AUSTRALIA (land of the fair go)

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AUSTRALIA (land of the fair go)
Ethnic Sports and New Games
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Objectives

• By the end of this lesson you will
• Be able to describe the nature and purpose of the
  sports and pastimes of the aboriginal people.
• Understand the reason for the rapid rise of
  athleticism during the development of sport in
  Australia
• Understand the development of soccer, tennis,
  swimming, rugby, aussie football and cricket in
  Australia

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Ethinic Sports and Games in Aboriginal Society
Thinking back to what you learned last year, what
sort of activities do tribal societies do?
Therefore, what activities do you think are
popular in Aboriginal society?
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• As well as doing functional activities,
  Aborigines also played games for fun.
• With a ball made from possum skin, Aboriginal
  tribes played a game called marn-grook
• It is though the leaping tactic employed in play
  was copied as a marking strategy in what
  was to become Aussie Rules.

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• Early British settlers regarded Aborigines as
  sub-human.
• Many died because of a lack of resistance to
  infections brought to Australia by the settlers.
  Many thousands were also massacred by the British
• Despite this, between 2 massacres in 1868, an
  aboriginal cricket team became the first to tour
  England in what was called a dignified episode
  in race relations.
• In reality it was more like a circus in which the
  aborigines were good but novel performers.

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Although the inclusion of ethnic minorities in
sport in the UK has steadily risen in the last 25
years, they are only slowly emerging into
international sport.
Evonne Goolagong
Mal Meninga
Cathy Freeman
Lionel Rose
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Today in Australia, native aborigines make up
less than 2 of inhabitants. Despite their under
representation in many sports, they have been
disproportionately successful at a high level in
major sports like Aussie Rules, Rugby League an
boxing.
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The Development of New Sports
Football (4 codes)
Tennis
Swimming
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Popularity of Colonial Games.

• The colonial elite established the hunt, golf
  and later tennis as places where people of high
  social status could socialise.

• Unlike in England, snobbery was less evident as
  survival and prosperity depended on people
  working together (frontier spirit to the USA).

• People believed that true sportsmanship demanded
  moral effort and sport was good for society.
  This philosophy is called Athleticism

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Sport and Athleticism was seen to have 3 purposes.

1. The elite private schools believed that
   athleticism prepared boys for leadership,
   government and business roles.

2. Athleticism gave a chance to a rapidly
evolving newspaper industry to foster national
pride through sport.
3. Organised sport was an agent of social control
during the rough frontier days of the colonial
period when early settlers arrived.
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Migration expansion and economic growth

• Fuelled by gold rush
• Resulted in rapid urbanisation
• By 1891 most urbanised country in world
• Resulted in a powerful middle class
• Adoption of middle class sports
• - Rugby, Tennis Cricket

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Expansion of responsible government

• Level of independence from Britain
• Led to invention /adaption of sports
• Australian Rules
• Geographical isolation of football
• codes

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The Rise of Swimming as Australias National Sport
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Factors

• Climate access to beaches
• Urbanisation need for public baths
• Urban middle class and their views on cleanliness
  and athleticism
• Invention of the Australian crawl.
  Revolutionising speed swimming
• Suits the Australian beach culture.
• The majority of the population live near the coast

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Tennis

• An expression of Anglo-Saxon status
• urbanised game favoured Australia's demography
• ideal climate for an outdoor sport
• Role models throughout its development
• Rosewall - Laver - Cash - Hewitt

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• Cricket began as the sport of middle-class
  gentlemen but it has always been played by all
  who could muster a bat, a ball and some flat
  land. Cricket differed only in where and by whom
  it was played.

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Cricket has always been considered the one sport
where Aussies can get one over the motherland
and prove their world domination.
The Ashes
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Aussie Rules Football
Australian football is not an international game
but has developed beyond its Melbourne origins to
become a popular national game.
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Aussie football was invented by English born Tom
Willis.
He took aspects of Marn-Grook and combined them
with basic principles of the ball sports he had
encountered in England.
As a result, the sport of Melbourne Rules was
codified in 1858
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Australian Football has been shaped by several
cultures in its development.

1. The Aborigines contributed the athleticism

2. The Irish contributed the strength and
ruggedness
3. The cornstalks (2nd and 3rd generation
Australians) brought the manly image of frontier
Australia.)
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Populi ludos populo
Game of the people for the people.

• Australian football
• Suits their culture (Aborigines, Irish,
  Europeans, etc.)
• Suits their geography (space is boundless and the
  game is played on huge cricket ovals)
• Suits the social and economic environment of the
  nation.

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Soccer
Soccer was originally not accepted by the
Australians as it was considered to be the
Pommie Game. Soccer brought dissent towards
officials as well as shirt pulling and foul
tactics which werent desirable in Aussie society.
Teams were divided by ethnic group according to
where they settled. Each community reflected the
country of origin in its name for
example Melbourne Croatia St George
Budapest Sydney Hellas
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As a result the media were opposed to giving
coverage to a sport which appeared to divide the
country and stimulate racial rivalry and crowd
violence.
More recently these names have been changed (For
example Sydney Hellas became Sydney Knights).
The media are now less hostile and soccer is now
seen as the main game of Australia
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• Rugby was the game of the ruling elite, which
  even as an amateur game generated income and
  influence for both players and ruling body alike.
• Rugby League, as in English Rugby League, has
  developed mainly in one area, in the case of
  Australia, in New South Wales.

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Football divides Australia

• AUSSIE RULES
• Colonial links with Rugby School and Melbourne
  cricket club led to birth of a handling game
  which was then shaped by the Irish immigrants.

RUGBY Development around Sydney and Brisbane due
to proportion of Northern English and Welsh,
though industrial areas meant that Rugby League
became dominant code.
SOCCER Did not develop due to middle class
culture and lack of major industrialisation,
eventually brought in by Italian and Greek
immigrants in the 1950s.
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Football Australian Geography

• Brisbane - Rugby League
• Sydney - Rugby League

• Perth - Aussie Rules
• Adelaide - Aussie Rules
• Melbourne - Aussie Rules

• Canberra - Rugby Union

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History of Australian Sport - a summary

• Reflects developments in UK
• Middle class developments remained dominant
  because there was little industrial working class
  influence. (A major reason why soccer didnt
  become popular earlier).
• Geographical and Topographical factors were a
  major influence.

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End of lesson test

• What is the name of the activity played by
  Aboriginals that lend some aspects of its game
  play to Aussie Football. (1)
• 2. Name 2 famous Aboriginal sports stars. (1)
• 3. Give 3 reasons why sports and athleticism were
  so popular in Australias development. (3)
• 4. What does Populi ludos populo mean and what
  sport does it apply to? (1)
• 5. Outline the development of Aussie Football
  including cultural variables and reasons for its
  popularity. (5)
• 6. Why was soccer not originally adopted by
  Australians when it was first introduced. (2)
• 7. What sport and competition provides
  Australians with the perfect opportunity to get
  one over the motherland? (1)
• 8. What is Australias national sport and what
  lead to its development and popularity? (2)
• Out of 16

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Answers

1. Marn-Grook
2. Evonne Goolagong, Cathy Freeman, Mal Meninga,
   Lionel Rose
3. See slide 10
4. Game of the people, for the people. Aussie
   Football
5. See slides 20-23
6. See Slide 24
7. Cricket The Ashes
8. Swimming. See slide 14