Directed by Maurice Dowd & Christopher Sferrazza
Rated M
Score 5/6

The incredible true story of Australia’s first celebrity sportsman. In the 1860s Tom Wills was the finest cricketer and footballer of his era – ‘The Champion of The Colony’. Until history erased him from the record books after his tragic death.

I kind of stumbled across this documentary while I was searching on the net for different Australian film distribution companies.

Going into this I honestly did not know anything about Tom Wills life or the foundation of Australian Rules Football, though even though I do have a team a follow (perhaps not as religiously as I did when I was younger) I am a New South Welshman.
As a documentary Tom Wills its very simple it is just a series of people sitting in a chair talking to a camera.

It is interesting to think that given how much Australia has changed over the past 100 years we still have such high regard for sports and sporting achievement and the link between politics and sport. But its slightly amusing to think that the man who is considered Australia’s first celebrity sportsman died 21 years before Australia was even a country.
I knew nothing of how (and found it to be extremely interesting) aboriginal people influenced the development of the game and that it is suggest that Wills either played or observed an Aboriginal football game, Marngrook.
I loved the point made by Sports Journalist and Author Martin Flanagan at the end of the documentary when he was talking about how people try and classify Australian Rules Football and said that ‘its bastard of a game for a bastard of a people’.