Living History

Australian Rules

One of the earliest games of Australian Rules that gave the code world wide publicity was in the 1856 Olympic Games in Melbourne when a demonstration match of Australian Rules was played on the Melbourne Cricket Ground then being the main Olympic Arena.

The game was played between a team drawn from the then Victorian Football League and Victorian Football Association playing a team from the Victorian Amateur Football Association. The match was played on December 7th and the teams consisted of many well known VFL and VFA players. The Olympic Committee organising the event fearing the game would be a one sided thrashing of the amateur team by their highly fancied opponents arranged a secret practice match a fortnight before and to their astonishment the amateur team won. Happy now the game would not be too one sided although the VFL & VFA composite team was still expected to win comfortably all were again surprised when the amateur team won a highly entertaining and skilful game.

One fond memory is that most of our team at the time coated their hands with powdered resin mixed with a few drops of training oil which made our hands very sticky to hold those overhead marks. Unfortunately the Governor-General was elected to shake hands with all the teams before the match and well before he got to the end of the line not only was his hand covered in this concoction but he found it very difficult to let go the hands of the players.

Another unique feature of the match was that the jumpers bearing the Olympic interlocking rings was the only official item of the games which did not designate the host city. I believe in all previous and subsequent games all items and memorabilia have to show the name of the host city.

Philip, Palmwoods, Queensland

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