ABSTRACT

Despite the high profile of sport in Australian culture, the historical analysis of sport there has a low profile, whether in terms of academic research, media interest, or the reading public. Australian sport fans are eager to recount glorious performances by the nation’s teams and athletes, and certainly indulge themselves in eulogistic books and magazines about sport. However, these enthusiasts have comparatively little knowledge about, or interest in, Australian history and the role of sport in shaping its evolution. This is, in large part, a reflection of inadequate education: in many schools history has been supplanted as a key area of study, with the Australian story conveyed as part of broad brush subjects such as ‘social studies’ or ‘civics and citizenship’.1 Moreover, at university level Australian history is typically taught with scant regard for the explanatory potential of sport and physical culture. Too often, sport has been relegated by Australian academics to the ‘toy department’ rather than the history department where, incidentally, there are few scholars for whom sport is a serious focus of research.2 This is illogical, because sport can provide important insights into themes and issues that have been pivotal to the evolution of Australian history. Indeed, as this chapter indicates, sports historians have carved out areas of research that contribute ably to the study of Australia’s past. It should be acknowledged that two of the best known chroniclers of Australian

history, Manning Clark and Geoffrey Blainey, both recognized the role of sport in community and nation building. Clark’s epic six-volume collection A History of Australia (1963-87) includes numerous scattered references to major sports, such as cricket and Australian Rules football, as well as moments of high drama, such as the famous AngloAustralian ‘Bodyline’ series.3 It would be an exaggeration, though, to claim that sport was a key theme in Clark’s narrative, despite his personal fondness for it and his passion for Carlton Football Club. Sport was simply not on the social history ‘radar’ when Clark was in his prime, and the fact that he actually gave it some profile was noteworthy in itself. Blainey, a long-time supporter of the Geelong Football Club, took a different route: his monographs of the Australian story barely mentioned sport, but he eventually produced A Game of Our Own (1990).4