The Coping Stone

The Coping Stone-The First English Soccer Tour of Australia 1925 tells the little-known but fascinating story of how soccer fought for survival - and acceptance - in early 20th-century 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 working-class migrants.
Through the intertwined lives of miner-turned-international '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 world's 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 football's place in the Australian sporting landscape.
Set against the backdrop of the roaring twenties, and featuring a gun-toting 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.

Paul Nicholls is a writer from Sydney with a passion for the history and culture of sport.His articles on Australian football history appear in Play On magazine, Shoot Farken, Neos Osmos and The Roar. He has made several appearances on If You Know Your History on Football Nation Radio. Paul also writes fiction and his work has been published as part of the collection The Moving Pen 2021 and 2022.