History of sport in Australia

The history of sport in Australia dates back to the pre-colonial period of the country.

Pre-1800s Sport arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788. None of the officers and convicts were familiar or comfortable with the sporting traditions of that era – horseracing, cricket, boxing, pedestrianism and sports involving animals, such as cockfighting. Although physical survival was more important than recreation in the first decades of European settlement, many of the new settlers brought their love of sport with them. Lieutenant George Johnston, the first European to set foot ashore at Sydney's Port Jackson, became a prominent breeder of racehorses; Captain Piper, who arrived in Sydney in 1792, was also involved in horseracing. Robert Knopwood, Tasmania's first chaplain, was part of the 'shooting and hunting set of the young Viscount Clermont' in England and lost none of his love of sport in the new colony.

Aboriginal sport, by contrast, did not exist as a separate compartment of life. The sports imported from Britain were based on notions of a division between work and leisure, something quite foreign to Aboriginal culture. Sport for Aboriginal peoples was inseparable from ritual and daily life; hunting and tracking were part of both work (acquiring food) and leisure. Aboriginal sporting traditions included wrestling, spear-throwing contests, sham fights, various types of football using possum-skin balls, spinning discs and stick games. Some sports were linked with tracking and hunting while many coast-dwelling Aboriginal peoples were adept at swimming, fishing and canoeing.

1800s

Sport came to Australia in 1810 when the first athletics tournament was held, and soon cricket, horse racing and sailing clubs and competitions started. Australia's lower classes played sports on public holidays, with the upper classes playing more regularly on Saturdays. Sydney was the early hub of sport in the colony. Early forms of football would be played there by 1829. Early sport in Australia was played along class lines. In 1835, the British Parliament banned blood sports except fox hunting in a law that was implemented in Australia; this was not taken well in the country as it was seen as an attack on the working classes. By the late 1830s, horse racing was established in New South Wales and other parts of the country, and enjoyed support across class lines. Gambling was part of sport from the time horse racing became an established sport in the colony. Horse racing was also happening in Melbourne at Batman's Hill in 1838, with the first race meeting in Victoria taking place in 1840. Cricket was also underway, with the Melbourne Cricket Club founded in 1838. Sport was used during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s as a form of social integration across classes.

Regular sports competitions were organised in New South Wales by 1850 (an early form of rugby), with organised competition being played in Queensland (Rugby) and Victoria (Victorian rules football) soon after. Victorian rules football (later known as Australian rules football) was codified in 1859. Australian football clubs still around in the current Australian Football League were founded by 1858. The Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia's largest sporting arena, opened in 1853.

The Melbourne Cup was first run in 1861. A rugby union team was established at the University of Sydney in 1864. Regular sport did not begin to be played in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia until the late 1860s and early 1870s. In the case of Western Australia, rugby union was initially the more popular sport; however, it was later replaced by Australian Rules football.

The first Australian cricket team to go on tour internationally did so in 1868. The Australian side was an all-Aboriginal one and toured England where they played 47 games; they won 14 games, drew 19 and lost 14.

Australia's adoption of sport as a national pastime was so comprehensive that Anthony Trollope remarked in his book, Australia, published in 1870, "The English passion for the amusements which are technically called 'sports', is not a national necessity with the Americans, whereas with the Australians it is almost as much so as at home."

Soccer was being played in Australia by the 1870s, with the first team formally being organised in Sydney in 1880 that was named the Wanderers. Sport was receiving coverage in Australian newspapers by 1876 when a sculling race in England was reported on in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In 1877 Australia played in the first Test Cricket match against England. In 1882, The Ashes were started following the victory of the Australia national cricket team over England. The Sheffield Shield cricket competition was first held in 1891 with New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia participating in the inaugural competition. The remaining states would not participate until much later, with Queensland first participating in 1926/1927, Western Australia in 1947/1948 and Tasmania in 1982/1983.

Field hockey teams for men and women were established by 1890.

In 1879, interstate matches in Australian rules football began with a match between representative teams from then-colonies Victoria and South Australia. Interstate matches were very important in Australian culture. With the lack of a national competition for most of the 20th century, interstate matches were given great importance as they showed which state produced the best players. Most players played in their state's league, competing to prove which league was the best. Every five years a national carnival was played, with the winners playing off in a final. Interstate matches ran from 1879 to 1999.

In 1897 the Victorian Football League, which later became the Australian Football League (AFL), was founded after breaking away from the Victorian Football Association.

1900s Basketball was first played in Adelaide, South Australia in 1897.

The first badminton competition in Australia was played in 1900.

In 1905, the first tennis Australasian Championships was held in Melbourne at Albert Cricket Ground.

Ice hockey The first recorded game of ice hockey in Australia was held on July 17, 1906, played between a Victorian representative team and the American sailors from the visiting American warship the USS Baltimore. This game was held in the Melbourne Glaciarium. At 9:00 pm a whistle blew to clear the public skaters from the ice, so that it could be cleaned of the snowy covering generated by the public skating session before.

The American team was made up of warrant machinist F. G. Randell (team captain), Seaman F. Brooks, first class fireman T. H. Miller, seaman J. Benditti, first class fireman D. F. Kelly (goaltender) and third class gunner's mate J. T. Connolly.

The Australian team were dressed in all white. The team from the USS Baltimore wore white shirts with a large upper case black B on the front and centre of the chest and grey trousers with red socks.

The game was played in two 15-minute halves, using a red ball made from gutta-percha and curved heavy-headed sticks as used in English field hockey at the time. The skill level of the Australians was not seen to be up to the level of the Americans, but the game was hard-fought and the result of the game was a 1–1 tie. The USS Baltimore team were first to score when T.H. Miller scored a goal, but Dunbar Poole scored off a hard shot to tie up the game.

The first recorded game of ice hockey for female players in Australia was on the evening of 31 August 1908 in the Melbourne Glaciarium during Fleet Week when American sailors visited Melbourne. Though ladies' hockey matches were held previously during sports carnivals at the Melbourne Glaciarium from 1906 and the Sydney Glaciarium from 1907 during sports nights, the first game on record is from this evening.

The first Australian ice hockey association, Victorian Ice Hockey Association (VAIHA), was formed on 12 September 1908 after the close of the season in the Melbourne Glaciarium. It consisted of four ice hockey clubs: Beavers Brighton Glaciarium Melburnians

The first interstate ice hockey championship was held between a state representative team from Victoria and from New South Wales. This tournament was a best-of-3 format and saw Victoria win the series 2 games to 1. New South Wales was represented by a newly formed team in 1909 and traveled to Melbourne on 29 August 1909, which marked the first national interstate competition for senior men's hockey in Australia.

This was the year that 16-year-old John Edwin Goodall donated the J. E. Goodall Cup to the interstate series. The Victoria state team won the inaugural tournament to become the first Goodall Cup Champions, with Robert Jackson as the captain, who scored three goals in the second half of the final game. The Goodall Cup is the oldest ice hockey trophy outside of North America.

Rugby

The 1907–1908 New Zealand All Golds rugby tour of Australia and Great Britain saw the All Golds contest three matches against a New South Wales side under rugby union rules. Because the matches made a £600 profit, the New Zealand Rugby Union issued life bans to the All Gold players. This was a direct cause of the foundation of the New South Wales Rugby League in 1907 by JJ Giltinan and legendary cricketer Victor Trumper. Australian player Dally Messenger joined the remainder of the All Golds tour to Great Britain in 1907, where they were introduced to the new rules of rugby league by the English Rugby Football League. Players were discontented with the amateur New South Wales Rugby Union over the rejection of compensation payments for injuries and lost wages, and many players decided to join the new rugby league competition in 1908.

When Messenger and the All Golds returned from Great Britain in 1908, they helped the new clubs adapt to the rules of rugby league before the inaugural 1908 NSWRFL season. The Queensland Rugby Football League was also formed early in 1908 by seven rugby players who were dissatisfied with the administration of the Queensland Rugby Union. Queensland quickly formed a team to compete against the returning All Golds, before competing in the first interstate match against New South Wales as a selection trial for the national team, nicknamed the Kangaroos. Club rugby league began in Brisbane in 1909.

The Australia national rugby union team had their first international test against New Zealand in 1903, and first international tour in 1908, earning their nickname of the Wallabies after two British journalists used it to refer to the team. The team won gold at the 1908 London Olympics; however, the majority of the squad joined rugby league clubs upon returning to Australia.

1910s In 1910, the Great Britain rugby league team went on their first tour of Australasia and defeated Australia to win the Ashes.

Women represented Australia for the first time at the Olympics in 1912.

Surfing came to Australia by 1915, with the first surf-life saving competition being held that year.

Les Darcy began his boxing career in 1915, with some of his later fights taking place at Sydney Stadium. The following year, an American promoter encouraged him to go to the United States at a time when Australia was actively recruiting young men for the armed services. Controversy resulted and Darcy died at the age of 21 in the US. When his body was returned to Australia, 100,000 people attended his Sydney funeral. Darcy would remain significant to Australians into the 2000s, when Kevin Rudd mentioned his story.

Australian sport during the First World War was heavily affected as many athletes joined the First Australian Imperial Force. The 1916 VFL season was contested by only four clubs. Patriotism ran so strongly that St Kilda changed their club colours because their traditional red, white and black colours were the same as those of the German Empire.

1920s