Roy Hay was born in Scotland in 1940 and educated at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford. After teaching at the universities of East Anglia, Glasgow, and the Open University, Roy joined Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, in 1977. Along with Bill Murray he wrote the standard history of Association football (soccer), A History of Football in Australia. Roy has published more than a dozen books and many articles on social, cultural, and sports history. His Aboriginal People and Australian Football in the Nineteenth Century: They Did Not Come from Nowhere was shortlisted for the Lord Aberdare Prize of the British Society of Sports History in 2020. Roy’s latest book is Albert ‘Pompey’ Austin: A Man between Two Worlds.