The Geebung Polo Club

"The Geebung Polo Club" is a poem by Banjo Paterson, first published in The Antipodean[1] in 1893. It was also included in his first anthology of bush poetry The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses in 1895.

"The Geebung Polo Club"
AuthorBanjo Paterson
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Published inThe Antipodean
Publication typePeriodical
Media typePrint (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback)
Publication date1893
Preceded byA Bush Christening
Followed byBlack Swans

It is one of Paterson's best-known poems and combines several of the most frequently recurring characteristics of his poetry - humour, tragedy and horses.

The poem's unnamed narrator clearly admires the rough and ready "Geebung Polo Club", who are contrasted with their wealthy city opponents - "The Cuff and Collar Team".

The only geographic reference in the poem is of the Campaspe River, which flows north through central Victoria to the Murray River.

Scottish-Australian bush poet, and acquaintance of Paterson, Will H. Ogilvie penned For the honor of Old England and the glory of the game in 1897. Although similar in nature to Paterson's earlier-written The Geebung Polo Club, Ogilvie's work was written after an actual polo competition in Parkes, New South Wales, involving Harry 'Breaker' Morant and Ogilvie.[2]

There is a Victorian era hotel in Hawthorn, Victoria that was called The Geebung Polo Club for many years.[3] Hawthorn is an affluent part of inner-suburban Melbourne.

There is an annual Geebung polo match held near Dinner Plain in the Victorian Alps.[4] The teams are the Geebung Polo Club and Cuff N’ Collar.

Between the 1980s and the early 2000s (decade) there was also a hotel of the same name in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern on the corner of George and Redfern Streets, which was initially run by Wilton Morley, son of the British actor Robert Morley. Today the Hotel trades as Mr Mary's Hotel.

In an unrelated link to the poem there is a suburb in Brisbane, Queensland called Geebung (postcode 4034).

Outback Rugby League in Broken Hill, New South Wales has a team called the Broken Hill Geebungs.[5]

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  • - The Poem.
  • - Youtube: Ron Woodward performs the public domain poem.

References
  1. The Antipodean was an illustrated Australian annual, as mentioned in The Australian Dictionary of Biography
  2. ""For The Honor Old England," —and—"the glory of the game."". Windsor And Richmond Gazette. 8 (442). New South Wales, Australia. 6 February 1897. p. 9. Retrieved 22 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. The Auburn Hotel homepage
  4. Dinner Plain Geebung Polo homepage
  5. "Geebungs in the big one" by Ethan James, Barrier Daily Truth, 1 September 2014
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