Sport in the 1970s
Sport in Australian culture
Australia is often considered to be a 'sports mad' country. Our love of sport is reflected in the numbers of people who play sport, attend sporting events and watch sport on television. Australia leads the world in sports science and in the technical development of television sporting coverage.
Sport and our national identity
For a nation with a relatively small population, Australia performs remarkably well at an international level. Sporting success, particularly on the world stage, enables the creation of a distinct national identity. Victorious sports people often become national heroes and some, like legendary cricketer Donald Bradman, become revered as Australian icons.
The popularity of sport in Australia can partly be attributed to a warm climate that encourages people to get outdoors and be active. Sport also enables well-loved national values like 'mateship', 'having a go', and 'egalitarianism' (the assumption that that all people are equal), to be played out. Australians also revel in the expression of 'fair play' on the sporting field - hence, sports cheats are often chastised for being 'un-Australian.'
Sport as a reflection of social change
A close examination of sport can yield other important discoveries about changes in out culture over time. As Australian society became more commercialised and globalised, so too did our sport. From an amateur, locally-based pastime, sport in Australia gradually evolved into a professional, highly lucrative industry with international scope.
The development of sport in Australia also reflects the gradual movement of our culture away from its British roots, towards a more Americanised, yet distinctly Australian cultural hybrid. While sports like cricket and the various codes of rugby point to our British heritage, modern sports like basketball demonstrate the penetration of American influence into our culture. At the same time, local sports like Australian Rules football continue to thrive.
Sport in the 1970s
Australia achieved several outstanding sporting results throughout the 1970s. In some areas, however, the nation struggled to retain the sporting supremacy it had enjoyed over previous decades. Australia's sports system was considered by some to be amateur and outdated in comparison to the sophisticated sporting regimes of Europe and America. This sparked strong debate on how Australia should go about regaining its sporting dominance and in the process, restoring its national pride.
Sporting success in the 1970s
Australia's netball team won the World Championships three times in the 1970s.
The Australian swimming team also brought home eight gold medals from the 1972 Munich Olympics. Fifteen-year-old swimmer Shane Gould was a standout performer, taking home three gold, one silver and one bronze medal.
In 1974, Australia qualified for the World Cup finals in West Germany. Until that time, many Australians had considered soccer to be a marginal sport played only by migrants. Suddenly, it was propelled to the status of a 'serious' game worthy of much media interest. The Australians performed admirably at the championships. A new national soccer league was established in 1977, riding on the wave of new interest in the game.
Australian tennis players dominated Wimbledon early in the decade. Margaret Smith Court won the women's singles in 1970 and Evonne Goolagong Cawley took the title in 1971. John Newcombe also won the men's singles in 1970 and 1971.
Many of these strong performances went unnoticed, however, among a string of seemingly disappointing results in other sports.
1970s - Sporting decline
The 1976 Montreal Olympics yielded little joy for Australia. The team failed to win a single gold medal, taking home just five medals overall and finishing in 32nd place.
Many reasons were put forward to explain this sporting decline. Australia's geographic isolation had always made international competition difficult and expensive and forced Australian athletes to compete during their off-season.
The biggest problem, however, was that Australian sport was relatively amateur and unstructured and Australian athletes received very little government funding. Many of them worked full-time and trained on weekends and after work. Equipment, travel expenses and entry to competitions were often financed from an athlete's own pockets.
Australia's amateur sports system was in stark contrast to the rigorous, professional sporting systems that had been developed in Europe and America during the 1970s. As well as supporting and developing elite sportspeople, these systems actively encouraged sports participation in the community.
To many Australians, sporting success was integral to our national identity. By the late 1970s, however, it was becoming clear that Australian sport would require government support if it were to retain its international dominance.
A government-funded national sports system
Increasing public concern prompted the Commonwealth Government into action and construction began on Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra. Completed in 1981, the AIS aimed to help talented athletes reach their potential, by providing specialised training, expert coaches, sports science and sports medicine services, as well as state-of-the-art facilities across many different sports.
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Through the Australian Sports Commission, the government also established funding and scholarship schemes that allowed athletes to devote more time and energy to training. Programmes were also set up to encourage better sports participation in the wider community.
In the coming decades, these measures would prove extremely successful in restoring the international success rate of Australian athletes.
Life. Be in it.
In 1975, the Victorian government conducted a study into people's attitudes towards fitness. It found that 60 percent of people considered exercise to be boring, unappealing and too much hard work.
As a result, the Life. Be In It. media campaign was launched. The campaign encouraged people to become involved in any kind of physical activity. It centred around an average man called Norm, who got up off the couch and went to fly a kite. The campaign created massive public awareness of the importance of exercise and also improved sports participation rates. The Life. Be In It. campaign was so successful in Victoria that in 1978, it was expanded to all other States.
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By the end of the 1970s, Australians were generally much more interested in keeping fit and healthy. Many joined gyms and thousands participated in fun runs, marathons and triathlons.
World Series cricket: Sport meets business
Throughout the 1960s, cricket's popularity in Australia had waned. The game was injected with life in 1977 when Australian businessman Kerry Packer established a new competition called World Series cricket.
World Series cricket was custom-made for television. Players wore bright uniforms, used a white ball and played matches under flood lights at night, when the networks would gain the largest audience. Cricketers were offered large amounts of money to forego their places in Test cricket matches to play in his new competition and many leading international players took up the offer.
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With most of the world's superstar players absent, crowds at Test matches dwindled. Worried about the future of the game, cricket officials were forced to negotiate with Packer. By the end of the 1970s, players were permitted to take part in both World Series cricket and Test cricket matches.
World Series cricket only ran for two years, but it had a lasting influence on the sport. Players were paid more and the standard of television coverage improved markedly. Importantly, World Series cricket also marked the beginning of Australian sport being big business.
Football in the 1970s
Contrary to the fears of many officials in the 1960s, the televising of football matches did not lead to reduced crowd numbers. Quite the opposite, in fact - interest in all codes of football increased in the 1970s. In 1970, for example, the Australian Rules football grand final between Carlton and Collingwood pulled a record crowd of 121 696 people.
Football, television and sponsorship
The trend towards 'professionalism' penetrated further into all codes of football throughout the 1970s. With finance from higher gate takings and television rights, clubs could increasingly afford to offer generous salary packages. In greater numbers throughout the 1970s, players and coaches began to shop themselves around to the highest bidder, rather than staying loyal to one club for their entire careers.
Television provided many new ways for businesses to profit from Australian sport. As a result, many sports in the 1970s made changes to maximise commercial opportunities. In Australian Rules football, the rules were altered to make the game more attractive and in rugby league, sponsors began advertising on players' jerseys.
Women and sport
The study of sport can yield valuable information on the status and roles of particular groups in society as a whole. Traditionally, groups like Indigenous people, ethnic minorities and women have been discriminated against, or treated unequally in relation to sports participation. This treatment is thought to reflect the prevailing cultural attitudes towards these groups.
In the past, social traditions and a dominant masculine culture had confined women to 'refined' sports like croquet and tennis. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, women demanded equal status to men in many areas of social, political and cultural life. This included the sporting sphere, where some women challenged society's expectations by taking up sports like horse racing, football, long-distance running and even weight lifting.
Prior to the 1970s, women were not permitted to become fully-fledged members of many golf clubs. They were granted only 'associate member' status, meaning they were allowed to use the golf course only on particular days, mainly during the week. This form of discrimination was banned, however, with the introduction of various State and Commonwealth equal opportunity laws in the 1970s and 1980s. These laws made it illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of a number of things, including sex, marital status or pregnancy.
While women were gradually accepted into almost all kinds of sport, history has shown that they would continue to struggle to achieve true sporting equality with men, particularly in the areas of funding and media coverage.
According to some critics, this discrimination and marginalisation of certain groups within sport goes against fundamental Australian values like 'egalitarianism', or equality for all.
