Charles Boyles Football Photos 1930's - 1950's

[Michael Riley]

We have finally launched our Charles Boyles website as www.boylesfootballphotos.net.au.

Who was Charles Boyles
Charles Boyles was a commercial football photographer working in Melbourne between the late 1920’s and early 1960’s. He took team photos on match days and player portraits on training nights. He sold his photos to clubs, and his son (among others) sold the photos to supporters at the grounds on match days.
Boyles took photos of VFL teams for his entire career but in the 1930's took photos of teams in the VFA, Sub-District League, Police League, Wednesday League and Industrial Leagues. Later his photos included wartime services teams and Sunday League teams.
Boyles's photos appeared in the Football Record (1951-52), and have been used for Football Cards and appear in club publications.

What the Site is About
The site is a collaboration between two amateur historians (Ken Mansell and Michael Riley) and explorers the history of Australian Rules as well as the career of Charles Boyles.
In many cases with Boyles photos, the team, players and year of the photo were not known, we have improved the level of identification for hundred of Boyles photos.

The site includes:

• Photos by Charles Boyles, with players identified as best as possible
• An Interview with Boyle’s son Harley
• Articles on Football History
• An expanding database of players, interesting games, competition history, and a football timeline covering Boyles working period.

Good Places to Start Exploring

• The Home Page
• Ken’s Biography of Charles Boyles
• The State Library Collection of Boyles Photos (Unknown teams at the bottom, can you help?)
• Boyles Photos in the Football Record 1951
• Articles on General Football History

We hope you find something of interest

 

[Sipossmagic]

this is a pic from 57 judging by the jumper and the fact that Watt's last year was 57 , is this a Boyles???

 

[Michael Riley]

At first glance would not think so. Boyles usually did full length or head and shoulders.
A high percentage also had the grandstand in the background. For example:
http://boylesfootballphotos.net.au/tiki-index.php?page=Wilkie,+Bob+(SLV+122_001)
http://boylesfootballphotos.net.au/tiki-index.php?page=Synman,+Ian+(SLV+122_050)

Also if the name is on the front and was added by the photographer, that is something I have never seen on a Boyles photo.

Maybe by one of the Newspaper photographers, but could be anyone.
One of the problems is at the moment there is no real idea of who the photographers were, or when they worked.

It is a great shot, and very useful for identifying Watt in other team photos. Do you mind if I add it to my page on Bob Watt?
http://boylesfootballphotos.net.au/tiki-index.php?page=Bob+Watt

The other issue is that as it is possibly 1957, it is therefore still in copyright by the original photographer and they will own the reproduction rights.
Copyright used to last 50 years, but we changed in 2004-5 to longer copyright terms. So 1954 and earlier are all out of copyright but 1955 on are still in copyright.

 

[Sipossmagic]

It's funny that the name is printed on the front but there are no other markings and he was hardly a star player.

here's another you may like It's from 1948 of the St Kilda big "V" players its of Harold Bray & Robert Hancock

one that is marked a "Boyles" is of Neil Roberts (which he kindly signed for me)

feel free too use any of my pics and good luck with the site

 

[Sipossmagic]

here's a few team pics you dont have

1953 -

Year Unknown (maybe a reserves team)

and last by no means least most likely a old timers team

 

[Michael Riley]

Both are Boyles

The National Sport Museum has the Harold Bray photo in their collection, and they have variations of the Neil Roberts photo. Most versions of the Neil Roberts photo have him with arms crossed over his chest, or standing beside Keith Drinan. Roberts also swapped jumpers (and socks) for a few other photos and he and Keith Drinan had photos taken in their Victorian State Jumpers.

 

[Michael Riley]

Thanks for these

The old Timers photo is the only one we have on the site
http://boylesfootballphotos.net.au/tiki-index.php?page=St+Kilda+Past+Players+Team+(SLV+122_232)

The other two are Boyles photos (glass plates of the original negatives are in the National Sport Museum)

I would agree that one is a seconds photo.

 

[ThePope]

We have finally launched our Charles Boyles website as www.boylesfootballphotos.net.au.

Hi Michael, The Boyles website appears to be down.
Getting a "tiki-install.php" message.

Hope everything is OK.

 

[Michael Riley]

yeah... my provider changed something. I will have to try and fix it. It will be back. Hopefully over the weekend

 

[Mero]

yeah... my provider changed something. I will have to try and fix it. It will be back. Hopefully over the weekend

Any luck with this?
I am still having the same problem as described above.
tiki-install

 

[footscray1973]

Still down, disappointing, is a fantastic resource for reading up on history of the game, minor leagues, etc

Anyone know if it will be back soon? Looks like Michael Riley hasn't been back since his last post.

 

[Mero]

This never seemed to get resolved.
Does anyone have any other contact with Michael Riley ? Or Ken Mansell?
It was one of the great footy history sites.

 

[geoffjennings79]

Just wondering if anyone has any updates on this site?

 

[Gibbsy]

Bump. The original URL now redirects to a site called gpsgolf.com.au, owned by one Christian Taylor of bizinc.net.au (which is itself a lorem ipsum type placeholder page).

This indicates to me that once the hosting provider went down and efforts to restore the site by the owners were ceased, the domain name lapsed as well, and was unfortunately snapped up by a domain squatter.

It doesn't appear that this will ever come back online in its current form.

Thankfully, the irreplaceable Internet Archive has preserved a copy of the website, seemingly in full, from June 2021, and it looks like you can browse through this as per normal.