verb. (Australian).—To jeer at opponents, interrupt noisily, make a disturbance; also, with for, to support as a partisan, generally with clamour: an Australian football term dating from about 1880: the verb has been ruled unparliamentary by the Speaker in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, but it is in very common colloquial use: it is from the aboriginal word borak (q.v.), and the sense of jeering is earlier than that of supporting, but jeering at one side is akin to cheering for the other (MORRIS). Hence BARRACKING and BARRACKER.
1890. Melbourne Punch, 14 Aug., 106, 3. “To use a football phrase, they to a man BARRACK for the British Lion.”
1893. Age, 17 June, 15, 4. [The boy] goes much to football matches, where he BARRACKS, and in a general way makes himself intolerable. Ibid., 27 June, 6, 6. His worship remarked that the BARRACKING … at football mutches was a mean and contemptible system … people were afraid to go to them on account of the ‘barrackers.’ It took all the interest out of the game to see young men acting like a gang of larrikins.
1893. Argus, 5 July, 9, 4. He hoped this BARRACKING would not be continued. Ibid., 79 Nov., 4, 9. The Premier, who was Mr. Roger’s principal BARRACKER during the elections, turned his back upon the prophet and did not deign to discuss his plan.
1893. Herald (Melbourne), 9 Sept. 1, 6. He noticed with pleasure the decrease of disagreeable BARRACKING by spectators at matches during last season.
