Beer, banquets and a Patiala Peg : Food and drink on tour
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 143-159
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- Description: This article critiques photographs and material culture pertaining to the consumption of food and alcohol during the first Australian cricket tour of India in 1935/36. The artefacts—menus, seating plans and food advertisements—enable the present-day researcher to interpret the rapidly transforming political, cultural and sporting landscape as well as the internal dynamics of the tour. The archival objects function as links to the cricketers and are pivotal in interpreting the 1935/36 tour in light of the absence of living participants. Food and beverages represent a significant ethnographic difference and the cricketers’ response to the customs of culinary consumption in late-colonial India exposes broader societal sentiments and reflects imperial politicking. The Australian cricketers encountered bicultural culinary influences comprising the vestiges of British hegemony in combination with a new nationalistic indigenous influence. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Bhupinder and Tarrant : Players of the game
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 21-52
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- Description: Financier Maharaja Bhupinder Singh and tour manager Frank Tarrant are the two key protagonists of the inaugural Australian cricket tour to India in 1935/36 and the historical figures in this article. Their culturally atypical relationship was anomalous to the conventional imperialist paradigm and openly defied racist notions of Western supremacy and cultural incompatibility that informed and underpinned the initial expectations of the touring party. Despite their relationship being primarily driven by mutually beneficial professional and financial objectives, a genuine rapport that challenged the archetypal servant/master paradigm is evident. Press reportage from Australia, India and Britain supports the argument. The minute books of the Middlesex Cricket Club (1908–16) and the Melbourne Cricket Club (1907 and 1908) have been integral in locating information on Tarrant’s movements. Discovering the Tarrant scrapbooks (c.1918–51) at the Melbourne Cricket Club has answered many questions that have plagued previous research into the man who has remained an enigmatic mystery in cricket history. The post-colonial theories of Homi Bhabha (2012), specifically his analysis of mimicry, are employed to argue that the political agendas of the Indian royalty were evolving. Cricket, an English institution, was embraced and reconstructed by the Indian community. Indian society was rejecting the British template and opted to operate according to an increasingly nationalistic and indigenous ideology and through this process appropriated cricket, the bastion of Englishness, as its own. The Australians’ contribution to this process is interrogated, and the liberal influence of Tarrant and the Maharaja in minimizing the racial and social divide throughout the tour is evident.
Neither home nor away
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 97-112
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This article critiques the symbolism of the journey as a team of Australian cricketers voyaged to India in 1935 embarking on the first Australia cricket tour to the subcontinent. Travel and tourism theories explicate the reactions of the cricketers to the ambivalence of being neither home nor away. This article asks: what did the Australians learn about themselves, their home and their destination whilst in transit? The theme of transition, both physical and emotional, is the central focus of this study. The journey on the ship signifies the team’s last immersion (for the duration of the tour) within exclusively English structures and customs. The cricketers’ insecurity when faced with the looming unknown upon descending the gangplank into India is extrapolated from available sources. The influence of Frank Tarrant as leader and educator intensified in the artificial hermetic vacuum of the ship’s environment. The unceremonious departure scenes in Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle are described and contrasted with the formality of the arrival in Bombay; such contrasts epitomize and underpin the cultural differences encountered throughout the tour.
Photographic reportage and the colonial imaginary
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 160-184
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This article critiques the first Australian cricket tour of India in 1935/36 through a synthesis of history, theory and imagery, and argues that the photographic content provides invaluable and historically overlooked insight into the cricketers’ perspective. Employing this methodology is unorthodox in sports writing and is innovative in application. The photographs provide a rare and previously unobtainable glimpse into the everyday cultural life and practice of the tour, and deliver a subjective representation of the cricketers’ experience. The significance of the images is twofold: they function as proof to verify the Australians presence in India and they assist a cultural critique of the tour. The images reveal that the cricketers’ response to the colonial paradigm was multifaceted and hallmarked by ambiguity. Despite at times adhering to their anticipated civiliving and educating role as white touring cricketers, the Australian team also challenged colonial protocols and simultaneously demonstrated support for the nationalistic sentiments brewing in 1930s India.
The atmosphere vibrated with triumphant joy
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 185-196
- Full Text: false
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- Description: This article critiques the Indian material culture located in present-day Pakistan pertaining to the inaugural Australian cricket tour to colonial India in 1935/36. The historical voice of the Indians is evident in the images and it is over the shoulders of the hosts of the tour that new perspectives emerge. It is culturally inappropriate to assume and evaluate how the locals felt about the visit of the Australian cricketers and the raison d’être of the tour. However, archives located in Pakistan provide a deeply subjective perspective. Goodwill and amicability reverberate through the photographs challenging conventional scholarship, which argues that Australian-Indian cricket is based on acrimony. The article concludes that despite the obvious and significant differences between the competing teams the tour experience minimized the racial divide between the Australian and the Indian cricketers.
The has-beens and never will-bes
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 53-72
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The Australian team that toured India in 1935/36 comprised atypical cricket personnel. Their cultural and social unorthodoxy contributed to the tour being shunned by cricket officialdom in Australia. Tour manager, Frank Tarrant’s method of team selection was meritocratic unlike that of customary cricket practice where social and cultural hierarchy informed team composition. This article outlines the unorthodox team composition and argues that the official cricket body objected to the exercise because of the professional nature of the tour, social (particularly class) discrimination and preconceptions of racial prejudices. The Maharaja of Patiala’s generous financing of the tour identified it as a definitively professional exercise and encouraged participation considering the precarious status of the global economy following the Great Depression. The goodwill between Australia and India evidenced on tour challenged cricket protocol and reflects a pragmatic and growing recognition that diplomatic and economic unity was desirable in light of the imminent dissolution of the British Empire.
The launch of Indian-Australian cricket
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 113-142
- Full Text: false
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- Description: An analysis of the Australian cricket team’s experiences in India in 1935/36 reveals that many elements fulfilled clichéd colonial expectations of extravagance, privilege and hedonism. Yet, the cricketers simultaneously grew tired of conforming to the role of the colonial class. The team’s immersion in India encouraged the players to re-evaluate their attitudes towards racial inclusion, the legitimacy of colonization, Indian sovereignty and the pedagogical role of the white cricketer in the Orient. A close textual analysis of the writings of participating cricketers Wendell Bill, Ron Oxenham, Charlie Macartney and Jack Ryder details their responses to the social and racial codification they encountered, which it is argued was at times unexpectedly liberal. Australian batsman Hunter Hendry’s manuscript has not been critiqued elsewhere and provides valuable insight into his ambiguity towards the role of the white cricketer in India.
Who are these Australian fellows with ‘Grim determination and astounding stamina’?
- Authors: Ponsford, Megan
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 22, no. 1 (2019), p. 73-96
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: In light of the absence of living participants, this article extrapolates what the Australian cricketers departing on the inaugural cricket tour of India in 1935 may have known about late colonial-era India. This article argues that the depiction of India by the British Empire was a consciously evoked and celebrated construct perpetuated by orthodox ideology and popular culture. Through a close analysis of press reportage it is determined that the Australian public, and the departing cricketers, were ignorant of accurate knowledge of Indian culture and politics. The Australian media’s portrayal of Kipling’s writings, Indian religious practices and Indian cinema is compared with the cricketers’ response to these themes. Correspondingly, the Indian communities’ knowledge of Australia through evaluating the, at times, propagandistic promotional material generated for the tour is also critiqued. It is argued that representations of the Australian cricketers and the populist depiction of Indian culture are correspondingly implausible and driven by idealized expectations and stereotypes of national identity.
Developing ‘good buggers’ : Global implications of the influence of culture on New Zealand club rugby coaches’ beliefs and practice
- Authors: Hassanin, Remy , Light, Richard , Macfarlane, Angus
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 21, no. 8 (2018), p. 1223-1235
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Despite recognition of how experience shapes sport coaches’ beliefs and practice empirical investigation into how this occurs is limited. This article redresses this gap in the literature by presenting the findings of a study that inquired into the influence of culture on three New Zealand rugby coaches’ beliefs and practice to identify the powerful influence of interaction between a ‘local’ traditional culture of club rugby in New Zealand shaped by the resilient ‘amateur ideal’, intensified by the perceived threat of professional rugby and the global culture of the sport industry to club rugby. © 2018,
Abacus football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 538-548
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Abacus football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote Community Harmony, Multiculturalism and Reconciliation. Abacus participated in both the surveys and the interviews. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Bravo football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 549-556
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Bravo football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote community harmony, multiculturalism and reconciliation. Bravo participated in both the surveys and the interviews. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Charlie football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 557-564
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Charlie football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote community harmony, multiculturalism and reconciliation. Charlie participated in both the surveys and the interviews. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Conclusion
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 600-613
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This conclusion discusses some recent examples of racism in AFL in order to explore the question of ‘how far have we come in the AFL when it comes to racism?’ This paper also discusses what the potential future trajectories are for Rule 35 and the findings from the Australian Research Council Linkage project that this book came from. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Delta football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 565-572
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Delta football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote community harmony, multiculturalism and reconciliation. Delta participated in both the surveys and the interviews. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Echo football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 573-581
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Special Issue : The biggest game in town : An analysis of the AFL's vilification policy. The Echo football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote Community Harmony, Multiculturalism and Reconciliation. Echo participated in both the surveys and the interviews. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Foxtrot football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 582-589
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Foxtrot football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote community harmony, multiculturalism and reconciliation. Foxtrot participated in both the surveys and the interviews. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Gecko football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society : Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 590-593
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Special Issue : The biggest game in town : An analysis of the AFL's vilification policy. The Gecko football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote community harmony, multiculturalism and reconciliation. Foxtrot participated in the surveys only. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Hornet football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 594-596
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Hornet football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote Community Harmony, Multiculturalism and Reconciliation. Hornet participated in the surveys only. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Igloo football club
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 597-599
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The Igloo football club is an AFL club that participated in this Australian Research Council project Assessing the Australian Football League’s Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to promote Community Harmony, Multiculturalism and Reconciliation. Igloo participated in the surveys only. This club and its players and staff have all been deidentified as required by Curtin University’s ethics guidelines. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Introduction : The AFL’s rule 35
- Authors: Gorman, Sean , Lusher, Dean , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sport in Society Vol. 19, no. 4 (2016), p. 472-482
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This introductory paper lays the foundation for this important work. This is the first time that a multidisciplinary, systematic study has been conducted into the Australian Football League’s (AFL) Rule 35 1 – the first code of conduct introduced by an elite sporting organization in the world to deal with racial, religious and sexual vilification. Social and sport history in Australia will be discussed to further contextualize the importance of the research. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.