During the 1960s, the Bardon club had a reasonably large junior section, but its senior side was struggling and was relegated to the Third Division in 1969.

The newly merged club played its first season in the senior First Division (then the top tier in Brisbane football) in 1970, where it finished a creditable fourth out of ten teams.

[4] A highlight of the early 1970s was when first-team coach Jim Binnie arranged a friendly match against Rale Rasic's Socceroos as a warm-up before the 1974 World Cup.

The reason this colour was selected by Latrobe is not recorded, but it may be a reference to the original name of their home ground, the 'Red Jacket Swamp' (see 'Gregory Park' below).

[15] The club was certainly in existence by 1928, as the Brisbane Courier reported in March that year that it had leased Bowman Park for winter sports for £5 [five pounds – approximately AUD350 in 2010[16]].

[17] By the late 1920s, the club was well established, as evidenced by a newspaper report describing its end of season social at the Foresters' Hall, Paddington.

The report listed the social committee as Mesdames Lansbury, Watson, Charrington, Thorpe, and Brewer and the secretary Mr M.Rowe.

[20] Despite not being in the top grade, one of the Bardon players, Wally Cansick, was selected for the Queensland Junior team to play New South Wales in that year.

[25] Curiously, a newspaper report in 1939 refers to both 'Bardon' and 'Bardon Rovers' competing in the Stewart Shield (a junior competition) at the same time on the same day[26] (it is possible the teams were the same club, but from different grades).

Latrobe also won numerous cup and shield competitions (see the article History of association football in Brisbane, Queensland).

[34] Latrobe contested the third grade premiership in its inaugural season (1917), playing the final against 'Ellenas' (another Milton-based team) at Gregory Park, but losing 1–0.

The team was listed as R. Patterson, T. Kitson, R. Wilson, H. Gilbert, R. Whitalan, J. Carton, J. Andersley, L. Rose, A. Chittern, H. Simpson, F. Hollywood (sec.

[43] The 1929 squad comprised the following players: Nixon (goalkeeper); Len Viertel and Edgar Rigby (fullbacks); Bowen, Bert Murray and Zar Korotcoff (halfbacks); E. Alexander, Bell, Jim Carton, Eric ('Hec') Gorring and Taylor (forwards).

[50] The Latrobe club returned to Gregory Park after World War II, where it remained until the merger with Bardon in 1970.

This was likely as a result of the efforts of William ('Pop') Harper, who had migrated to Australia from the United Kingdom in the early 1900s, and was involved with the game in Brisbane from at least the 1930s as a selector and referee (as noted above).

Harper encouraged British and Irish migrants to come to the Latrobe club from the early 1960s with offers of jobs, accommodation and semi-professional football.

[54][55] As a result, the team predominantly comprised overseas players during this decade, and won three first grade premierships: 1964, 1966 and 1967 (the last as 'Latrobe-Wests Soccer Club').

[57] Former Socceroo Ray Richards played for Latrobe in the mid to late-1960s, and was a goalscorer in the club's 4–2 quarter-final loss to APIA Leichhardt in the 1964 Australia Cup.

Newspaper records from the time suggest that the clubs were exclusively 'senior' and 'junior' clubs respectively,[59] so this merger may have resulted from Bardon's strong performance in junior football (under 21) in 1940, where its first grade team won the premiership and included several Brisbane and Queensland representatives (including H. Jones [sic], F. Cansick and S. Cansick (Queensland) and D. Barry).

The amalgamation of Latrobe and Bardon, last year's first grade junior premiers, is the most important of many moves made by senior soccer clubs this season.

His brother, Bill, formed the Bardon Club in 1933, and its junior team was undefeated in fixtures last season.

Jones, E. Jarvis, F. and W. Cansick, and D. Barry[27] [it is noteworthy that the dates in this report do not appear to be accurate when compared with other public records].

However, this merger did not survive the suspension of football fixtures from 1942 to 1944 (during the war years), as Latrobe re-appeared as a stand-alone club in the 1946 senior competition.

[62] The annual meeting of the association in 1922 expressed the desire to commence regular fixtures during the forthcoming season with "about half a dozen teams".

The Bardon Latrobe club has fielded junior girl's teams for many years, and in 2012 re-entered the Brisbane senior women's competition.

[67] A letter to the editor of the Brisbane Courier in 1911, arguing against the conversion of the Paddington Cemetery (now the site of Lang Park) to a sports ground, suggested that: Another writer in the same year added "I am given to understand that the whole of this beautiful spot can be purchased for £2000 [approximately AUD140,000 in 2010].

"[70] The land was subsequently subdivided for residential development in 1915 and an area of 18 acres (approximately 7 hectares) was reserved then named 'Bowman Park' in 1916[66] (after David Bowman (1860–1916), former MLA for Warrego and Fortitude Valley, leader of Queensland Labor Party from 1907 to 1912, and Home Secretary in the first majority Labor Government in Queensland's history).

The tram service was not extended to Bowman Park until 1937, eleven years after the establishment of the original Bardon soccer club.

[78] Another report in a 1931 newspaper noted that "[A]ccording to old residents ... the swamp received its name from a small flower-like weed that flourished in its muddy waters, during certain months of the year the leaves-no larger than a threepenny piece-would change in hue to brick red.

[81] The reserve was subsequently renamed 'Gregory Park' in late 1905, to honour Sir Augustus Gregory, Queensland's Surveyor-General from 1859 to 1879, who had died in June 1905.