Cricket and Sailors

Date Posted: 05/12/2010

To my intense pleasure I discovered today that sailors in the eighteenth century were notorious for getting into fights ashore with the locals – not as one might assume because of gambling or women but because of….cricket! Games in the mid-eighteenth century frequently involved riots and sailors were even court martialed for bad behaviour at cricket matches. But watching those glorious images from Adelaide today and yesterday it does rather make you wonder what they dressed up as in the eighteenth century. Not sure they had heard of Barny Rubble then. Anyway, the point is, of course, that the origin of the Barmy Army lies in the Wavy Navy. Get on boys.