Sports in Australia began with the colonisation of the British, as they considered them so important that they dedicated them a huge amount of resources like land, money and technology. They were influenced by the ancient Greek culture and ideals of sports, as they thought they built character on people. On one hand, according to Webster World (2006), sports arrived in Australia in 1788 with the First Fleet. Convicts and officers from Britain were used to traditional sports such as cricket, horse racing and athletics. On the other side, they were part of the day-to-day life of Aboriginal people, as they must track and hunt their own food; however, their traditions included disciplines such as wrestling and fights. It was on 1825 when the first sports club was created, the Sydney Turf Club and by the 1850s during the gold rush, they began to diversify as the Chinese and the Germans brought betting and gymnastics respectively. In 1856 a recognised cricketer named Tom Wills became the chief architect of the greatest and unique contribution of the nation to the world sports, Australian Rules Football (Moore, 2012). It was on 1858 when the first game of Australian football was played; however, one of the most astonishing acts of Aussie sports history took place on 1866, when Wills became captain of an Aboriginal team of cricketers. The 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens where the first ones for this nation and one year later, on 1897, one of the most recognised events in the history of this country occurred, the Victorian Football League was created, which became later on the actual Australian Football League (AFL) (R.I.C Publications, 2008). Since Australia’s early beginnings, sports have been part of its history to such an extent that they are considered as part of the culture, even managing to make a sport such as Australian Football famous and well-known among nations worldwide.
Pharahraph (275) Famous Sports
Nowadays, among the country’s most famous sports, AFL is the most popular and attended; nevertheless, horse racing and the rugby league complete the list. “Footy” as it is well-known, began in the 1850s and on its early stages, the game did not have a time limit; the game ended when a team had scored two goals. Today, it has the highest register on the nation across the top leagues, with more than one million spectators out of the twenty-three million Aussies; furthermore, it is played over 80 countries (Australia Post, 2016). The most known, recognised and prestigious thoroughbred horse racing is the Melbourne Cup, run for the first time in 1861 (R.I.C Publications, 2008); on those days, the price awarded to the winner consisted in a gold watch. In those years “anything worth celebrating was accompanied by a race meeting” (Racing NSW, 2010). Currently, it is held on the Flemington Racecourse the first Tuesday of every November and on 2015, the total prize consisted on $6,200,000 AUD (Just Horse Racing, 2016). The third most popular sport across the nation is rugby and according to the official website of New South Wales Rugby (2016), it’s first game was dated on 1865 at Sydney. Every year, the “Wallabies”, Australian Rugby national team, compete against South Africa and New Zealand in the tri-nation series of Rugby. These three famous sports in the nation are heavily followed by people and they are the major source of entertainment even on holidays, to such an extent that families and friends round up to watch them.
Pharahraph (275) Sports in Australian Culture
An actual problem in Australia arises when people talk about their culture, as most of them think that is hard to consider that a young independent country has a solid national culture, but the truth is that Australian people have incorporated sports to the base of who they are. According to the Western Sydney University (2016), the country has a reputation of a “paradise for sports”. Clubs are often referred as the “social heart” of the cities, as going to the footy is a key social activity for families, friends, and even strangers. Over 85% of the population in Australia attend at least one cultural sports event per year and over 64% have participated on any physical recreation (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011). Sports and values are deeply interrelated in the society, either for enjoyment, competition or just health, sports have benefits on the mental health of people.