Albert Pompey Austin

Albert "Pompey" Austin (born Poorne Yarriworri; –1889) was an Australian athlete, tracker, entertainer and sportsman. Austin is recognised as the first Indigenous Australian to play senior Australian rules football in Victoria, when he played a single game for the Geelong Football Club in 1872.

Early life Austin was born in the mid-1840s near Camperdown in Victoria. A Djab Wurrung man, he lived at the Framlingham mission near Warrnambool. In 1869, he won the high jump, pole vault and 220-yard hurdles at the Warrnambool Cricket Club annual sports day. Arguably his greatest feat was winning the Geelong Friendly Societies’ Gift at Easter time in 1872, walking away with a £10 prize. Austin played one game for against on 25 May 1872. A year later, at the Belfast Athletic Sports meet, Austin won the handicap hurdles, steeplechase, and 880-yard Christmas handicap. His prize was the equivalent of 11 weeks' wages.

Despite being "poleaxed" in his one and only game for Geelong, Austin would in years later return to the football field for various clubs in the Western District, including Framlingham, Cobden, and Albion Imperial. Australian novelist Mary Durack recorded that gold seekers heading to Halls Creek told of O'Donnell, William Carr Boyd and "that flash ... Pompey" leading them through the rugged country from Wyndham for "a pound a head". A landmark near Halls Creek, a rocky outcrop known as Pompey's Pillar, is named after Austin. Austin died of tuberculosis in a Melbourne hospital in 1889.

Legacy Austin's recognition was increased in the early 21st century when multiple media outlets ran news outlets highlighting his story as the first Indigenous Australian to play Australian rules football for a recognised club.