drunk (me lemonade) and everyone says how honored they are at being able to meet such a fine bunch of uncle Sam’s representatives and Doc Burbank and Spook Cerf tell the natives what a marvel in the way of revelations the Australian hospitality is to us and how we feel more like brothers then mere visitors etc. ad infinitum. We have had a mighty good time though. Something doing all the time in the way of amusement or football. Dances, launch rides, tram rides, drag drives, theatre, receptions, banquets and calls on people we have met. I’d better look out or I’ll leave my heart in Australia. Have met some dandy girls. Dutch Roth and I went rowing with a couple Sunday on the harbor at Sydney. Had a peach of a time.

You won’t get this till it’s too late to answer it, except to  Honolulu, perhaps.

Au revoir, Kenneth LD.

As the team made its way back to the United States, a rumour circulated that Dole had been badly injured while playing in Australia. The San Francisco Call newspaper covered the rumour, as seen in the clipping above.


Ken Dole (second from left) at Stanford in about 1912. Stanford Historical Photograph Collection.

History shows that the League rebels made serious inroads into the Union’s business. Today League and Union are quite different games – both with large and loyal followings. And yet some elements of the original dispute still exist. Despite many efforts over many years to make Rugby football safer, serious injuries still occur and the old argument about the level of support the games’ administrators owe to injured players still goes on.

For an interesting ABC radio interview with former rugby player Michael Lipman about ongoing problems faced by some players and former players, click here.


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