S: Australian symbols (part 2) - symbols and sport

The first part of the class is your turf - I'll be listening to the two remaining "R" presentations. After our Zoom chat is over, please read and listen to the materials listed below.

1. Australian Symbols

Begin with some serious reading here.

And then visit my beloved site for a less "purist" take on Aussie symbols ;-)
(click the pic below)




















EUREKA FLAG  - Eureka Flag is a symbol we already talked about when we covered the topic of Gold Rush and the Eureka Rebellion. Click the link if you want to go back to the video we watched together in class.

GOLDEN WATTLE- read to find out what Australian government wanted to do with the country's national flower and why ;)


2. Sport

"Australian sport deserves quality piss taking or none at all."

Australians are a nation of active people and they like to joke that they spend more on excercising than on education, but it doesn't mean that they are going to worship their sportsmen and sportswomen blindly. They always retain a healthy dose of irony and humour.

Asked about cricket, they would say something like that:

Cricket is a game that moves about as fast as a Jamaican on valium. It involves watching 11 men in white clothes stand around a field for a few hours, then break to have lunch, stand around, then break again to have a cup of tea, stand around, then go home. The same thing occurs for another 4 days, and then after all that effort, both teams call the whole thing a draw...

Remember, "Australian sport deserves quality piss taking or none at all." So true ;-)


Australians pride themselves on inventing football. That's correct. Football. However "footy" may mean different games in different states. More on that here.

Some of you know already that I'm hopelessly in love with AFL. Unfortunately the Rona (=coronavirus) interrupted with the season which was supposed to start on Good Friday. Usually Eurosport 2 presents a game of AFL each week and I encourage my students to have a look. This time you can't. But at least you can learn the rules of the game.


Watch the video below.




Click HERE to watch an episode of Australia’s Heritage – National Treasures which explains the story behind writing the rules of AFL (this is something you'll need for the test).

Talking about sport, we can't possibly forget about Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.















Sydney was the second Olympic Games organized by Aussies. The first one was in Melbourne in 1956.

That date also marks Aussies' love affair with swimming.

Another sport which is synonymous with Australia is surfing. Click HERE to watch a video that explains the birth this Hawaiian sport in Australia.

Surfing was also important for local industry, in terms of not only surfboards themselves, but all the gear and apparel. Two most well know wear brands which were born out of this surfing craze are Bilabong and Quicksilver.

Below you'll find a trailer for a movie called Drift.

Filmed on location on Western Australia's spectacular and rugged coastline, it is a story of two brothers and the birth of modern surf industry in the early 1970s. It also touches upon drug trafficking which was at that time done inside surfboards. But more about it when we talk about Australians at war and the realtions between Aussies and their American allies in Vietnam and Korea.