It was from two of my walking companions, Molly and Simon, that I learned recently that Brisbane’s Football club, the “Brisbane Roar”, which is often in the news these days, had an old historical connection to a soccer club, “Hollandia”, which was started, back in 1957, by Dutch migrants. As this interested me, it prompted me to do some research about Brisbane’s early settlers from the Netherlands, and, for the benefit of my grandchildren, to also write something about my own experiences when I emigrated from Holland.
The Brisbane Roar is, today, a professional soccer club, which competes in the top tier soccer competition, the A-League. It has a strong supporter base and the club’s colour, orange, still reflects its Dutch heritage. In 2010, the club signed a partner agreement with Dutch soccer club “Utrecht”, involving the transfer of 3 players, who later became “Socceroos” (which is the nickname of Australia’s national football team). This partnership agreement is no longer active today, however, in another example of Dutch associations with the Brisbane Roar, a former Ajax player, Bente Jansen, joined the Ninja (Women’s) A-League in 2025. The orange team colour of the Brisbane Roar is also the colour of the Dutch national football team.
In this post I will be focussing on the foundation of the old “Hollandia” soccer club, and on the Dutch people who were involved in making it a successful club. Some of the material for this story was obtained from the informative “Dutch Australian Cultural Centre” (“DACC”) website pages.
One of the founding members of Hollandia, in 1957, was Fred van Breemen. Fred had arrived here in Australia, with his parents, in 1954, on the Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, which by then was already an old passenger ship, and a ship which was well known to me, which had been converted to enable it to transport up to 1400 migrants. Soon after arriving here on this ship, Fred and his family settled in Brisbane. The DACC web pages, which I referred to earlier, report that Fred’s father was part of the team which helped to construct “distinctive Dutch houses”, by using materials and techniques from the Netherlands. Fred himself was a keen soccer player and, together with other Dutch migrants, he was instrumental in establishing the new club, “Hollandia”. Fred is also remembered for having designed the club’s first crest, which featured the “Dutch Lion”, the historical emblem of The Netherlands.
The emblem of the Dutch Lion dates to the Middle Ages, and to William of Orange, who was the leader of the Dutch resistance against the Spanish army, which was occupying Holland at that time. William of Orange had a coat of arms which featured a lion. The lion, and the orange colour, both of which are still strongly surviving, became national symbols in the Netherlands including, famously, with the Dutch national soccer team, which is often referred to as the “Dutch Lions”.
Jan (John) Morcus was another Dutchman who played a leading role in establishing the Hollandia soccer club. He and his siblings had migrated to Australia in 1953, with their parents, who were farmers in Holland. I’m not certain of this but I think that they came from “het Westland”, a horticultural area in the west of the country, which I know well and where I spent many holidays with my cousins, who lived there. Jan had played soccer in Holland as a boy and, like Fred and other Dutch migrants, he had loved the game and had helped to start it off in Australia. He not only became an important player, he also helped the club, as a volunteer, in many other ways and he was the club’s president for 25 years. Importantly, Jan helped to secure the land where the Lions Stadium is located today, and the main stand in the stadium is named after him, the “John Morcus Stand”.
Another important person to be mentioned is Henk Mollee, whose large family migrated here in 1955. Henk was the goalkeeper of the first Hollandia soccer team. He was vital to the club, both as a player (he later changed his position in the team from goalkeeper to striker), and as loyal supporter and protector of the club’s history.
The club, when it was formed in 1957, was mainly a Dutch club. As more locals joined the club its name was changed to “Hollandia-Inala”. In 1973 the Queensland Soccer Federation, because of perceptions by the people and the government that soccer was just a migrants’ game, ruled against ethnic names and the club adopted the name of its Dutch emblem, and became, for the next 25 years (until 2001, known as the “Brisbane Lions”. Further ownership and name changes followed over the years and, in the end, the “Brisbane Roar”, as we know it today, emerged as the team representing Brisbane in the A-League.
Migrants like Fred, Jan and Henk, and their parents, contributed significantly to the community and adapted well in their new country. They were part of the many thousands of Dutch migrants who arrived in Australia in the 1950s. Their coming here was the result of an agreement between the two countries, the “Netherlands Australia Migration Agreement of 1951”, an agreement which proved to be advantageous to both countries. The Dutch government encouraged emigration because it had to deal with the aftermath of a devastating war, a struggling economy and a fear of overpopulation in their very small country. Australia, under its “populate or perish” policy, was actively seeking immigrants. The 1951 agreement provided for assistance with the “cost of passage” and the associated publicity promised a better future and jobs and homes. Sadly, it did not always work out as envisaged and many migrants started off life in Australia in migrant camps and faced very difficult conditions.
Having arrived here as a migrant myself, I can identify with the early Dutch settlers. Like the parents of Fred, Jan and Henk, these migrants were influenced by the publicity, which painted a picture of Australia as a vast and stable country with endless possibilities. These early migrants made the decision to leave their family and friends behind, with the hope that this would give their children better opportunities on the other side of the world. They were brave, knowing that they would face many uncertainties and challenges. I admire their courage!
Thinking back to my own situation, I can’t remember exactly when the idea of migrating to Australia began to take hold. I had become aware that they were looking for young people and that the Australian Government did not insist on migrants having specific tertiary or trade qualifications. They just wanted young British and European migrants.
The problem for me was that I did not know what kind of work opportunities there would be for me in Australia. Neither my experience of working on cargo ships, nor of having done “National Service” as a sergeant in the army and intelligence community, appeared to be particularly helpful for gaining employment in Australia.
It was, however, also difficult for me, after my adventurous seafaring and army years, to find a satisfying job in Holland. At that time, I had not yet reached the stage of looking forward to settling down to a steady, but possibly boring, “nine to five” position. So, I made enquiries and my then girlfriend, Jeanne and I, decided to investigate further. The timelines are a little blurred now, but we applied to the Australian Embassy in The Hague, where we were interviewed and virtually approved straightaway, on the basis that we would be a married couple before our visas could be issued.
When we told our parents about our plans, my mother contacted her older brother, my Uncle Dirk van Tongeren, who lived near Port Kembla, south of Sydney. He and his wife (Aunt Ciska) had no children of their own. Uncle Dick told my mother that they would be most happy to welcome us and that we could stay with them in their apartment until we were able to find our own accommodation. This generous offer made it a good deal easier for us to make the decision to migrate to Australia.
Jeanne and I were married in November 1959 and a fortnight later we were on our way to Sydney. The usual way would have been for us to travel on a big migrant ship, together with other Dutch emigrants but we had instead chosen to make the voyage on a cargo ship, the “Amerskerk”, which had accommodation for 12 cabin class passengers. It was fully airconditioned and each cabin had its own shower and toilet. All in all, a very luxurious way for us to travel, via French and Italian ports, the Suez Canal and Aden, directly to Australia. The whole voyage, from Rotterdam to Sydney took 6 weeks.
We left Rotterdam in early December on a cold and windy day, entered the Suez Canal on New Year’s Eve, and arrived, in the second week of January 1960, in the port of Fremantle, on a very hot day.
To our great surprise, someone was waiting for us. My nephew, Henk van Tongeren, who I had never met before, was there to meet us and to show us around. He had been alerted to our visit by Uncle Dick and had found out the arrival time of our ship. Henk had lived in Australia for quite a few years and had joined the Australian army, later serving in Vietnam.
The second thing I remember about Fremantle is that I bought a copy of the Saturday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, which had many pages of “positions vacant” advertisements in it. Reading these advertisements carefully, I noticed that there was a great demand for accountants in New South Wales and that attractive salaries were being offered. This later led me to investigate what I would have to study to become an accountant and how long it might take me to do so. As it happened, it took me many years, but I did manage to gain the required qualifications.
When the “Amerskerk” finally arrived in Sydney, Uncle Dick and Aunt Ciska were there to welcome us and our accommodation was waiting for us. We were very grateful for their kindness in helping us to settle in so easily. I was fortunate to find work quite quickly and I have never regretted the decision to permanently settle here.
Although my own migration experience was positive, I know that for many migrants, whether they came from England, India, Vietnam or elsewhere, it was and it still is, a far more difficult experience and, for some, even a traumatic one.
The early Dutch migrants, including Fred, Jan and Henk and their families, have shown us how to adapt and how to contribute to a community. They promoted soccer and today the Brisbane Roar is a shining example of the benefits that were introduced by them. These “New Australians”. helped in building a vibrant multicultural society, of which we can all be proud.
O.P.
P.S. If you enjoyed this story and would like to receive an email every other Sunday with new stories, please fill in your details on the Join Us page. On Sunday morning, 15 March, the next story to be published, written by Sue, has the title: “I fell in love with Holland”.