Second rate Java Jaunters: soccer football, the imaginary grandstand, cultural diplomacy and Australia's Asian context

This paper seeks to fill one of the knowledge gaps in the history of Australian sport. Its focus is the motivations behind, and the experiences of, Australia's first dedicated national sporting team tour of Asia. Within the framework of Australia's Asian context, the paper tests one of the major theoretical approaches to Australian sports history, the notion of the ‘imaginary grandstand’. Further, it explores the tour as an exercise in cultural diplomacy and considers the Indonesian context to this tour.