page_title: Sport in Australia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sport in Australia / History
caption_attribution_description: Australian cricket batsman Bill Woodfull faces a Bodyline field in the 4th Test match in Brisbane, 1933. Harold Larwood is bowling. Note the mass of fielders on the leg side, designed to catch the ball if the batsman defends his body with his bat, and deflects the ball in the air.
context_page_description: Sport is an important part of Australia that dates back to the early colonial period. Cricket, Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union, soccer and tennis are among the earliest organised sports in Australia. Sport has shaped the Australian national identity through events such as the Ashes, the Melbourne Cup and the America's Cup.
  There are a number of professional sport leagues in Australia, including the Australian Football League and AFL Women's, National Rugby League, the Big Bash League, Women's Big Bash League and Sheffield Shield, the National Basketball League and the Women's National Basketball League, the A-League and the W-League, the Australian Baseball League, Super Rugby and the National Rugby Championship, Suncorp Super Netball and the Supercars Championship. Attendance for the AFL in a single season attracts more than 6 million people to games, while the NRL draws just over 3 million people in a single season.
context_section_description: Sport came to Australia in 1810 when the first athletics tournament was held; soon after cricket, horse racing and sailing clubs and competitions started. Australia's lower classes would play sports on public holidays, with the upper classes playing more regularly on Saturdays. Sydney was the early hub of sport in the colony. Early forms of football were played there by 1829. Early sport in Australia was played along class lines. In 1835, the British Parliament banned blood sports except fox hunting in a law that was implemented in Australia; this was not taken well in the country as it was seen as an attack on the working classes. By the late 1830s, horse racing was established in New South Wales and other parts of the country, and enjoyed support across class lines. Gambling was part of sport from the time horse racing became an established sport in the colony. Horse racing was also happening in Melbourne at Batman's Hill in 1838, with the first race meeting in Victoria taking place in 1840. Cricket was also underway with the Melbourne Cricket Club founded in 1838. Sport was being used during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s as a form of social integration across classes. Victorian rules football (later known as Australian rules) was codified in 1859. Australian football clubs still around in the current Australian Football League were founded by 1858. The Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia's largest sporting arena, opened in 1853.  The Melbourne Cup was first run in 1861. A rugby union team was established at the University of Sydney in 1864. Regular sport did not begin to be played in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia until the late 1860s and early 1870s.
  The first Australian cricket team to go on tour internationally did so in 1868. The Australian side was an all Aboriginal one and toured England where they played 47 games, where they won 14 games, drew 19 and lost 14.Australia's adoption of sport as a national pastime was so comprehensive that Anthony Trollope remarked in his book, Australia, published in 1870, "The English passion for the amusements which are technically called 'sports', is not a national necessity with the Americans, whereas with the Australians it is almost as much so as home."
  The first team formally organised soccer team was formed in Sydney in 1880 and was named the Wanderers. Sport was receiving coverage in Australian newspapers by 1876 when a sculling race in England was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1877, Australia played in the first Test Cricket match against England. In 1882, The Ashes were started following the victory of the Australia national cricket team over England. Field hockey teams for men and women were established by 1890. The Sheffield Shield cricket competition was first held in 1891 with New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia participating in the inaugural competition. The remaining states would not participate until much later, with Queensland first participating in 1926–27, Western Australia in 1947–48 and Tasmania in 1982–83.   In 1897 the Victorian Football League, which later became the AFL the Australian Football League, was founded after breaking away from the Victorian Football Association.
  The first badminton competition in Australia was played in 1900. The first ice hockey game was played in Melbourne on 12 July 1906 between a local Melbourne team and a team from the crew of the visiting US warship USS Baltimore.
  Motor racing began in the first years of federation with motorcycle racing beginning at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1901 with automobile motorsport following in 1904 at Aspendale Racecourse in Melbourne. A dedicated race track was added to Aspendale's horse racing track in 1906, although it fell into disuse almost immediately.
  Rugby league has been the overwhelmingly dominant rugby code in Australia since 1908 (this position remains unchallenged to this day). When Messenger and the All Golds returned from Great Britain in 1908, they helped the new clubs adapt to the rules of rugby league prior to the inaugural 1908 NSWRFL sea
caption: 1932–33 Ashes: Bill Woodfull evades a bodyline ball at the Gabba
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