Universal Love Geelong Football Club - 163 years old

[cats_09]

Today marks the 163rd birthday of the Geelong Football Club - surely that's sufficient reason for a thread dedicated to things we love about this club

What are the things we love about this club?
Football memories from our childhood, or what drew us into loving the Hoops?

Let's have at it, and celebrate 163 years of the Geelong FC





And surely we can't mention 163 without an image of this scoreboard

 

[Sky]

Big thank you to all the people who built this club in the 138 years before my life began.

A thank you to myself for being smart enough to pick the best team there is

 

[jim boy]

And surely we can't mention 163 without an image of this scoreboard

View attachment 1449957

The thing about that photo is that it appears that the port fans are applauding and the cats fans standing around non-plussed. Maybe it was taken whilst Warren Tredrea gave his speech??

 

[Baudolino]

Is it just me or is it extremely weird that the world's second-oldest sports club is only 163 years old? How the hell did humanity get all the way up until the mid-19th century without private sports organisations becoming a thing?

 

[thejester]

Is it just me or is it extremely weird that the world's second-oldest sports club is only 163 years old? How the hell did humanity get all the way up until the mid-19th century without private sports organisations becoming a thing?

I think the answer is that a) it isn't the world's second oldest sporting club but the second oldest professional football club (happy to be corrected obn this though) and b) organizing to compete in clubs rather than other types of social institution was a product of particular forces in the Anglo world in the first half of the 19th century and its global spread represents the influence of the Anglo world in that period.

 

[Kitcat]

Is it just me or is it extremely weird that the world's second-oldest sports club is only 163 years old? How the hell did humanity get all the way up until the mid-19th century without private sports organisations becoming a thing?

It may be the world's second-oldest 'football' club. Cricket clubs had been going for a long time before in England, and more recently in Australia. Tom Wills, one of the founders of the game, played for the famous travelling I Zingari cricket club, here and in England. Up to the late 1850s, football was played within private schools in England and some villages had rough festival games. Gradually, in the 1850s on, more leisure time meant amateur sports like football (plus rugby and soccer) and tennis developed.

 

[FredLeDeux]

It may be the world's second-oldest 'football' club. Cricket clubs had been going for a long time before in England, and more recently in Australia. Tom Wills, one of the founders of the game, played for the famous travelling I Zingari cricket club, here and in England. Up to the late 1850s, football was played within private schools in England and some villages had rough festival games. Gradually, in the 1850s on, more leisure time meant amateur sports like football (plus rugby and soccer) and tennis developed.

Golf clubs way preceded most other sporting clubs.
There are a number of Australian cricket clubs substantially pre-dating any football clubs anywhere.

 

[catscratchfever]

The equal oldest football club in the world.

Yeah, yeah, the Dum-ons will say theirs is the oldest, but as Sam Newman once said, “What, did they play against themselves?”

Apart from the premierships in my lifetime + watching the Abletts play at home and away, the highlights are endless.

Amongst them: Doug Wade kicking goal after goal, Jimmy Bartel’s Brownlow, Dwayne Russell putting a Carlton player in a headlock at Kardinia Park in about 1989 (the moment when I became convinced that we were a changed team with a harder philosophy), Gazza Snr effectively ending Wayne ‘The Dominator’ Johnston’s career (in the same game?), Damian Burke rearranging Damian Monkhorst’s teeth, and Ray Card steamrolling Keith Greig on the Moorabool Street wing (mega-ouch).

Good times.

 

[SJ]

I think the answer is that a) it isn't the world's second oldest sporting club but the second oldest professional football club (happy to be corrected obn this though) and b) organizing to compete in clubs rather than other types of social institution was a product of particular forces in the Anglo world in the first half of the 19th century and its global spread represents the influence of the Anglo world in that period.

Also the relatively early move towards the 5-day working week within the very prosperous Melbourne and Victoria (thanks to the gold rush) meant that people in this area had more leisure time than others (for both playing and spectating), which is why our football clubs are older than most others.

 

[Kitcat]

Also the relatively early move towards the 5-day working week within the very prosperous Melbourne and Victoria (thanks to the gold rush) meant that people in this area had more leisure time than others (for both playing and spectating), which is why our football clubs are older than most others.

Yes, and we codified our rules in 1859 before rugby and soccer did in England.

 

[you pick one]

I jumped the fence to get in until I was about 15 and then got my first seasons ticket as a birthday present I was so proud of that ticket I felt I belonged to something special it seemed a shame they punched holes in it at the gates.

 

[Spearman]

How about competing gladiator schools?

 

[jim boy]

Yes, and we codified our rules in 1859 before rugby and soccer did in England.

You've got me started! - For me the genesis comes from Rugby school, the massive popularity of the novel "Tom Brown's SchoolDays" in the 1850's and Tom Wills, who was almost a character out of that novel. And rugby wasn't just a sport, it was an ethos of healthy and spiritual activity through exertion 'muscular christianity". Combine this with the rise of middle class, the industrialisation of transport, the rise of 'leisure time' (not all work and pray) and the growth of popular current media (i.e newspapers), then the time time was just right for footy to grow. Yes, cricket and golf and the like are much older, but they were also the preserve of the rich.