Australian Sport Pioneers

The Aboriginal Cricket Team who toured England in 1868 were truly pioneers of Australian sport. It wasn’t until 10 years later, in 1878, that the Australian cricket team competed internationally.
Their achievement is especially noteworthy given the dispossession, violence, deprivation and disease the Aboriginal people of western Victoria experienced from European settlers at the time.
Today their story is considered to be one of most important in the history of Australian sport.

Arriving in England in May 1868, they played 47 matches against teams throughout the country over six months. They performed creditably, winning 14 matches, while losing 14 and drawing 19 times.

Shortly after the team’s return to Australia, restrictions were placed upon Aboriginal people in Victoria, forcing many people to live on reserves or missions with their freedom of movement strictly curtailed. This ended the development of Aboriginal cricket in Australia at that time.

Wills (seen here seated far left) grew up in Western Victoria. At age 14 he was sent to the Rugby School in England where he excelled at cricket and rugby union. At sixteen he joined the Rugby School XI and on debut at Lord’s he took 12 wickets against the Marylebone Cricket Club.
He went on to play cricket for Kent, Cambridge University and the Marylebone Cricket Club.

Returning to Melbourne in 1856, Wills was soon recognised as the best all-round cricketer in the colony. He captained Victoria to victory in the in the 1858 intercolonial match between Victoria and New South Wales at the MCG.

Wills was praised by some at this time for his egalitarianism in seeking to bridge the divide between amateur and professional sport. However, his bowling also attracted accusations of “chucking”, and in 1872 he became the first cricketer called for throwing in a first-class Australian match.

Wills was a central figure in the foundation of Australian Rules Football, along with his cousin H.C.A. Harrison, W.J. Hammersley and J.B. Thompson. In July 1858 wrote a public letter promoting an organised football competition in Victoria as a means for cricketers to remain match-fit during the winter off-season.

Wills co-umpired one of the first recognised games of Australian football, played in Yarra Park outside the MCG. In May, 1859, Wills was present at a meeting of the Melbourne Football Club where the first rules of the game were drawn up. These 10 simple rules made Australian football one of the first modern football games in the world to have a codified set of rules.

Iddo “Snowy” Munro was a long-distance road cyclist, competing during the early 1900s. One of the first Australians to contest the prestigious Tour de France, he helped pave the way for Australian cyclists to compete on the international stage.

Munro trained with the Coburg Cycle Club and was a regular competitor on the Victorian road cycling circuit, notably winning the Australasian long distance road racing championship in 1909.

Snowy Munro was famous for completing the 1909 Warrnambool to Melbourne Road Race in the fastest time; his then world-record time of seven hours and 12 minutes for the 264km (165mi) race beating the train from Warrnambool to Melbourne by five minutes. Munro drew level with the train 30km outside of Melbourne, before outpacing the steam engine on the approach to the city. Munro’s effort was remarkable considering he was riding on dirt roads with a heavy, fixed-gear bike.

In 1914, Munro and fellow cyclist Don Kirkham became the first Australians to race in the Tour de France. This course map, which Munro kept in his back pocket, displays the 5380km (3343mi) route and lists the winners and Munro’s finishing times for each stage. Kirkham finished the Tour in 17th place in the overall standings, while Munro was the 20th rider to complete the race.

Munro and Kirkham helped pave the way for riders such as Hubert Opperman, who enjoyed great success on the European circuit, Phil Anderson, the first Australian and first non-European rider to wear the Yellow Jersey during the Tour de France in 1981, and Cadel Evans, who became the first Australian to win the Tour de France in 2011.

Judy Dalton was one of Australia’s most successful women’s tennis players of the 1960s and 70s, and helped pave the way for the professionalisation of the sport, at a time when sexism was rampant, and huge pay disparities between men and women were normal.

Judy Dalton won nine Grand Slam doubles titles in during the 1960s and 70s. She achieved a career Career Grand Slam by winning at least one women’s doubles at each of the Grand Slam tournaments – the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open.
As a singles player, Judy Dalton reached the final at Wimbledon in 1968, where she lost to Billie Jean King in two sets.

Judy Dalton was part of the Australian Federation Cup team in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, and 1970; winning the tournament on two occasions in 1965 and again in 1970 when Dalton captained the team to victory.

In 1970 Judy Dalton became one of the “Original Nine” women to protest the disparity in prize money between men and women players.
Alongside Billie Jean King, Rosemary Casals, Nancy Richey, Peaches Bartkowicz, Julie Heldman, Kristy Pigeon, Valerie Ziegenfuss and fellow Australian Kerry Reid, Dalton boycotted the Pacific Southwest Championships in Los Angeles.

The “Original Nine” then played in an unsanctioned standalone tournament in Houston, Texas, where Dalton lost in the final to Rosemary Casals. Titled the Virginia Slims Circuit, the tournament became the forerunner to the Women’s Tennis Association tour.

Dalton also helped pioneer a more glamourous and fashionable style in women’s tennis, exclusively wearing one-of-a-kind pieces by designer Teddy Tinling throughout her international career.

Dalton and Tinling began collaborating in 1962, shortly after Dalton arrived in Europe as Australia’s top-ranked player. Tinling would design new outfits for Dalton to wear during competition.

In 2009-10, Australian teenager Jessica Watson sailed non-stop around the world, solo and unassisted. At the time she was the youngest person to complete a solo non-stop circumnavigation of the globe.

Watson departed Sydney Harbour on October 18, 2009, in her yacht Ella’s Pink Lady. She headed north-east through the Pacific Ocean to cross the equator and then turned south, passing beneath Africa, South America and Australia - tackling some of the world's toughest seas alone.

Watson returned to Sydney Harbour 210 days after she departed, completing her voyage of some 23,000 nautical miles on May 15, 2010, just three days before her 17th birthday.

In 2010 Watson was named one of ten “Adventurers of the Year” by the National Geographic Society and received the Sports Australia Hall of Fame’s “Spirit of Sport” award. In 2011 Watson was named “Young Australian of the Year”.

Albert Broomham was a pioneer of the sport of rugby league in Australia. He was an early convert to the new code from rugby union, playing in the inaugural season of the New South Wales Rugby League for North Sydney in 1908. Broomham also represented New South Wales, Australia and Australasia.

He went on the second Kangaroo Tour of Great Britain in 1911-12 where the Australasian squad, made up of Australian and New Zealand players, became the first touring side to win in Great Britain.

It would be more than half a century before an Australian team was once again able to defeat a British team on home soil.

Albert Broomham was made a life member of the NSW Rugby Football League in recognition of his contribution to the sport.

The achievements of Australia's pioneering athletes hold a special place in the nation's history. As the first in their fields they tell powerful stories of the development of Australian sport.

Each has left a legacy which has inspired others or set a benchmark for subsequent generations to match.