Gay Pride is a Swan in Sydney?

Abstract

What I wish to do in this paper is explore some of the unique aspects of the Australian experience in developing a gay pride football fixture and in particular the spatial aspects of such a game. For example, the specific game that has been suggested be classified as the gay pride game is one that involves the Sydney Swans football club. This club relocated to Sydney in the 1980s from Melbourne which now raises a number of interesting issues. While Sydney is the largest Australian city and the football club has had much recent sporting success, Australian Rules Football is not the dominant game in that city. Does this mean a gay pride game will be marginalised as a consequence and so not take on the mainstream homophobic culture of the game? On the other hand Sydney is being recast as an international gay and lesbian city (witness the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival) and has a thriving GLBTI community. Could this lead to even stronger entrenching of the fixture and the idea behind it within the game? Sometimes games such as the one currently proposed can be dismissed as token gestures but the question I wish to ask is whether a (sporting) gesture in the right place can become an iconic moment in changing perceptions of human rights.