Cirrus@Austlit

'Poorne Yarriworri (c. 1844–1889), better known as Albert ‘Pompey’ Austin, inhabited the smallest possible world—a world of one. He was the only Indigenous person to play top-level Australian football in Victoria in the nineteenth century. He was far more than a footballer and in his brief life he was an athlete (pedestrian, as they were known in those days), cricketer, possibly a boxer, racehorse owner, jockey and horse-breaker, artist, musician, explorer, entertainer and public speaker. His son and grandson carried the ‘Pompey’ name into the next two generations. His memory lingered long after his death but then he was forgotten until he was rediscovered in the late twentieth century. Though he is known to sports historians, his extraordinary life is virtually unknown in the general community. It is time he was given the appreciation his contribution to Australian life and culture deserves.' (Publication abstract)

'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.'  (Publication summary)