‘A Fine Manly Game’? Masculinity and Australian Rules Football in Rural South-West Victoria During the 1920s

In the rural south-west corner of Victoria, Australia, during the interwar period Australian Rules football was a focal point for the celebration and reproduction of gender norms – especially in terms of masculinity. The purpose of this essay is to investigate various local newspaper reports related to football matches played between teams from the rural towns of Terang and Mortlake in 1929 in which masculine ideologies that characterized football were questioned after Tom Fitzmaurice – Mortlake’s captain-coach – committed what some perceived as ‘foul play’ against an opponent. As a result, debates pertaining to what made football ‘a fine manly game’ circulated through reports and correspondence in the local newspapers. In this context, the local press advocated that football’s manliness be characterized by qualities of fairness, impartiality and sportsmanship. However, this perception was not consistent across the entire local community as some spectators considered attributes of toughness, resilience and aversion to effeminate traits more important for identifying the manly footballer. Accordingly, this paper explores the multivalent notions of masculinity in a particular rural football setting and examines its role in the local community.