Barassi Line - Origin

Origin

The Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture was a series of lectures given between 1966 and 1978 by Ian Turner, a professor of history at Monash University, that were named after Ron Barassi, Sr.. Barassi played a number of Australian rules football games for Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL) before enlisting to fight in World War II and subsequently dying from shrapnel wounds.

The Barassi Line itself was named after Ron Barassi, Jr., the former Barassi's son. Barassi Jr. was a star player for Melbourne and Carlton and a premiership-winning coach with Carlton and North Melbourne. He believed in spreading the Australian rules football code around the nation with an evangelical zeal, and became coach and major supporter of the relocated Sydney Swans. He foresaw a time when Australian rules football clubs from around Australia, including up to four from New South Wales and Queensland, would play in a national football league with only a handful of them based in Melbourne, but his prognostications were largely ridiculed at the time.

Primarily due to the distances involved, the leagues of Australian rules and Rugby League were based around city competitions, not inter-city national leagues as is the case in most countries. Each major city had one league as the highest profile with the greatest interest and attendance. In Sydney and Brisbane, the most followed competitions were rugby league's New South Wales Rugby Football League and Brisbane Rugby League premiership. In Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin, the Australian rules football leagues of the Victorian Football League, South Australian National Football League, West Australian Football League and Northern Territory Football League were the most popular. Tasmania had three separate leagues; the Tasmanian Australian National Football League, Northern Tasmanian Football Association and North West Football Union. In most cities, the non-dominant sport had amateur leagues that operated for many years.