This semester I was privileged enough to work with the Sydney Convicts RUFC for my HYST3902 project, composing an archive and a short written history for the institution. Initially a daunting task, I somehow managed to pull through and deliver an archive with over 170 entries, ranging from simple scans of two-decade old posters to digitisations of 60+ page booklets.
The Point
The originality and argument of this project lies in its subject matter, the Sydney Convicts, acting both as a documentation of their now 20-year history and furthering the argument that they made with their founding in 2004. The originality of the project is by contributing to the history of rugby by applying serious historical attention to the Sydney Convicts as a gay rugby club adds another dimension to their agenda to combat both stereotypes of gay men, and the deep-rooted homophobia in rugby as a sport. As the Star Observer reported in 2004, “They see themselves as a rugby team first and foremost, which just happens to be gay.” By documenting the history of the Convicts like one would the history of any other amateur rugby club, the novelty of the Sydney Convicts in contemporary rugby is extended into the history of rugby. The argument of the project is then that it ‘historicizes’ the convicts, both within the history of rugby and establishes a singular historical narrative of the club itself. According to Joan Scott, “The point of new historical investigation is to disrupt the notion of fixity, to discover the nature of the debate or repression that leads to the appearance of timeless permanence.” This framework of ‘historicization’ disrupts the ‘permanence’ of the rugby landscape, wherein clubs have existed for well over a century even on the amateur level, by paying serious historical attention to a relatively young club in the Convicts. This is evident in account of the Convict’s early years, where many of the players had been excluded from their previous teams for their sexualities and the formation of a club that accepted these players was met with hostility from several other clubs in the Sydney suburban championship. By showing that the Sydney amateur rugby landscape, despite having some clubs that date back over 100 years such as the Manly Savers, has changed with the inclusion and eventual acceptance of the Convicts, amateur rugby is integrated into the greater social and historical processes of the society it exists in. Therefore, by paying serious historical attention to the Sydney Convicts, the project has both an original premise in documenting the relatively new club, and that documentation makes an argument by ‘historicizing’ the club and rugby as subject to both social and historical conditions.
What is a Rugger Bugger?
One particularly well documented part of the club’s history was the annual-ish ‘Rugger Bugger’ with cards, posters and news reports about the event preserved.
The Rugger Bugger, starting in 2004, is a show periodically held by the Convicts as a fundraiser to finance the club and travel to international events the convicts attend, most notably the bi-annual Bingham Cup.
The first several shows were held at the Midnight Shift, a historical LGBT club in Sydney, which has since closed down and been reopened as ‘Universal’ by a new set of owners. As such these cards are not only a piece of Convict history, but also of Sydney’s pre-lockout laws nightlife.