By Jonathan Howcroft
“Sport in Australia is more than just a pastime. It plays a major role in shaping the country’s identity and culture, so much so that sport is often referred to as ‘Australia’s national religion’.”
Australian Government, DFAT, 2009
“Any boss who sacks a worker for not turning up today is a bum.”
Prime Minister Bob Hawke following Australia’s America’s Cup win in 1983
Sporting activities from athletics to yachting have provided some of the defining moments in the development of Australia – even penetrating the collective memory of Gallipoli. Sport is the means by which Australia earns the most attention and receives the most recognition on the world stage. Consequently, successful athletes are the statesmen and women of a country that harnesses the power of sport to bind, celebrate and worship. In this land of red earth, green and gold are the colours that really matter.
With the Ashes fast approaching, I have taken the opportunity to look at the importance of sport in an Australian year.
January
The Australian Open tennis ensures Australia began the year with plenty of sporting attention. The international favourites by and large left triumphant but this year’s grand slam will be remembered more for the local sub-plot that illustrated the redeeming power of sport in Australian life.
Before this year’s tournament few observers regarded Jelena Dokic as much more than a sporting mercenary. By the end of the first week of the 97th Open however, a quintessential ‘little Aussie battler’ had been found. Dokic began January a Serbian, greeted with antipathy by a sparse crowd. By the beginning of February, following a succession of plucky displays and self-deprecating interviews she emerged a national heroine. Australians love nothing more than preaching the gospels of the ‘second chance’ and the ‘fair go’ but sympathy for Jelena did not come willingly. She was diffident and highly-strung. She had an un-Australian name and a truculent father-coach with a ridiculous haircut. In spite of these obstacles, Jelena showed that sporting achievement offers unrivalled rewards in this country. On her way to the quarter-finals of Australia’s premier tennis event, she took the viewing public with her and convinced us that she deserved a fresh start. The shift in public opinion was total as we witnessed a rank outsider become a genuine contender almost overnight. We became participants in a public exorcism of a troubled past and the powerful denouement of a relationship between (Serbian) father and (Australian) daughter. Jelena Dokic entered the draw as a wildcard. She left as Australia’s main event.
February
With temperatures in Victoria tipping a record 48C, it might seem surprising that February hosted the finals of a major football code. The timing of the A-league grand final illustrates where in the pecking order of ball-sports soccer currently sits. Despite the rest of the world preferring to play in the cooler, wetter months, the FFA has astutely realised there is no value in competing with the more established Australian football codes. But why is the world’s largest and most lucrative sport so maligned in a nation with the perfect ethnic blend to embrace it?
Part of soccer’s problem is to do with a perceived lack of masculinity – specifically when compared to AFL or either of the codes of rugby. As broadcaster Johnny Warren explains, “Only sheilas, wogs and poofters play[ed] soccer.” The size of the population doesn’t help, especially when competing in such a crowded marketplace for a limited supply of participants and spectators. But arguably soccer’s biggest failing has been its development as a sport on almost exclusively ethnic lines and consequently failing to engender the broad appeal that fuels its domestic rivals. The A-League is the latest incarnation of a domestic structure that has so far failed to endure. The current iteration follows the template of franchises drawn from the large metropolitan areas, with suitably Americanised names. Prior to this, many of these teams were not designed to represent such heterogeneous communities. A-League outfit Sydney F.C. for example was constructed to replace factional interest teams such as Sydney Olympic and Sydney Croatia.
With the rise of the Socceroos and the all-pervasive marketing of The World Game™, it is surely only a matter of time before soccer is the most popular sport in the country. The government’s support of a 2018/2022 world cup bid with $30 million dollars of federal funding is sure to go some way to kick-starting the game’s inevitable growth.
March
The Australian Swimming Championships in March provided the first opportunity for One, the new 24hour sports channel, to flex its muscles. An extension of the coverage provided by Ten, One is a bold attempt to convince viewers that minority and American sports are capable of scaffolding large chunks of the schedule when there is no AFL to broadcast. The early signs have been positive, especially the high-budget infomercials starring the station’s principal anchor. If you wondered how you could shoehorn an advertisement for a self-cleaning oven into pre-match build-up, stay tuned. Subtle it ain’t.
April
April 25: Anzac Day. A last minute come-from-behind winner kicked by a rookie in front of a full-house at the ‘G. A sportswriter’s wet dream. Honouring the memories of Australia’s servicemen and women through football perfectly encapsulates the importance of sport in this country. Remembrance here is not about religious ceremony, or self-conscious parades. No, in Australia we take the values of the men and women who gave their lives in support of their country seriously. By putting on a ruddy massive sporting bonanza.
The annual references to the victors ‘doing The Diggers proud’, and the vanquished not being fit to shine their medals, were postscripts to perfect sporting theatre. The pregnant pause of 80,000 people in dutiful silence during the last post. The camera shots lingering on ashen supporters; mid-strength in one hand, Four N Twenty in the other, resisting the urge to scream ‘Carn the ‘Pies!’ The call soberly honoured, the crowd erupts and the procession troops away. Tension built, the coverage fades to black accompanied by the unmistakable refrain of Hunters & Collectors’ Holy Grail. The incomparable events of the past venerated by a homo-erotic mud-wrestle in hotpants. Glorious.
May
The final of the Super 14s on May 30 did not involve any Australian teams. And nobody cares about Rugby Union anyway.
June
Roy Masters had a pretty accurate idea of rugby league: “one man trying to push two men up three men’s arses.” Or, in John Hopoate’s case, one man trying to push one digit up as many arses as he could get away with before getting fingered. So to speak. Such controversial behaviour is the order of the month in June as the east coast testifies to the fiercest rivalry in Australian sport – The State of Origin. Fought between rugby league teams comprised of players representing the state in which they first entered the game, the hype surrounding Queensland’s battle with New South Wales makes other regional enmities feel like neighbourly squabbles. This year’s Origin series will have even more at stake than usual, thanks to most of the players on show being accused of rape, alcoholism, drug addictions or violent crimes.
It can only be hoped that the ABC Four Corners report forces the NRL and its clubs to address their issues. As the positive example of Newcastle in the programme showed, a willingness to admit to failings can go a long way. Sport is too important in this country for its heroes to be so maladjusted, arrogant and dangerous. With the rise of soccer and the encroachment of the AFL into rugby’s heartlands it may only be a matter of time before the ills in the game at its pinnacle have fatal consequences at its roots.
July
With Australia settling down for winter, the national stage is clear for Netball, one of the less fashionable team sports to shine. Re-branded as a high-octane contact sport played by aggressive, highly skilled athletes, netball features heavily on broadcast-sport scheduling. The success of the sport, reflected in a major sponsorship deal with ANZ, shows how sport in Australia need not necessarily be the monopoly of men.
Netball’s success continues a long trend of female sporting excellence in this country. It is possible even to claim that the most important Australian athletes have been female. The impact of Olympians Dawn Fraser, Betty Cuthbert and Cathy Freeman and Tennis players Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong Cawley, for example, certainly compare favourably to any of their male counterparts. Freeman’s four-hundred metres in Sydney 2000 were arguably the most important of any in the country’s sporting history. Pre-Apology, this was as close as Australia had yet come to tangible reconciliation.
August
Cricket remains the team-sport which most unites Australia and August should see the retention of the Ashes on English soil. Apart from the obvious excuse to Pom-bash, cricket manages to rise above the regional differences of other sports. It also provides the most visible sporting leadership opportunities in Australia. Australian captains are rare creatures and have a profound influence on the progress of their team. John Howard summed it up pretty well at the height of the Baggy Green’s powers in 1997.
“All my life I really have regarded the captain of the Australian cricket team as the absolute pinnacle of sporting achievement – and really the pinnacle, almost of human achievement in Australia.” John Howard, 1997
To illustrate this point further, Australia’s three most recently retired captains – Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Allan Border – are all recipients of the prestigious Australian of the Year award. Artistic, scientific and philosophical accolades will always be footnotes on the Australian honours-board when placed alongside Bradman’s average, the ’48 Invincibles or the ceaseless miracles of Warne and McGrath.
September
As the current Powerade ads breathlessly remind us, September is when it matters most in AFL. Footy is a game that trades on its universal appeal. From the delicate paper bursts, through the brutality of the contest to the mateship of the team song, AFL has something for everyone. It is unashamedly tribal and thrives on a prevailing sense of irrationality that on match day reshapes what is and what is not acceptable behaviour.
The definition of acceptable player behaviour was clarified recently when Carlton’s loose cannon Setanta O’Hailpin assaulted a team-mate. According to the media, thumping a colleague is all part of the game and ‘happens all the time,’ or so we’re told. Unfortunately for Carlton, this occasion just happened to be filmed by Channel Ten. The footage revealed that O’Hailpin landed a couple of haymakers, followed-up by kicking his prone team-mate up the backside. It was this secondary act, delivered almost in afterthought that caused the most controversy and explained more about the machismo psychology of Australian sport. The response to the kick was unanimous, with commentators from all sides execrating the act in the strongest language they knew: the language of ‘un-Australian’. That’s right, in an Australian man’s game it’s ok to thump somebody square on the chin but if you kick them from behind expect to be erased from Sam Kekovich’s Christmas card list.
The grand final is also one of the few major Australian sporting events almost guaranteed to involve an Aboriginal participant. In large measure down to the impact of Kevin Sheedy, most clubs now retain more than one key indigenous player on their list. Last year Cyril Rioli took his chance to shine but it is testament to AFL’s continuing efforts in indigenous communities that these players receive the opportunities at the highest level. Sheedy’s influence also extends to the annual Dreamtime match-up between Essendon and Richmond. Now a festival of indigenous culture, the event was constructed around the combined playing colours of the two teams – red, yellow and black – reflecting those of the Aboriginal flag.
October
The beach lifestyle that makes Australia such an enviable place to live surely deserves a mention, and with the spring sun making its way back in October this will be as good a time as any to dig out the thongs and toughen up a new layer of virginal skin between your toes.
The pinnacle of Australian beach activities is of course surfing, which is less a sport and more a way of life. Australia and surfing compliment each other perfectly. Apart from the natural advantages of the sun and the sea, Australia’s laid-back approach to life has cultivated a spirit of freedom that elevates surfing from a biomechanical challenge to a spiritual relationship between man and nature. Legendary surf-writer and Sydneysider Nat Young reflected on this condition:
“My religion is the religion of surfing and nobody can tell me that what I and everybody I know does, and what we did yesterday, is not a religious experience… When you practice something regularly, what you are doing is practicing union with nature in order to become aware of the things that are important to you, and the things that a lot of other like minded people happen to believe. When a whole lot of us do it, we become a formidable vibration on planet earth, able to influence and inspire others, maybe even help save the planet. I feel very strongly that surfing has been underrated from the religious side.”
November
November is notable for one thing – The Melbourne Cup. The race is so important Victoria has a day off to get drunk. I mean watch the race. Journalist Christopher Bantick ascribes such importance to getting drunk, I mean watching the race, that he regards the festival of racing as significantly as any other sporting activity in the country.
“It is the sense of collective participation The Melbourne Cup gives that ensures it will remain as the premier event on the Australian sporting calendar. The Cup evokes heroism in a particular way. Like the ghosts that come ashore in our imaginations on Anzac Day, to hear the thunder of hooves on the home turn on Cup Day brings a lump to the throat.”
He might be right. In a 1999 poll to establish Australia’s favourite sporting figure, the winner of the 1930 Cup, Phar Lap, finished second only to Don Bradman. This despite the horse being born in New Zealand.
Like most activities with that much hype though, the climax is often disappointing. The alcohol-fuelled euphoria eventually giving way to a vague sense of inadequacy and regret at spending so much money on a contest involving living-glue. The Melbourne Cup however is more than just a horserace. It is the quintessential example of Melbourne eventism. In 2009 Melbourne will host major international events in, amongst other activities, tennis, golf, motor racing, horse racing and homeless soccer. Melbourne is even hosting a State of Origin match despite the region caring little for the sport in which its local team is the reigning national champion.
December
The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race sets sail on Boxing Day in the most life-threatening of the major events in the sporting calendar. What might seem a pleasant excuse to while away the time between Christmas and New Year has developed greater significance since 1998 when the race led to the deaths of six sailors and caused Australia’s largest ever peacetime search and rescue mission.
As much coverage as the event receives, victory in the 1983 America’s Cup ensures there is only one boat-race trophy in the national pool-room. No other sporting event in the country’s history has been lavished with such hyperbole. Success was variously described at the time by Prime Minister’s and participants alike as “the finest day in the history of Australian Sport” and the “greatest moment for national pride.” I’m not kidding. A yacht race! In 2006 ABC Radio presented the results of a listener-voted poll to identify the country’s greatest ever sporting moments and sailing in to the top spot was the ’83 America’s Cup victory.
But why does the America’s Cup hold such an important place in Australian history? The Age’s Tim Lane provides the answer.
“It’s fair to say there’s no great mystery as to why: it was a classic victory for the little guy, and we were him. We knocked off the most powerful nation on earth in a battle of technology, as well as of sporting skill, and we were able to thumb our collective nose at what became a convenient embodiment of American power, and thus arrogance, namely the New York Yacht Club. The reasons for the event’s enduring appeal are beyond argument.”
The Little Aussie Battler. All of the glories of the national sports and the historic champions matter, but they count for less than the pride taken from succeeding as the perennial underdog. The individual medallists are remembered but it is how they contribute to Australia’s over-performance on the overall medal-table that’s really important. We might only have a small population but when sport is the fast-track to assimilation, status and respect, it’s not difficult to see why it has such a profound influence.
Image credits: Darren Pateman, Tim Carrafa, AFP and Dallas Kilponen.
