Start of this ‘sporting people’

Taylor and Francis FSAS_A_395723.sgm 10.1080/14660970902955513 Socce Society 466-0970 (pri t)/1743-9590 (online) Original Article 2 09 & Fran s 50 000Septemb r 2 0 nyW r tonyw rd@bigpond.net.au One hundred years ago, the local hall in an Australian country town was packed for a visiting celebrity. As the introductory applause died down, the visitor heard alarming noises from beneath the stage, ‘as though a miniature earthquake was in progress’ ,and asked what was going on. The inquiry revealed dozens of people, desperate to hear the proceedings, were lying beneath the stage and repeatedly bumping their heads in the cramped space. Local halls have long gathered attentive crowds for speeches from sports celebrities, so this story might well meet with a small smile and an accompanying sigh, ‘well, Australians are sports-mad – what do you expect?’ But this crowd gathered not to celebrate sporting success, but for a performance by an opera singer – Nellie Melba, in her 1909 ‘Sentimental Tour’.1 If such an anecdote were indeed about a sporting celebrity it would confirm the popular ‘sports mad’ image. But this story jars with the image – despite many stories similar to the above, there are few references to ‘opera-mad’ Australians. The year before Nellie Melba gave fans sore heads, at a dinner on 28 August 1908 to celebrate 50 years of Australian football, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin proposed the principal toast, to ‘The Australian Game’: