The Sydney Cricket Ground has played a pivotal role in the histories of cricket, rugby league, and many other sports. But the story of its origins and development in nineteenth century Sydney is as fascinating as it complex. Geoff Armstrong’s new two-volume history of the SCG, ‘A Thing of Beauty: The Founding of the SCG 1851-1898’, explores the first fifty years of the stadium in vivid detail. As our discussion demonstrated, this is a book about more than sporting arena – it’s about the emergence of modern sport in Australia, code battles between Aussie Rules and rugby, women’s emergence as sports spectators, the social history of Sydney, and the legacy of the British Empire. It’s the history of Sydney written from the SCG’s famous Hill.