‘Imperialism and Nationalism in Action’? Reconfiguring the Athletic Relationship with Britain

Abstract

In 1908, The Referee ran a five-part series of articles entitled ‘How English Rugby Strikes an Australian’. The first in the series commenced with the caveat that the author was ‘under the natural disadvantage (?) of not finding in England the things to which I have become accustomed in my own land, and of decrying, or rather being tempted to decry, all things English’.¹ Given this clear expression of Australian distinctiveness, it is surprising that this comment was made by an English rugby international. Garnet Vere Portus, an Australian studying at Oxford who later became a well-known historian, wrote this series and played his only two test matches for England before it was printed. Portus’s position represents a paradox in the way in which identity is expressed through international sport. Developments in international sport, particularly in the Cold War era, saw ‘victorious athletes [become] indispensible symbols of national vitality’ in the late twentieth century.² However, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the distinction between nations was not as stark and a number of individuals represented adopted and even multiple countries.³ Portus’s dual nationality reflects this earlier period of sporting representation when nationalism was not expressed with the forcefulness of later periods.