Presented by Matthew Stephens
The Northern Territory must be one of the few places in the world where the history of sport is retained in the ‘social memory’ of a generation. This is the case in many Aboriginal communities where there are people who can recall their first experience of Australian Rules football that has since become an integral part of their community ‘culture’. Few recognise the uniqueness of this situation. The role of sport in developing and sustaining a sense of community is often acknowledged but rarely is its central role in our social history. In researching the role of sport and leisure in the colonial social history of the Northern Territory, it has become apparent that the records of these events have been largely lost to time, cyclones, white ants and neglect. Much of this history is retained in the ‘social memory’ of the community and in personal records but very little has been documented. A major challenge facing historians and archivists in the Northern Territory is developing a strategy that will enable the development of a repository of sporting archival material that will enable future research and scholarship in the field before it is lost.