Did you know Rugby School old boy Tom Wills’ famous 1858 letter actually offered a second option instead of footy? Imagine how different Australia’s winters could have been.

Story written & researched by Sean Fagan for SaintsAndHeathens

After watching him roam around in a football game in Richmond Paddock one afternoon, The Argus boldly declared to the world that Tom Wills, both as a player and a general, had no rival on this side of the equator.

As it turns out, Wills was quite the deep thinker, too.

Unlike Hamlet’s soliloquy, and contrary to what you might imagine, Australia’s schools don’t make students commit to memory and recite Wills’ legendary letter to Bell’s Life in Victoria (a full copy of the 10 July 1858 entry is at the bottom of this page if you feel so inclined).

Now, young Wills wasn’t trying with his letter to change the world. He just wanted to find something for the Melbourne cricket blokes to do so they wouldn’t get fat and lazy during the cold winter months. Everyone knows he gave football a plug, but there was another.

“Sir, – Now that cricket has been put aside .. why can they not, I say, form a foot-ball club … If it is not possible to form a foot-ball club … why I say, do not they form themselves into a rifle club … Trusting that some one will take up the matter and form either of the above clubs…”

So you see, Wills wasn’t trying to build some kind of footy empire and start a game that’d take over our yet-to-be-born country until the end of its days. He was just chucking an idea out there. In fact, he spent a heck more time in his fancy prose talking up the shooting scheme—a sport with a purpose—not to make soldiers, but to create riflemen.

“If it is not possible to form a foot-ball club, why should not these young men who have adopted this new-born country for their motherland, why I say, do not they form themselves into a rifle club, so as at any-rate they may be some day called upon to aid their adopted land against a tyrant’s band, that may some day “pop” upon us when we least expect a foe at our very doors. Surely our young cricketers are not afraid of the crack of the rifle, when they face so courageously the leathern sphere, and it would disgrace no one to learn in time how to defend his country and his hearth. A firm heart, and a steady hand, and a quick eye are all that are requisite and, with practice, all these may be attained…”

So as we can see, Wills by his letter didn’t just give the Melbourne blokes one idea to chew on. He gives ’em a real choice.

Well, the young cricketers thought about it, had another beer, and picked the football. They liked a good kick. But you have to wonder what would’ve happened if they’d gone the other way and chosen the rifles.

Of course, the Victorians would’ve claimed they invented the rules of shooting from scratch—just like they did with the football—and argued till they were blue in the face that those silly New South Wales powder and shot were the wrong form entirely for ammunition and their rifles were just British rifles.

Melbourne would still shut down completely every Saturday afternoon in September. Only instead of blokes running around in short pants, the whole of ‘the Gee’ was a rifle range buried in a cacophony of rifle cracks, excited shouts and a massive cloud of heavy gunpowder smoke for the Grand Shoot. The ladies will want a rifle club of their own. We could have even added mounted horses.

You’d still have Collingwood and Carlton hating each other with a glorious, traditional fury. The only difference is they’d have a much steadier hand and a sight deadlier aim. Our Albert “The Great” Thurgood would’ve been the biggest marksman star in the country, dazzling the crowd at the butts with his keen eye for a bullseye instead of a goal.

Even old crowd favourite Ned Kelly, walking out there with his helmet and all that iron bolted to his chest, would’ve probably got a guest guernsey to shoot with Jerilderie against Melbourne, if they are allowed to cross the River Murray border. If not, the Euroa club said he was welcome to side with them.

Barracking or umpiring a football match can be a bit rough. But a rifle match? That’d be a different story altogether. It’d be about as healthy for the average galoot as standing right between the redcoats and the diggers at the Eureka Stockade when the shooting started.

If it had gone the sports shooting way, old blokes today would still remember as a kid finding some old rum-soaked old-timer sitting alone in a tram seat or a park bench. He’d be nursing his head and his brown-paper drink, but he’d find ways of telling anyone and all who’d listen that the rifle clubs game’s gone to the dogs.

Because the molly-coddlers would have crept in anyway, you see. That’s what happens. First the street parade would vanish with the wind. Then the politicians would ban the live ammunition and make ’em use blanks. Then some committee would bring in foam bullets to protect us all. Before you know it, they’d be playing with harmless little laser toys. You’d probably see a bloke get hauled off the field and penalised two weeks for “unsportsmanlike squinting.” I don’t know how those Europeans can get away with their Militärpatrouille game.

Old Willsy gave us a fair dinkum choice, mate. We took the pigskin ball option—and still managed to turn the bloody thing into a pillow fight.

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From Bell’s Life in Victoria, 10 July 1858:

WINTER PRACTICE
To the Editor of Bell’s Life in Victoria

Sir, – Now that cricket has been put aside for some few months to come, and cricketers have assumed somewhat of the chrysalis nature (for a time only ‘tis true), but at length again will burst forth in all their varied hues, rather than allow this state of torpor to creep over them, and stifle their now supple limbs, why can they not, I say, form a foot-ball club, and form a committee of three or more to draw up a code of laws? If a club of this sort were got up, it would be of a vast benefit to any cricket-ground to be trampled upon, and would make the turf quite firm and durable; besides which it would keep those who are inclined to become stout from having their joints encased in useless superabundant flesh. If it is not possible to form a foot-ball club, why should not these young men who have adopted this new-born country for their motherland, why I say, do not they form themselves into a rifle club, so as at any-rate they may be some day called upon to aid their adopted land against a tyrant’s band, that may some day “pop” upon us when we least expect a foe at our very doors. Surely our young cricketers are not afraid of the crack of the rifle, when they face so courageously the leathern sphere, and it would disgrace no one to learn in time how to defend his country and his hearth. A firm heart, and a steady hand, and a quick eye are all that are requisite and, with practice, all these may be attained. Trusting that some one will take up the matter and form either of the above clubs, or, at any rate some athletic games, I remain, yours truly,
T.W. WILLS