Roy Hay’s book Aboriginal People and Australian Football in the Nineteenth Century: They Did Not Come from Nowhere has been an opening to many discussions about Australian sport and the underappreciated and forgotten Aboriginal sporting stars that contributed to the sport in the nineteenth century. Two such discussions are from the podcasts ‘Rugby Reloaded‘ and ‘New Books Network‘.
‘This book will revolutionise the history of Indigenous involvement in Australian football in the second half of the nineteenth century. It collects new evidence to show how Aboriginal people saw the cricket and football played by those who had taken their land and resources and forced their way into them in the missions and stations around the peripheries of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. They learned the game and brought their own skills to it, eventually winning local leagues and earning the respect of their contemporaries. They were prevented from reaching higher levels by the gatekeepers of the domestic game until late in the twentieth century. Their successors did not come from nowhere.’
To listen to the podcasts please follow the links below:
To read a thirty page extract of the book click here.
