Cricket Walkabout
D.J. Mulvaney. 1967. Cricket Walkabout: The Australian Aboriginal Cricketers on Tour 1867-8. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. 112 pages. Prior to the start of the Boxing Day test of 2016, a group of historians and cricket enthusiasts gathered by the Scarred Tree in Yarra Park (i.e. next to the MCG) to remember the Aboriginal cricketers who…
Contesting the Sportscape
@wludbey: few metres beyond 50 metre line 30 yards inwards start of the wing Pies members stand side (railway line end) Facing crowd after siren[1] Sport in the City* Sport makes it home in the city. Sport articulates the ideals of the modernist drive. The success of the individual, a level playing field, equal opportunity…
A Quick Innings
Vecsey, George. 2008. Baseball: A History of America’s Favorite Game, New York: The Modern Library. I am reading books on baseball yes I am. Perhaps baseball is one of the most incongruous sports. Its slowness and efforts at maintaining tradition are matched by its will to innovation and dislocation. Clubs move around the States losing…
RAUM Third Edition
Richmond, a User’s Manual #3, “Scrapbook” RaUM #3 Inclusive of: It’s easy to be critical, and sometimes if things go smoothly, it’s easy not to notice and to take it for granted. The RFC is indeed doing somethings well. The RFC is changing. Members aren’t necessarily engaged as they could be, but this Club is…
RAUM Second Edition
Richmond, A User’s Manual, Second Edition RAUM, Second Edition #raumsecondedition Footy is hyped up. Footy becomes locked into grand narratives. But footy remains personal, individual, idiosyncratic and subject to the whims of everyday life. Histories of footy clubs relate to the histories of the suburbs which they occupy. Demographics change. Shops change. Being inner suburban…
The Quixotic Adventures of the AFL
The Australian Football League differs from the Victorian Football League in that rather than seeking to consolidate a local, state league as the premier competition of Australian rules football, the AFL seeks to broaden the game’s popularity, participation and fandom. This has an impact on the game’s culture and the kind of teams that are…
The Goalkeeper
Football without a goal is like capitalism with bankruptcy or religion without hell. This is according to Tony Schumacher, the German goalkeeper who was condemned by the world when he knocked out the teeth of Patrick Battiston, a French player, during the 1982 World Cup. Goals are indeed inseparable from football, for it is goals…
Staying up with Sparta
Kenny Dougall on Sparta’s First Season back in the Eredivisie So Sparta survived. On the final day, the Roda result went Sparta’s way, and Sparta won 1:3 away against Go Ahead Eagles: a team that had been destined for relegation early on in the season. Back in the Eredivisie for the first time in seven years,…
What Adam Did Next
The AFL was criticised throughout the 2015 season, and subsequently, for not having dealt earlier with the persistent booing of Adam Goodes in previous years. Here was a legend of the game, being tormented week in, week out, on the footy field: his work place. Mr. Goodes left the game without fanfare. He left the…