Multiple football codes and their spectators, fans and supporters in Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This is the first attempt to describe and explain the varying patterns of support for football in Australia from the very early games played by First Nations people and the arrivals from overseas down to the present day. It discusses the Indigenous forms of football and the subsequent involvement of Indigenous people in the codified games of the nineteenth century. The majority of the article covers the development of spectatorship since codification and tries to bring out the distinctive features of changing Australian spectatorship where this is appropriate.