Chapter 1 : Sport In Australia

You're not an Australian ‘til …

• You've done the ‘hot sand' dance at the beach running from the ocean back to your towel.

• You've been to a day-nighter cricket match and screamed out incomprehensibly until your throat went raw.

• You call soccer, “soccer”, not “football.”

• Your weekends are spent barracking for your favourite sports team.

• You've played beach cricket with a tennis ball and a bat fashioned out of a fence post.

- Anonymous source (2003). Part of a much larger list of ‘uniquely Australian traits.'

The Australians have been described by critical visitors as sport-mad … It may be conceded that Australians excel at international sport out of all proportion to their numbers.

- L. St. Clare Grondona in The Kangaroo Keeps on Talking (1924).

Obviously Australia is a country which takes its sport seriously. Otherwise she would hardly have enshrined the heart of a racehorse in her national capital, and parked the hide of the same lovely beast in a famous museum.

- Harry Gordon, 'The Reasons Why,' in Sport in Australia: Selected Readings in Physical Activity (1973). The idea that Australia is 'sport-obsessed' has waned in recent times and is seen by many as irrelevant to discussions about the role of sport in Australia.

While Australian sport is sometimes an excuse for national chauvinism and self-congratulation, as well as boorish behaviour, parochialism, racism and sexism, sport has contributed significantly to Australian culture and popular imagination.

The question of whether sport serves any broader national purpose will continue to be a matter for further debate amongst cultural commentators and scholars. But for many Australians that question is not relevant. Sport is their ‘inherent right' and is their birthright, as it was one of the most prominent and authentic forms of Australian culture at the time of the birth of the nation. It is likely to remain so – whatever form it takes in a changing global sports system – in the future.

It is immediately obvious to those who visit this country that many Australians have an intense interest in sport. One only has to observe the widespread media coverage it receives and listen to conversations wherever people socialise to be aware of the important role sport plays in the lives of many Australians.

Sport not only shaped national development by promoting a sense of national identity; sport was shaped itself by the development of the nation.

There are many customs, traditions, habits and nationalities that make up Australian communities and society, and essentially, the Australian way of life. There are many forms of entertainment to keep Aussies happy and content. From sitting in beanies and scarves at football, to throwing another shrimp on the barbie , to yarning over the neighbour's fence, to hanging out at the local or removing sand from the crotch of swimwear: these are the customs of Aussie life that make up Aussie culture.

I think the traditional values of sport have diminished. I don't think you'll see the same amount of loyalty or level of commitment, you'll see a greater self-centredness. I'm a great believer that sport is part of the fabric of a society and should not be seen in isolation from it.

What has occurred in Australian society has been replicated in the nation's sport, so historically Aborigines have been excluded, women discriminated against, and ethnic minorities marginalised.

Communities are not static entities: the closely knit suburban communities where people lived, worked and played in the one suburban dormitory no longer exist. Australian society is now more mobile and individuals not participate in a number of work, residential and leisure communities.

Of course we know, or think we know, that Australia has always been sports mad. It is the national legend. Other countries have gloom, introspection, or traditions of intellect; we have surfing and the AFL. Indeed, there is a certain self-sustaining hysteria about this love of sport. We might say we are proud of our innocent obsession, mad about being sports mad, instinctively aware that sport brings our disparate community together.

One danger to a sound and healthy public spirit in Australia is the inordinate appetite for sports and amusements. Outdoor exercises and indoor recreations are excellent within rational limits; but man in a civilized state has capacities for something more.

Australians indulge and excel in all kinds of manly sports, and healthy and invigorating pastimes, games and amusements—boys and girls at a very early age are adepts in nearly every kind of out-door bodily exercise, and would seem to have inherited a natural aptitude for attaining in early youth proficiency in nearly all the sports for which their Anglo-Saxon forefathers have been famed.

There is a very special place in the Australian psyche for sport. It is one of the pillars of the Australian way of life. You don't really understand what makes the Australian nation tick unless you understand the great affection Australians have for sport.

Any attempt to nominate the most important constituents of Australian identity must give sport a prominent place. Sport is commonly associated with egalitarianism and fair-mindedness, with glorification of mateship and the ‘common man' (invested with their principally masculine meanings).

Australia is not a country of great political dialogue or intense searching after problems (or recognition of problems that exist). There is little grandiose ideology and politics is usually considered to be someone else's business and a dirty business at that. For many Australians, playing or watching sport gives life one of its principal meanings.

The Australian is a superexcellent sportsman; one of the world's best. For my money, he's also probably the finest “sport” in the world.

Sport has long been a central feature of Australian popular culture – so much so that enthusiasm for sport has been described widely as characteristic of being Australian. But sport is hardly an invention of Australians. The colonial sporting culture was highly derivative, importing all manner of games and recreational pastimes from Britain, the veritable birthplace of modern sport. Australians thus tended to cling to the apron strings of Britons in matters of sport, developing few notable creations of their own apart from Victorian (later Australian) Rules football, and to a lesser extent elevation of the Melbourne Cup as a handicap event into Australia's premier race.

In Australia sport exerts such a power of attraction that it would be useless to try to steer players and spectators towards other activities.

Far from being peripheral to the development of an Australian sense of community, sport has been a central agency, and a conservative one. It has raised, formed and preserved social expectations, attitudes, behaviours, standards and codes … When we play or watch, speak, write or think about sport we are the heirs to a long and deeply entrenched Australian tradition, which has marked the development of our nation. Whether we accept or reject those deep influences, we reveal the impact sport has had upon us.

Australians are, possibly, the most consistent gamblers in the world. For many Australian males work revolves around work, family, punting, drinking and sport – but not necessarily in that order.

Masculine activities have always had the prime position in Australia. Our passion for sport and outdoor activities always has been stronger than anywhere else in the world.

And he added that in his opinion it was no wonder Australia was culturally backward because of her people's infantile interest in sport.

For better or worse, sport has become central to Australian life and the business of being Australian. Sporting culture is accessible and provides continuing satisfaction for many Australians. It is immensely popular and also addresses some of the central issues of Australian life.

A man who lived near the surf of Bondi Beach, a suntanned out-of-doors character with a cynical sports loving mind.

A curious people, these Australians, with their rude and glaring faults. Cocksure yet shy, hyper-critical yet childlike in their belief in what a newspaper says. Humorous, but quick to resent anything unfair, hating the shirker terribly. Their one test is virility.

There is a timelessness about sport. Like music and art, it is a quality that cuts across generations and nations. It provides a link between Australians of succeeding generations whether urging on a Donald Bradman or cheering and rejoicing in the America's Cup victory. Call it the spirit, the soul of sport – it will be in 2001 the same as it was in 1901.

The majority of Australian sporting success comes from individual drive. Because most of us grow up in a relaxed, cruisey atmosphere we don't have the discipline ... I think Australians are soft when it comes to consistency, the Europeans have the mental strength and discipline to go on year after year.

Sitting around listening to a Victrola having a bull session with some of the boys. What liars they are.

There is a universal notion, exaggerated in Australia, that sport connects people who are not connected either by history, community, culture, gender, race, class or status. Sport is seen as the transcender, the unifier and the healer of difference.

Glorifying our sporting achievement is nothing new. The range of human emotions embodied in sporting struggles throughout the past century have helped form our identity and this, ultimately, has been to our advantage. But sports stars, these days get all the glory.

The acceptance of green and gold as Australia's colour's was gradual. Rugby League adopted the colours in 1928; cricket's baggy green cap is generally accepted as having been introduced in about 1926; Rugby Union went green and gold in the 1920s.

When one writes a book about Australian Sport people may say, "Oh that is all very well, but it seems to us that this country thinks about sport and nothing else."

Sport to-day occupies a prominent place in Australian life. Some people, whose positions and qualifications entitle them to be heard with respect, argue that much indulgence in athletics makes for national decay. But this contention is not borne out in the case of Australia. The sportsmen of the Commonwealth (and by sportsmen I mean those who lay claim to that much abused term because they never miss a race-meeting and never to attend a boxing exhibition, taking care that it shall be as looker-on, not as participant) are at the same time its worthiest citizens. Even if Australians devote much time to healthy recreation, their work is attested by the fact that in the value of its production per inhabitant the Commonwealth exceeds and other country for which returns are available.

Despite some reservations on one side and hyperbole on the other, there is truth in the perception that significant numbers of Australians are interested in sport. Any nation which utilised sportsmen's regiments—‘show the enemy what Australian sporting men can do'—as a recruiting device in the First World War, has declared public holidays for race meetings and regattas and televises the counting of votes in the Brownlow Medal must see sport as a major ingredient in its lifestyle and culture.

Sport, despite its blanket coverage in Australia, is the sociological iceberg in our midst. Just a portion of its effects are clearly visible. The majority lies powerful and hidden, serenely thriving within this community.

When it is considered that the population of Australia is considerably less than that of London, it will be understood that all the odds are in favour of the larger number producing the better representatives. The native-born have overcome the bias against them, and can now claim an equality in nearly every sport in which the Australian has taken any part.

Australia are horrible to play at the best of times—civility and the rule book might as well go out the window. And when they do lose they whinge like old women or sulk like spoilt brats. The hilarious thing is that they call us whingeing Poms.

Australia is a quirky country. It is happy to have as heroes Phar Lap, a racehorse who died, Les Darcy, a boxer who died, Ned Kelly, a bushranger who was hanged, and Simpson, a private soldier shot by a Turkish sniper. It celebrates a military adventure called Gallipoli that, brave as it was, was lost from the second day. We like gritty failures and folk heroes. Bradman , the folk hero who didn't stumble, is an exception.

I think you are maybe the most sporting country in the world.

We are a relatively small nation but known for our sporting achievers. Sportsmen and women the world over know that if they're pitted against an Australian they'll have a tough, uncompromising fight on their hands. Australians won't back off easily: they may not back off at all.

Sport seems an ideal way to connect Australians, to join disparate and similar people in a shared set of values, to provide a focus for group loyalties. Such relationships are, of course, essential to being human and to living in a society.

What gives me the ‘goat' is people saying watching and being interested in sports is wasting your time. You know nothing could be further from the truth. There is so much in sport – it offers so much. You don't need anything else that is for sure.

… amongst the most conservative of Australian social institutions; preserves ideas and attitudes beyond their period of usefulness; and resists change of any kind, but not simply from sporting as opposed to social institutions. This conservatism springs from sport's role in the construction of Australian society …

Sport occupies the cultural space in Australia that is taken by the monarchy in Britain and by Hollywood in America … It is a highly revered institution (if not a sacred cow) which is felt to characterise the nation … [It] is often depicted as … heroic … and magically transcends concerns with work, power and inequality.

A mythology has been created within Australia, in which the nation is one of great sportsmen, horses and the occasional sportswoman, each of whom have had considerable success in several mainstream sports. The success contained within the mythology forms a central platform of the sporting national identity. However, this identity bears closer examination for among other features, it ignores and excludes the millions of sports spectators, disabled athletes, athletes from indigenous and non-English speaking backgrounds and older athletes. The mythical sporting identity is very much one of a young, white, able-bodied, mainstream-sport-playing athlete.

1. An inordinate love of field sports.

2. A very decided disinclination to recognize the authority of parents and supervisors.

3. A grievous dislike to mental effort.

The creation of a dependent, passive, timid, deferent, and underdeveloped national culture afraid to assert itself as an independent political entity and obsessed with the values and activities of sport and recreation.

- David Mosler in Australia, the Recreational Society (2002). Ex-patriot American Mosler with one of the reasons why he thought Australia is an ‘underperformer.' He suggested in his book that Australia should become a state of the United States of America. Mosler believed that “The nation cannot afford, even with the Sydney Olympics hysteria, to allow the nation to expend time, energy, and emotional commitment of another generation of youth on sport while the nation slides into third-world status in research, education, and public infrastructure.” Elsewhere in his book he state that, “… a nation impressed by cricket prowess that uses only sport for substantive and lasting identity for the nation state of Australia is destined to remain in the back eddies of history.”

If the entire energy and all the resources of Australia were fixed upon sport, the land could be dotted with stadiums, and a spirit of community and well-being would reign. Schools would devote most of each day to sport, and academic subject would become late-afternoon electives.

Australians play their sport as if their lives depend on it.

Australians have long considered themselves the greatest sporting nation in the world, possessed of abundant raw talent, a passion for participation, a craving for competition and an appetite for watching a wide variety of sports.

Although some cultural critics have complained that sport is too high on the national pedestal and is detrimental to the flowering of ‘high' culture, other writers, artists and musicians have drawn inspiration from the rich and vibrant culture of Australian sport. Sport has become a rich repository of ideas about how Australians look at the world, in terms of humour , ritual, community, their sense of place and attitudes towards authority, the notion of the body and bodily display. The particular gaze varies enormously from state to state, from city to country and in where an individual stands in terms of class, gender, race and ethnicity.

I know some who are selfish and know nothing of other countries; they think Australia is the only place in the world. What page does the Australian open the paper at? Sport?

… demonstrate, once and for bloody all, that that most pervasive of myths – sport is not culture, or at best ‘low culture' – is as insulting historically as it is utterly false now. Consign its stupidity to the dustbin of cultural cringe history. Sport in Australia just might be more deeply and meaningfully cultural than in any other country in the world.

It's one of the very few places where you can go and hope your team will win in an environment where anything can happen—that's what makes it so exciting.

Sport was a way of maintaining morale and attempting to normalize life by engaging in an activity associated with freedom, relaxation, and friendship.

Sport is the ultimate Australian Super religion, the one thing every Australian believes in passionately. Sport is wholesome. It can do no wrong. It builds stronger Australian men and women, and, best of all, it spreads the fame of Australians overseas. It helps to unify Australia as a nation. Not to be keen on sport is, therefore, unclean, unmanly, even homosexual, and definitely contrary to the ethics and super religion of the nation.

Sport to many Australians is life and the rest a shadow. Sport has been the one national institution that has had no ‘knockers'. To many it was considered a sign of degeneracy not to be interested in it. To play sport, or watch others play, and to read and talk about it was to uphold the nation and build its character. Australia's success at competitive international sport was considered an important part of its foreign policy. (Australians usually had an inflated idea of this success. They weren't as good as they thought they were and they falsely assumed that others always had the same regard of their prowess as they had themselves.) In sport, in the view of the nation-builders, there were graduations of goodness: to play was best, to watch was second best: to watch cricket was better than watching horse races, to watch wrestling or motor car racing was not watching sport at all it was mere entertainment. To stay at home or even to go to the beach and sun oneself was evil when one could be playing a game or watching other people play one. (Look at those louts on the beach: they should be watching cricket.) At schools games have been coldly organized on impelling competitive principles. In tennis, for instance, a promising young player is likely to be pulled into a competitive machine in which the prize is the Davis Cup. Competitive sport in Australia can still be a ruthless, quasi-military operation. This is one of the disciplinary sides of Australian life.

To be Australian is not to mind the constant references to football, cricket, tennis, horse racing, surfing and the myriad sporting activities in which Australians are constantly engaged at home and abroad.

A culture of sport also appealed to Australians for social and cultural reasons: the dearth of other forms of social cement which could bind new communities such as work and educational groups, neighbourhoods, suburbs and country towns. Australia had had no great war, no hostile neighbour or past tradition which could be used to unify the populations...

Probably only Ned Kelly and the largely nameless heroes of ANZAC rival in the public imagination those who have gained fame in the sports arena or on the race track. Phar Lap would rate more highly than any politician, Don Bradman more than any artist.

Too much sport is barely enough.

In fact, Australia pretty generally beats most people at most things. Truly never has there never has there been a more sporting nation. … They do all this on the world stage and play their own games as well, notably a very popular form of loosely contained mayhem called Australian Rules Football. It is a wonder in such a vigorous and active society that there is anyone left to form an audience.

In my opinion Melburnians are like piranha fish when it comes to sport. They will devour anything that will satisfy their appetite for competition.

Over our short history, sport has been viewed by educators as a vehicle to convert boys into men, whilst governments and social reformers have promoted sport as a tool for developing and displaying Australian nationalism. More recently, it has become an industry that plays a significant role in contributing towards the gross domestic product.

Sport provides the spectacle, the metaphor, the religious ritual, the putty to fill the cracks in countless lives.

- Writer Phillip Adams (2001).

The image of the bronzed Aussie may be a myth. But there is nothing fictitious about the importance of sport as a way of life in Australia: it promotes health as well as competitive spirit. We may stop just short of obsessed, but sport is as available to Australians – and as necessary – as meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars.

Sport ... can actually be the place for learning how to be racist, sexist, violent and unfair. Instead of being the ultimate “level playing field”, transcending grubby politics and a somewhat “trivial pursuit”, sport is Janus-faced.

I know we, the worshippers, are said by our accusers to be so depraved and corrupted by spectator sport that we would stay on at the Melbourne Cricket Ground till after the final siren even if we were told before half-time that a foreign power had invaded Australia, or that Christ was on trial again in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

... it's easy to tell its Saturday ... The garish clubs are beginning to grid themselves up for the late afternoon rush, rapid-fire race broadcasts drift out of the pubs, surfboards are loaded on to the roofs of old jalopies, and in the parks the children's playgrounds and duck-ponds draw family groups, New Australians, toddlers, prams, dogs ... This is the life Australians have created for themselves in their leisurely hours, and in a way it shows them at their best. There is a sense of community.

Australia is obsessed with Rugby Union football and a fiendish development of the game evolved by themselves called Australian Rules. But the great Australian sport is drinking.

Politics, race, social status, gender, geographical location and climate have all had a strong effect on the development of sport in this country, just as sport has had a major influence on Australia's social evolution.

Along with beer, Australians love a good public swimming pool.

Living in Australia is like living in a gymnasium – there's always somebody practising something.

There is no greater social problem facing Australia than the good use of leisure.

I grew up in country towns around Northern New South Wales. I think sport tends to be a greater focus in the bush. Your parents tend to become more united because they have to drive you longer distances. Sport in the city tends to be more organised, less distance to travel and there are more graded selections because of the greater numbers. In the bush you can play with some very ordinary players and some great players in the one team.

Surf life-saving, a combination of sport and community service; horse racing, hockey, netball, cricket, athletics, surfboard riding, hang-gliding, basketball, windsurfing, lawn bowls, skiing, motor sports, croquet – all have a place in Australian life.

In a seminal essay on the Australian language the late Barry Andrews estimated that ‘something like one in thirty of the words we use is a sporting word ─ and that of these sporting words ─ and that of these sporting words, perhaps one in five is a sporting Australianism'.

Leisure had always been part of the Australian way of life. With growing prosperity, changes in the nature of work, urbanisation and technological changes, it was becoming even more so. At latest count, each Australian indulges in more than five hours of leisure activities a day, at a cost to the average family of about $7813 a year.

1. Swimming 2. Cricket 3. Tennis 4. Australian rules footy 5. Soccer 6. Rugby League 7. Golf 8. Basketball 9. Athletics 10. Motorsport

I think it's a part of our culture that any youngster becomes passionate about his sport. We're breast fed on sport, it's part of our passion. The ball is in the cradle. It can be seen as a celebration of life, a symbol of the vibrancy of youth and the resilience of man physically, mentally and emotionally. I think sport provides a marvelous vehicle for passionate people.

To assess the Australian's interest in sports accurately, it should be kept in mind that the very nature of his country invites emphasis on outdoor living. Australians are generally healthy and competitive-spirited people. They've shorter working hours that most of the other peoples of the world, affording them more time for the pursuit of personal interests. It would be strange, in their circumstances, if they didn't greatly enjoy their colourful sporting life.

School sport in Australia was once straightforward: jocks in one corner, swots in the other – and cultural activities bundled unceremoniously out the back door. It was all firmly rooted in the British Rugby School tradition, a private school ethos in which sport predominated and exam marks could go to hell. In state schools it was much the same – only the sporting codes were different. And the girls cheered from the sidelines.

All that has changed, but in unexpected ways. Sport is still up there, but sharing the arena. If no-one quite accepts these days that sport is the making of the man, fewer still insist that it breeds barbarians. State schools crave the prestige and high morale that sporting success brings. Private schools – which once bred ‘ rugger buggers' – now hold that cultural pursuits must complement bat, ball and book.

Australia has inherited a taste for team games rather than an emphasis on individual sports. Certainly, there have been stars in swimming, golf and tennis, but it seems fair to argue that achievements in these sports have generally been ranked below successes in team games.

In 10 years' time we're going to be getting our arse kicked in sport if we don't change the present situation. It's going to happen. Maybe then we'll wake up.

Every time Australian tries to do a public occasion it is a shambles. Bonkers old blokes on horseback dash in with swords [a reference to the disrupted official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge], students dress up as commemorative boat crews, it always custard pie time. But let Adelaide decide to stage a motor racing Grand Prix, let there be a football final, let the magic time of 2:40 on the first Tuesday in November come around again, and the meticulous planning, the near religious commitment of hundreds of people working fiercely unseen for months, crystallises in one moment of hushed awe. Its called the result of a motivated workforce. Even when sport is big business, Australians don't just think it matters, they know it.

It is important to remember that Australian sport has undergone transformation over the past 200 years from a simple localised amateur system to a highly centralised and professional one which is basically responsible for new performance standards in this country. Its development has become more complex as it integrated its policies at both the federal and state levels. The high point of the process was undoubtedly reached at the Sydney Olympics and Australia's sports system is now both widely admired and increasingly copied.

However, nothing ever stands still, especially when a more democratic process is embarked upon. In the future many new initiatives will evolve, bringing greater devolution, decentralisation and democracy to Australian sport.

A fine climate, plenty of room, plenty of time, an inbred love of sports and the wish to excel at them, the lack of competing fields of interest, the worship of the physical which is part of a young country, the right pitch of support of one's family and friends, the splendid natural facilities, the relatively inexpensive cost of sport, the early orientation in school, the opportunity to develop in highly organised competition, and added to these good food for growing bodies and the natural desire for the people of a small nation to do famously in fields which command world attention and respect – these in combination are the amalgam which has made Australia the most vigorous sporting country of all time. It doesn't explain, though, the emergence of its super athletes. If you add two other factors on which Australia places strong emphasis it does. They are: able coaching and plain hard work.

- American Herbert Warren Wind in Sports Illustrated (1960). Wind visited Australia to observe the Australian ‘sports machine.' He also said that “ [Australia] ... a land completely surrounded by water and inundated with athletes ... Australia is a sports playing, sports watching, sports talking, altogether sports-minded country such as the world has never known before.”

In the recreation society of Australia, work for most people is that unpleasant interlude between weekends. An avalanche of anti-work and pro-weekend babble pervades the culture; the airways, television, and general chit-chat are replete with messages which indicate that work is undesirable and weekends (i.e., pleasure) is preferable. This is more than an anti-work ethic for it signifies a profound antagonism against any corporate identity and commitment to the adult world of work. Nothing should be taken seriously and personal pleasure always transcends work. The community world of work is insubordinate to the individual desire for pleasure and leisure.

Now this does not mean that Australians spend all their time being creative or productive; most leisure time is spent doing—well—nothing. Great emphasis is placed on the drink and chat culture: in backyards, in pubs, at the races, at the footy, fishing, surfing, in cafes and restaurants, and at wineries. What is valued most is what is least taxing and that is rather mindless drinking and chatting (but no serious talk about politics, religion, or culture, please—that is profoundly antisocial behaviour that brings instant opprobrium on the violator of the norms of recreational chat).

- Ex-patriot United States of America academic David Mosler in Australia, the Recreational Society (2002). Mosler also says that, “In order to have a society dedicated to recreation, one needs time and facilities. The Australian landscape has the ubiquitous oval, bowling clubs, netball courts, and tennis courts to meet the recreational needs of the population that seem insatiable. Recreational activities, especially in rural and regional Australia, are the defining characteristics of leisure-time lifestyles."

Australia is a “mono-cultural” nation with sport as its only cultural mode.

While Australia has inherited or borrowed much of its sporting culture, this culture has been transformed to such an extent as to have become distinctively Australian. Our culture of sport has become recognisably Australian, and its importance is generally agreed: most Australians would be surprised by any suggestion that sport was not a cornerstone of Australian life.

The great percentage of the population interested in bodily exercise makes the Australians the most sporting nation in the world. The Australian is so keen a sportsman that he even makes a sporting event out of the ordinary avocations of the bush – wood chopping.

Australians have won fame in games, out of all proportion to their numbers.

... countrymen watching the minutes tick by until five on Friday afternoon, when the albatross of employment would slip from our shoulders and the rage would begin. Although the concept of the finite weekend - the one which begins when you bolt out the doors and straight to the pub on Friday arvo and concludes on Monday morning when you put your head down on your desk for a well-earned rest - has been eroded somewhat by such modern innovations as the nine-day fortnight, flexitime and unemployment, the two-day break is still the cornerstone of our leisure lifestyle. A fibro shack up or down the coast is still a weekender ...

Australia leads the world in the degree to which sports interests and sports organizations reflect the total social and political ideals of the nation. Sport in Australia is virtually the invisible government of an egalitarian semi-socialistic community based on generations of lower-middle class immigration from the old country. The development of mass sports and spectacle sports is not out of balance with the development of individual sports, and there is no professional-amateur friction to speak of. Any Australian in sport is believed by his countrymen to be a sort of gentleman to begin with, deserving all the support he can get from the rest of the gentlemen, even if it amounts to providing him with a welfare state and fringe benefits. All this results in part from the ethnic and linguistic consistency of the Australian population, which in turn creates the image of a whole social group going up the social scale together.

Australians are passionated about their sport. It is part of the Australian character. Be it on the sporting field or in a woolshed shearing sheep, whenever two or more Australians get together, the sporting spirit comes alive and competition ensues. And no matter what colour, creed, race or country of origin, when a group of Australians team up on the same side, they are truly united. Sport reaches beyond blind patriotism, and unites one of the most culturally diverse populations in the world. This, above all else, is what makes an Australian an Australian.

Australian sportsmen and women have excelled in virtually every international sport, both at home and in the international arena.

Sport, as an integral part of this nation's culture, reflects and transmits the values held by Australians. Historically, the contribution of sport to the nation's health and fitness has been far less than its importance in developing and expressing the social beliefs of our society.

Support of and commitment to sport has been based on the belief that sport created better people, and hence a better community. It was presumed that self-discipline, cooperation, loyalty, determination, leadership and courage - all worthy virtues - could be taught through the playing of games.

Flying into an Australian city on a Saturday afternoon can be a revealing experience. There below you, suddenly crammed into a single perspective, is Australia at play. There is the main race-course, the stands and the paddock crowded with tiny dots as miniature horses move onto the track; there are the central sports grounds, the stands full of spectators and the sun glinting off the roofs of thousands of cars parked nearby. There are the beaches, strung one after the other down the coast and disappearing into a haze in the distance, each with its crowd of sunbakers and surfers. The tiny, Monopoly-like cottages slide away beneath, and every few blocks there seems to be a tennis court, bowling green, park, swimming pool. Once you are down on the ground it's easy to tell it's Saturday: the taxis are lined up waiting in the sun, their drivers lounging around talking to each other or reading newspapers spread across car bonnets; nobody is rushing, there is a sense of ease and absolute self-sufficiency, as though this were one time when nobody need take orders and when everybody had an inalienable right to leisure. On the way into the city you pass children riding bicycles up and down the footpaths, cars parked across the wide strips of grass which separate pavement from road, knots of teenagers gathered outside milk bars, old men sitting on front brick fences. The garish clubs are beginning to gird themselves up for the late afternoon rush, rapid-fire race broadcasts drift out of the pubs, surfboards are loaded on to the roofs of old jalopies, and in the parks the children's playgrounds and duck-ponds draw family groups, New Australians, toddlers, prams, dogs ... This is the life Australians have created for themselves in their leisure hours, and in a way it shows them at their best.

Sport has a unique place in Australian society. No other recreational activity has been so deeply ingrained in our daily lives and played such a prominent role in the development of our nation. It is little wonder that Australia has earned the reputation of being a sport-playing, sport-watching, sport-talking and, indeed, a sport-obsessed country.

Sport is synonymous with Australians. If it isn't quite the obsession we joke about, it isn't far short of it. There are those of course who see the pride we place in our sporting achievements, our seeming need for success, as a sign of our immaturity as a nation, but it is unlikely to be as profound as that.

It is more likely that sport appeals to the mass of the population because it is a pursuit with which we can all identify. We might have some of the best opera singers and painters in the world, but none of them capture the collective imagination. Sporting figures do; more so winning sporting figures.

For the most part, participation is enough – although we are also a nation of watchers. We take a great deal of pride in the triumphs of our champions; we feel the losses keenly. We don't have a formula for producing champions, but we have not done too badly in the international arena considering our population.

Given the superb climate, Australians took to sport with almost unrivalled dedication. Sport became a channel of national self-esteem. The country was unrecognised and uninfluential in world affairs, but in sport Australians competed as equals, and sometimes they excelled.

Australian sportsmen and women have excelled in virtually every international sport, both at home and in the international arena.

Sport in Australia has often been described as a national passion, even an obsession, yet most Australian historians have neglected its role in the shaping of the nation. Social norms, class struggles, racial problems, gender inequalities, and nationalistic fervour are all manifested in sport. The Bodyline Series, the death of Phar Lap and the victory of Australia II provide examples of sport serving as a unifying force and stimulating expressions of national fervour.

Sport as a social institution operates as a microcosm, a reflection of society. It serves as an expression of the socio-cultural system in which it appears. In Australia, sport has been a most powerful vehicle for the overt manifestation of the national identity. The ‘bush ethos' which evolved in the nineteenth century was epitomised by the man of the outback, portrayed as being manly, tough, loyal, brave, honest and never giving in. Such manly characteristics were also ascribed to the sportsman who represented Australia on the sports field and demonstrated to the world the strength, vitality and vigor of the nation. By the turn of the century, Australian athletes had won world acclaim in cricket, rowing, boxing, Rugby, swimming and tennis. The image of the Australian overseas was that of a tall, bronzed, muscular, masculine athlete.

Manliness and sport became inseparable. Women did not fit into this picture. Women - particularly those who braved the outback - were seen as wives and mothers who were tough and courageous, but they were not part of the mateship ethos. Their role was restricted to the home and the care of children and husbands. The characteristics ascribed to sportsmen which reflected the bush and mateship ethos were not seen as being viable or appropriate characteristics for females.

There are many myths about the Australian way of sport. Keith Dunstan has argued that Australians have a unique passion for sport, though it is doubtful whether Australians are any more obsessed than North Americans or the populations of any number of other industrialised societies. Others have claimed that Australian sport is egalitarian and a great leveller, ignoring how much sporting traditions have been shaped by race, class, and gender--Australian sport has, for instance, always been more accessible to men than to women. There is also the myth that Australian sporting performance is exceptional. While this has been true in some periods, such as the 1950s, it has been less true at other times.

Although much of Australian sporting culture has been borrowed, the different physical environment and society in which it has taken root has given rise to a distinctive Australian culture of sport. While Australian sport may not be quite as unique as many Australians believe there is an identifiable Australian way of sport. Many examples of this distinctiveness can be provided. Barry Andrews has pointed out that there is a rich stock of Australian sporting language, citing, for instance, the statement that a batsman could ‘safely tug four bits off the deck at the WACA without fear of getting rissoled for a gonzer by a gazunder'. Australia has developed its own tradition of irreverent barracking and barrackers in which a particular Australian humour is manifest—cutting down the pretentious to size. Sports arenas and venues have particular features and even an Australian ambience. Cricket grounds in Melbourne are far larger for instance than their English equivalents. Bay 13 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Hill at the Sydney Cricket Ground developed their own crowd cultures before they were dismantled. Other events, such as surfing at Bell's Beach, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, and the City to Surf Fun Run make use of the particular Australian environment. There are also distinctive techniques and ways of approaching sport which have developed in Australia such as the Australian ‘crawl' in swimming and the tradition of open or ‘running' rugby. The greater bounce of Australian wickets has given more encouragement to leg-spin bowling in cricket than is the case in England. Australia also has a rich tradition of sporting heroes and heroines, each of whom has expressed some aspect of Australian popular culture.

And if sport is an integral part of the Australian lifestyle the pursuit of leisure is its code of life. In the so called ‘lucky country', most people work to live, not live to work. Leisure, camaraderie and recreation are the primary qualitative measures of individual success- the acquisition of financial wealth for most being a means to an end, rather than a achievement in itself. It is interesting to note that there are more barbecues, swimming pools and boats per head of population in Australia, than anywhere else in the world. Leisure in Australia starts with the ubiquitous barbecue get-together, and extends through to the wide appreciation and participation in the arts in its many forms.

Australia's contributions to innovations in sport and leisure are far too many.

Australians drink with great relish, often with sole idea of getting drunk; among young men the mark of a successful party is that everyone got drunk, several chundered (vomited) and half a dozen or so flaked (passed out) ... In Australia drinking is and occasion for raucous bonhomie, yarn-spinning, laughter, swilling down schooners, middies and ponies of beer and, occasionally pumping drinks into the girl-friend or the wife – it is all part of that explosive good humour and companionship which Australians equate with ‘the good life.'