A Summer of Cricket - Aboriginal Cricket Team, Victoria
From the early 1860s onwards, cricket matches between Aborigines and European settlers had been played on the cattle stations of the Wimmera district in western Victoria, where many Aborigines worked as stockmen. The athletic skills of the Aborigines were so evident that a series of matches was eventually undertaken with the intention of forming the strongest-possible Aboriginal eleven.
Tom Wills managed and coached the resulting team, which played a match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day 1866 that attracted 8,000 spectators. An entrepreneur, Captain Gurnett, persuaded the team to play in Sydney, with a planned expedition to Brisbane followed by a tour of England. However, after their arrival in Sydney, Gurnett embezzled some of the funds raised to finance the enterprise, leaving the team stranded.
The Aborigines returned to Victoria and a second attempt to organise a tour of England was initiated by new financial backers. The former Surrey professional cricketer Charles Lawrence, who coached the Albert Club in Sydney, became coach and manager of the team.
National Library of Australia.
