This week’s opening round of the Victorian Lacrosse competition sees the league take a step back in history, with top-level lacrosse returning to the goldfields of Victoria for the first time in 105 years.
It was the Victorian gold-rush of the 1850s that lured from Canada the family of one Lambton L. Mount, then aged 14.
Some 20 years after having arrived in Australia, he recalled with fondness the indigenous game of his birthplace, which he had played as a boy.
He set about importing 40 lacrosse sticks, eventually bringing together sufficient enthusiasts to establish an association and four clubs in Melbourne in the late 1870s.
Bendigo played an important part in the early history of lacrosse in Australia, with the Bendigo Lacrosse Club being formed in 1883 and the Sandhurst Club soon after that.
Two long-standing lacrosse clubs of Melbourne University and the MCC played games in Bendigo in 1883 and 1886 respectively.
Bendigo hosted an international lacrosse game in 1907 when Victoria played Canada. This was part of an extensive tour by the Canadian team that took in much of Australia and also saw Australia’s national team play its first international lacrosse match at the MCG before a crowd of 30,000.
As in some other parts of Australia, lacrosse in Bendigo fell on hard times, especially in the post-war period.
The re-establishment of the Bendigo Lacrosse Club in 2008 was the first time in 40 years that a lacrosse club had been active in regional Australia.
The opening round of the Men’s and Women’s divisions of the State league will be played in Bendigo this weekend at the Epsom Huntly Recreation Reserve Bendigo.
The Victorian State League is generally considered to be the strongest lacrosse club competition in Australia, with Victoria Lacrosse claiming the most male and female players in Australia.
Today the game remains strongest in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide; with NSW, Queensland and Tasmania considered development states.
The Western suburbs of Melbourne have a concentration of clubs and players, boasting no fewer than three clubs out of the ten playing in the Men’s State League. This includes Williamstown, which will again start the season as one of the favourites for the State League title.
The source for many of the historical references in this article was the Lacrosse Victoria website, with particular thanks to former Australian lacrosse representatives Tim Fry, Doug Fox OAM and Evan Willis.
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