I must ask Kerry, why are the rugby team named 'convicts'?
Here's a quote from the Sydney Convicts homepage, Kelda -
http://www.sydneyconvicts.org"The Sydney Convicts are Australia’s first gay Rugby Union club and current title holders of the Bingham Cup, the World Cup of gay Rugby. Founded in 2004, the Convicts are a group committed to building a competitive, social and diverse club which welcomes players from all levels of playing experience.
The Convicts, affiliated with the Woollahra Colleagues RFC, compete in the Halligan Cup and also the Sydney Suburban Rugby Union championship. The team have proved their ability to hold their own in mainstream competition by winning the Halligan Cup, undefeated, in 2005 and 2006.
The Convicts I team, successfully defended their World Championship title at the Bingham Cup, the Gay Rugby World Cup, held last June in Dublin, Ireland. The Convicts II team were close runners up in the Bingham Shield division."The reason why they are called the Convicts has nothing at all to do with modern-day criminals and incarcerated felons as we would define them, and absolutely everything to do with the previous penal history of Sydney. Sydney was founded in the late 18th century as a British penal colony. Following the American War of Independence, the Brits needed a new place to send their criminals - and Sydney was it! It was once considered a disgrace to discover that one had a convict ancestor, but nowadays Aussies wear their convict ancestry as a badge of honour. Why is that so? Well, because most of the "criminals" transported to Australia from Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were not what we would define as criminals at all. The really bad guys were executed in England. The "convicts" (as they were called) sent to Australia had been convicted of such offenses as stealing bread to feed their starving families. To give you an example, the part of Sydney where I live was once owned by an emancipated Jewish female convict who had been transported to Sydney for the offense of stealing lace. Today, she would have got 12 hours community service!
But why, you may ask, have Sydney's gay rugby team, the Convicts, given themselves that name? Well, I guess you'd need to ask them, but I suspect it's all to do with their pride in being Australian and having overcome the initial injustice and hardships their forebears had to endure . . . . . and also because it sounds
really BUTCH!