Author Language English Publication type Periodical | Country Australia Published in The Antipodean | |
Media type Print (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback) | ||
"The Geebung Polo Club" is a poem by Banjo Paterson, first published in The Antipodean 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 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.
Use in popular culture
There is a Victorian era hotel in Hawthorn, Victoria that has been called The Geebung Polo Club for many years. Hawthorn is an affluent part of inner-suburban Melbourne.
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 (post code 4034).
Outback Rugby League in Broken Hill has a team called the Broken Hill Geebungs.