There is at present a complete disjunction between the popular story of the involvement of Indigenous people in Australian football and what actually happened in the nineteenth century. It is widely believed that Indigenous games influenced the origins and early development of football in Melbourne and Victoria through the agency of the charismatic and wayward cricketer Thomas Wentworth Wills. Since this notion was first floated it has gained widespread traction at local and national level. Evidence in support of the argument remains lacking.

There is, however, another story that can be told based on a growing body of evidence that accounts for a well-founded belief that Aboriginal people did take part in the white man’s game of football in the nineteenth century. This story is a much more powerful and complex one, non-linear and full of stops and starts, noble and empowering and it should be the focus for research on the history of the game if we are to understand how Australia’s unique code of football developed and the place of indigenous people in its evolution.