The Geebung Polo Club

"The Geebung Polo Club" is a poem by Banjo Paterson, first published in "The Antipodean" ["The Antipodean" was an illustrated Australian annual, as mentioned in The Australian Dictionary of Biography [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110507b.htm] ] in 1893. It was also included in his first anthology of bush poetry "The Man From Snowy River and Other Verses" in 1895.

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

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.

Use in popular culture

There is a Victorian era hotel in Hawthorn, Victoria that has been called "The Geebung Polo Club" for many years. Ironically this is in an affluent part of inner-suburban Melbourne.

Between the 1980s and the early 2000s 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 a descendant of the British actor Robert Morley. Today the Hotel trades as "Mr Mary's Hotel".

External links

* [http://www.uq.edu.au/~mlwham/banjo/the_geebung_polo_club.html] - the poem.
* [http://www.geebung.com] - The Geebung Polo Club hotel

References