Egon Pollack and the Palestine Football Team of 1939

Palestine Soccer Team, 10 July 1939.
Back row: G.Arazi (manager), S.Ginzburg, L.Fuks, A.Schneider, F.Neufeld, S.Viner, G.Machlis, E.Pollak (coach).
2nd row: A.Alembik, A.Resnik (captain), M.Mirimovitz, L.Werner, A.Greenberg, J.Lieberman.
Front row: J.Sidi, B.Mizrahi
PXE 789, vol. 45, no. 65.

I have been trying to find out more about this photo of a Palestine football (soccer) team that played in Australia in 1939. The photo is part of our incredible Sam Hood collection. It's an awesome collection, but often the details are very sketchy.

Seems this team was detained in Australia at the outbreak of World War II. The coach, Egon Pollak, had played in the legendary Hakoah team from Vienna, and later played for the New York Giants soccer team in the American Soccer League. Egon is in the back row, far right in this photo.

Using Trove Newspapers, I found a terrific article about Egon’s enforced stay in Australia (http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article78976051). He was an esteemed singer, and he refused to sing any songs in German after the war broke out. Later he became coach of the first Israeli national team. 

Definitely worthy of more research!