How Australia’s Rich Tried (and Failed) to Cancel Football
To drum up support for World War I, Australia’s ruling class tried to cancel the 1915–17 seasons of the Victorian Football League, labeling fans “truculent shirkers” and “hoodlums.” This did not go over well with the game’s working-class fans.
Men on the front line were still following the football season and their teams with the same vigor as they had when they were at home. (Photo credit: Australian War Memorial)
In 1916, a debate raged in Australia over conscription for World War I. Billy Hughes, who had become Labor prime minister in 1915, led the “Yes” campaign. He was joined by every non-Catholic church, the Salvation Army, most newspapers, the judiciary, business leaders, and “just about every influential public man in Australia.”
At the head of the “No” campaign stood most Labor Party members (against their leader), the Victorian Socialist Party, and the Industrial Workers of the World. They were joined by trade unionists, feminists, and Irish Catholics incensed by the British suppression of the Easter Uprising.
In October 1916, 52 percent of those polled — over 1.1 million — voted no. The Labor Party expelled Hughes, who took many MPs with him. He eventually joined with the Commonwealth Liberal Party to form the Nationalist Party, which held power, with Hughes as prime minister, until 1923. Undeterred, Hughes scheduled a second conscription referendum for December 1917.
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