Trugo, alternatively TruGo or True-Go, is an Australian sport where a rubber ring is struck with a mallet so that it passes between a set of posts. The game was developed in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The first trugo clubs were established in 1930s with the governing body of the sport, the Victorian Trugo Association (VTA), formed in 1940 by four clubs: Footscray, Yarraville, Newport and Williamstown.
The game was traditionally played by senior citizens over 60 years of age as it was conceived as a gentle game for pensioners to maintain social contact after retiring from employment. However, since the 1990s, the game has been progressively opened up to all ages and is now promoted as a cross generational sport.
At the start of the 2020 season, the principal trugo teams are Ascot Vale, Brunswick, Brunswick City, Footscray Doughnuts, Footscray Gumnuts, Port Melbourne, Sandridge, South Melbourne and Yarraville.
While the sport is rarely covered by the mainstream media, from time-to-time trugo has featured in reports covering its unique history and the quirky niche it occupies in Melbourne's sporting culture. For example, in January 2009 the sport was featured on the American TV travel show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and The Age in 2020 provided a video report describing the game as "Melbourne's own working-class sport".
Play
Played outdoors on a grass court similar to that used for lawn bowls, courts measure in length and wide. The object of the game is to score goals by striking a rubber ring one inch thick and thirteen inches in circumference with a mallet through a pair of short goal posts at the opposite end of the court. Rings are launched from a thick rubber plate and goal posts are hinged so that they fall if struck by the ring. When a post is struck it is judged a no-goal or 'poster' and no points are awarded. Behind the goal the player's opponent acts as a catcher using a canvas bag attached to a long pole to ensure the ring is safely contained. It is also the role of the catcher to call out the score for recording by both sides and to adjudicate any near goals.
Games may be played as singles, doubles, fours or eights. VTA premiership rounds are played as eights with four playing the first half and the remaining four playing the second half. Each player has three innings of four shots each before their opponents reply from the opposite end. At the end of the quarter, teams swap ends and play an additional three innings for a total of 24 shots per player. The team with the most goals at the end of the playing period is declared the winner.
The most common technique for striking the ring is called tunnelling: the player stands facing away from the goals, feet either side of the plate; the short-handled mallet is then swung between the player's legs to strike the ring. The less common technique, used in the early years and more common in the women's version of the game, is known as sideswiping. With sideswiping, the player stands to the side of the plate and strikes the ring with a long handled mallet similar to a croquet mallet.
History
Trugo is said to have been inspired by the activities at the Newport Railway Workshops in the 1920s. According to tradition, workers knocked around discarded buffer rings from railway carriages in their spare time. In some versions of the story, the ring was hit along the aisle of a carriage with the goal being to shoot the ring out the end door without touching any of the seats. Alternatively, the buffer ring was said to have been struck along a piece of disused rail track either for distance or through makeshift goals. Either way, no source from this period has been found to support these oral traditions. Similarly, references to the length of the court being the length of a railway carriage or a span of track with the width of the goal posts being the width of the track, have not been substantiated. Some truth may yet be found in these stories but like the origins of many sports legend and myth prevail.