Grange Thistle is an Australian soccer club based in Grange, Queensland. It was founded on 11 February 1920 at a meeting called by club pioneers Robert (Bob) Waddell, Joe Scott and Jock Cumberford.Daily Standard, 9 February 1920.
In 2025, the club fielded 12 senior teams and more than 95 junior teams. The senior men's team currently competes in the fourth tier of Australian football Football Queensland Premier League 2, and the women's team in Football Queensland Premier League 1.
Early years
Grange Thistle is the last of three football clubs which have carried the Thistle name since the earliest days of organised football in Brisbane. However, the club's foundation secretary, Bob Waddell, pointed out in 1924 that "the present club was formed as recently as 1920"Brisbane Soccer Record, 3 June 1924. (see accompanying article headed "A Thistle Record") and that apart from sharing a Scottish heritage it had no connection with the other two clubs (the original Thistle, formed in 1887, and Merthyr Thistle, which disbanded after the 1919 season. Nearly four decades later Bob Waddell's son, Bill, also served Thistle as club president before going on to become president of the Queensland Soccer Federation.Goal Magazine, June 1980
The first Thistle club was formed at a meeting held in the Criterion Hotel on 2 June 1887.Brisbane Courier, 3 June 1887. At the time there were three Brisbane clubs believed to have Scottish connections, Queen's Park, St Andrews and Rangers, the latter club originally formed as the "Scottish Football Association" in 1883.Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, 10 July 1925. According to Sam Ross, a member of the original Thistle club,Brisbane Soccer Record, 3 April 1924 it came into being as a breakaway group from Rangers.Brisbane Telegraph, 3 August 1923
This club had disappeared by the early 1900s but a Scottish-linked successor emerged by 1911 under the name Merthyr Thistle, a club based at New Farm Park. Merthyr Thistle had a brief but successful career in the junior ranks, winning the Brisbane first grade junior competition in 1915Brisbane Courier, 7 October 1915 before joining the senior competition in 1919, the first season in which competitive football resumed in Brisbane after World War I. In what turned out to be its final season, the club reached the grand final, played at the Brisbane Cricket Ground on 4 October, but fell to a 3-1 defeat against Pineapple Rovers.Daily Standard, 6 October 1919.
Two weeks later Merthyr Thistle rounded off the season on 18 October in the final game of its existence, a challenge match at Bulimba against Bush Rats, one of the leading clubs in the Ipswich competition, losing 1–0.Queensland Times, 22 October 1919. At this stage there was no public indication of the internal dissension which was to cause the collapse of Merthyr Thistle early in 1920 and the formation of the present club. So convivial was the atmosphere that the Ipswich Times report stated that “when the players were ready to return to the city they lined up and the Pipers’ Band led the way to the ferry. The visitors were later entertained at the Alexandria Café. Mr Morgan, on behalf of the Thistles, thanked the Rats for the visit and said he hoped that they would have more such matches in the future. Mr Joe Potts responded on behalf of the Rats, and commended the Thistles on the splendid way they had treated them”.Queensland Times, 22 October 1919, page 7
No further references to Merthyr Thistle have been traced until 9 February 1920, when indications of a crisis emerged in the form of the advertisement in the Daily Standard mentioned above. Under the heading Merthyr Thistle Football Club, the advertisement called “all players and members” to a meeting in the Caledonian Rooms in Elizabeth Street just two days later.Daily Standard, 9 February 1920.
The sense of urgency was apparent when this advertisement was repeated in the same newspaper the next day. No further mention of Merthyr Thistle in 1920 has been found, indicating that the club had insufficient players and officials to enter a team in either the senior or junior competitions. Under the new name Merthyrs, a club did re-emerge a year later at New Farm Park, the pre-1920 home ground of Merthyr Thistle, but only at junior third grade level (where it actually competed against one of the new Thistle club's junior teams).Brisbane Soccer Record, 21 June 1921, points tables.
On 3 March 1920, six new clubs affiliated with the Queensland British Football Association at its adjourned annual general meeting. Merthyr Thistle was not represented. However, Johnny Peebles, representing the newly formed Thistle club, was appointed as one of four club representatives on the executive committee.Brisbane Courier, 4 March 1920.
Two weeks later, a press preview of the season listed nine clubs in the senior competition, including Thistle but not Merthyr Thistle. The clear inference is that the new club was formed at the meeting of Merthyr Thistle players and members called for 11 February 1920.Daily Mail, 17 March 1920.
On 20 March 1920, Thistle played its first match, a friendly against Brisbane City. In a 5-2 victory at Heath Park, W Nicholls had the honour of scoring the club's first goal, with Jock Cumberford and Bob Craig each netting a brace.Daily Standard, 22 March 1920.
A few days later, the Queensland British Football Association placed its 30 registered junior clubs into three grades for the forthcoming season. Thistle's second-string team was placed in the second grade but Merthyr Thistle had become defunct and did not enter any teams in either the senior or junior grades.Daily Standard, 27 March 1920.
On 27 March Thistle played a second friendly, against Queen's Park, also at Heath Park, where the new club had established its headquarters. The match was drawn 2–2.Daily Standard 1 April 1920.
On the official opening day of the 1920 season, 10 April, Thistle played the club's first competitive match, defeating Queen's Park 3–1 at the Brisbane Cricket Ground, with the following lineup: Harry May, Billy McBride (captain), G Mackay, Donald Ross, Johnny Peebles, J Lambert, Jock Cumberford, Alec McMillan, Bob Craig, Alex Thompson and W Nicholls. Centre-forward Craig scored a hat-trick.Daily Mail, 12 April 1920. The highly successful first season ended with 10 wins, two draws and three defeats to place Thistle in second position behind Corinthians on the premiership table. Thistle's tenure at Heath Park was confirmed the following season when an application for use of the ground was approved by the Brisbane City Council, at an annual rent of one guinea.Daily Mail 15 March 1921.
By 1922 Thistle had amassed one of the most powerful teams in the country and were locked in a neck-and-neck premiership battle with Bundamba Rangers, both teams having won their first seven matches.Brisbane Telegraph, 26 May 1922. However, Thistle eventually finished as runners-up to their Ipswich rivals, having paid a heavy price in mid-season while five players were away on representative duty (Jock Cumberford, Dave Cumberford and Billy McBride with Australia in New Zealand, along with Johnny Peebles and Jimmy Love on tour to New South Wales with Queensland).
But Thistle made no mistake just one season later, annexing their first major honour by claiming the 1923 Brisbane premiership with a 5–1 win in the Challenge Cup replay against Bundamba Rangers. Dinmore Bush Rats actually finished first on the points table, with Thistle second and Bundamba third, but under the short-lived Challenge Cup system featuring the top four teams in a knockout series, Thistle came out on top as the officially designated premiers.
In those first few seasons, Thistle's remarkable performances for a fledgling club marked it as one of Australia's most powerful squads. By the early 1930s, nine Thistle players had represented Australia, including the Cumberford brothers, Jock (also known as Jack) and Dave. Jock Cumberford, who coached the Queensland team after World War II, earned a unique honour when he was awarded a special medal for scoring Australia's first international goal in a 3–1 win against Wanganui in the opening game of the tour of New Zealand in 1922.Brisbane Telegraph, 1 June 1922. Other Thistle players who earned selection for Australia during that period were Jimmy Love, Billy McBride, Angus Marshall, Andrew Park, John Peebles, Jimmy Robertson and John Steel.Grange Thistle, the First Ninety Years, 2009. Peebles and Steel were both destined to make a long-term mark on Queensland football as senior administrators.
Press reports during the 1920s also provided confirmation that the Thistle club was not linked in any way with the now defunct Merthyr Thistle. A press profile of Thistle's international forward Jock Cumberford stated that he had played for Merthyr Thistle in 1919 but “the following season saw the club disband, and the present Thistle club formed”.Brisbane Telegraph, 25 March 1922.
Two years later co-founder Bob Waddell confirmed in an article outlining Thistle's achievements that the club was founded in 1920, not 1919, and listed its complete playing record, season by season. He also recalled that the first competitive match played by Thistle was against Queen's Park in 1920.
The following year, conclusive evidence was provided that no link existed between Merthyr Thistle and the club formed in 1920. Under the heading “The Story of the Thistle Club”, Bob Waddell stated: “In the 1919 season a club by the name of Merthyr Thistle was formed, but owing to great dissension among the officials and players, the club only reigned one season, and the players, with one exception, decided to break away the following year. A meeting was convened by J Cumberford, J Scott and R L Waddell, and it was decided unanimously that we form a Thistle club — an entirely new club having no connection whatever with the club known as Merthyr Thistle. J Lang (now a referee) was elected chairman, R L Waddell honorary secretary and J Scott honorary treasurer. The first season saw the club just failing to annex the honours both in the premiership and Charity Cup competitions.”Brisbane Soccer Record, 12 August 1925).
1930s By the late 1920s, Thistle's strength had waned and after finishing bottom of the first division premiership in 1929 the club was facing relegation. However, the following season saw one of the code's periodic upheavals in Queensland when Brisbane's leading clubs, with the sole exception of Thistle, decided to break away from the state governing body and form a company to run their affairs. Thistle declined to join the breakaway and at a special meeting held on 11 February 1930, it was decided to join the Ipswich and West Moreton Association instead.Brisbane telegraph February 02, 1930.
At the start of the 1930 season Thistle moved to its current home Lanham Park which was described in April 1930 as "an open paddock".