Sheilas, woggabaliri and poofters

[Dogwatcher]

Sheilas, woggabaliri and poofters

By ROB McLEAN

A little story about Australia's bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup seemed to pass by the sporting community almost unnoticed recently, one in which our nation's links with football were traced back to an Indigenous sport known as woggabaliri.
The distinction was made that while, according to the rest of the international football community, Australia is still finding its soccer feet on the world and domestic stage, as a nation we have a deep and abiding link to the game, one which makes us the perfect venue for one of the two soccer* World Cup tournaments we are currently bidding for.
A quick look at the website creative spirits.info, under the banner traditional Aboriginal games and activities, illustrates the point.
The website describes woggabaliri as "a traditional kind of football game that involved ball made of possum fur. The ball was spun by the women and only about five centimetres in diameter. The game trained agility and required suppleness of limbs".
In the recent newspaper article an old painting, illustrating Aboriginal children playing by a lagoon, was used to further highlight the strength of our links to the world game.
However, in local sporting quarters that assertion might be open to conjecture as the action portrayed in the photo has also previously been described as a form of marn grook, a game which has been likened to the 'local' sporting innovation of Australian rules.
Now I am sure our bid convenors are adept and professional enough to know what they are doing in regards to this World Cup bid, which no less an authority as Franz Beckenbauer has backed, but is this link a little bit tenous?
To me, the game woggabaliri more closely resembles the game known as hacy sack, or footbag - which in itself is similar to Asian games seprak takraw and sipa.
That link takes me back to my university days when a sun drenched afternoon could easily be wasted with an ongoing game of hacky sack accompanied by a few beers. Oh roll out those lazy, hazy days of summer. Those days of hacky sack and beers.
Hopefully, the link to the Indigenous game (which can be progressed through to more modern times and players such as Charlie Perkins, Freddy Agius, Travis Dodd and David Williams) will prove another positive in a campaign that is reportedly being viewed highly favourably by some in world soccer circles.
Let's hope so, then maybe the next edition of Johnny Warren's wonderful history of the game in Australia (updated to include our recent World Cup campaigns and our success in gaining the right to host the tournament) can be renamed Sheilas, Woggalabiri and Poofters in honour of the occasion.

* I have no qualms about calling football "soccer", the use of the term does not seem to have impacted previous bids by the United States and, more recently, South Africa, in gaining the nod of approval to host successful World Cups.