Field of dreaming
The Age
May 6, 2006
Aboriginal footballers have been instruments of change for their people, writes Martin Blake ahead of tonight’s landmark game.
THEY held the launch of "Dreamtime at the ‘G" this week at the foot of the William Barak Bridge near the MCG, a structure named after the fabled leader of the Wurundjeri people who populated Melbourne for thousands of years before European settlement.The symbolism was unmistakeable, and both Kevin Sheedy and Terry Wallace acknowledged that — aside from the quest for four premiership points for Richmond and Essendon — tonight was about bridge building, too.
Football as an agent of change in society? Well, why not? If you thought the game tonight was about celebrating Aboriginal football and indigenous footballers, you would only be partly right. Joy Murphy, a Wurundjeri elder who will deliver the "welcome to country" ceremony before the game, says football can make, and has made, a difference in the struggle of Australia’s indigenous people.
The area around the MCG was a meeting place for the Wurundjeri people, and Murphy senses a feeling of contentment among the indigenous players when they step out there. "In my encounters with them, they stand so proud and strong and dignified when they get out on the ’G. It’s always been a sacred place to us."
Phil Egan, the former Richmond footballer who will present the trophy after tonight’s game between the Tigers and Essendon, says Australian football is embarrassing governments into acting on the myriad issues that confront Aborigines. If you think tonight is just a game of footy, you need to talk to Egan, a 127-game Tiger in the 1980s who lectures in the education faculty at Melbourne University, counsels young indigenous boys at Port Phillip Prison and mentors three Richmond players./p>
To Egan, it is all about so much more. "The stamping out of vilification and all those things have been wonderful, but it’s the tip of the iceberg," he said this week. "Football fans and Australians need this. It’s a social conscience thing.The Government won’t say ‘sorry’, and that’s fine.We don’t want them to say sorry if they don’t want to.
"But we want people to understand our history and our culture. Football is a great leveller and a great social environment where people can come together, and if it’s going to be up to the AFL to do what the Government should do, then fine."
Egan spent the first few years of his life on the Manatunga Aboriginal reserve near Robinvale, in the days when Australia practised a form of apartheid. In 1967,when he was four, indigenous people were given the vote for the first time by referendum and as such were acknowledged as Australian citizens, and his family moved out into the wider community.
Looking back now, Egan's reaction is wonder that all this is so recent. "We were allowed to go to school properly, my parents and grandparents were allowed to work without permits, all that sort of thing, and that was only 39 years ago! Sure, a lot of white people can say, 'Hang on, this happened 200 years ago. Get over it!' Hey, this happened in my lifetime. We've done a lot. There is still a long, long way to go.
"But we can't do it until the people understand the facts about our country and the facts about our history. We need a lot more Kevin Sheedys in the world and a lot more organisations taking the line that, 'We've got to do it, and we've got to do it now. Why didn't you protect that rich, wonderful culture that lasted 40,000 years? You took 250 years to destroy it!' We look after yellow spotted frogs and one parrot and old buildings. There's more importance given to that, which is just rubbish in terms of humanity."
Joy Murphy, who is a great-niece of William Barak, says that the famous Aboriginal footballers have provided inspiration. "We've had rough times, but Michael Long and Nicky Winmar and Derek Kickett, going back to Sir Doug Nicholls and Syd Jackson, these people have been at the cutting edge of change. That's just by playing in what was a racist sport."
Murphy's brother, Jim Wandin, was St Kilda's first indigenous player, in 1952; her father (also James), was approached by Collingwood as far back as the 1897, but never ventured from Lake Tyers in East Gippsland, where he was living. "It was way beyond his means," she said.
The AFL has won humanitarian awards for its stamping out of racial vilification in the past 15 years. At the league's 1996 centenary, Ross Oakley, the former league commissioner, commissioned 13 indigenous artists to produce football paintings, and they hang in the lobby of AFL House. They include Ginger Riley's depiction of the MCG reproduced with this article. Riley, the famous indigenous artist who died several years ago, went to his grave with Long's No. 13 Essendon guernsey. He adored Essendon.
"Dreamtime at the 'G", which began last year at the instigation of Sheedy and the AFL, is another step in the reconciliation process. Essendon and Richmond were chosen because their guernseys were thought to best represent the colours of the Aboriginal flag. Sheedy wants the concept to become as big as the Anzac Day blockbuster between Essendon and Collingwood.
They will turn down all the lights at the MCG tonight and create a campfire effect in which Paul Kelly, Peter Garrett, Renee Geyer, Christine Anu and Kutcha Edwards will sing. Long, who is launching his "The Long Walk" as part of the celebrations, will be there singing, too.
As it should be, of course, for it was Essendon's recruiting of Long in 1989 — at a time when clubs were resistant — that kick-started the wave of Aboriginal players who came into the game in the past few years. Aside from that, Long's refusal to accept vilification and his leadership of the campaign against racism in the sport also opened doors for his people that were previously bolted shut.
There are 55 Aboriginal players on AFL lists in 2006, representing almost 12 per cent of all players. Consider that indigenous Australians constitute 2 per cent of Australia's population and the success of the AFL in embracing Aboriginal players is evident.
Yet when Egan played they called him "Flagons", and the likes of Maurice Rioli and Jim Krakouer had to use their fists to combat the abuse. "We found ways to cope," Egan said. "We had to. But there was always one too many comments and one too many players in the opposition side that would use it to try to put you off your game, and that's wrong.
"When I played, I was lucky. We had Maurice and 'Mitch' (Michael Mitchell) and myself. I could look back and say, 'Hey, at least I'm counted as a human being and I've got rights'. When I look back at Pastor Doug Nicholls, Syd Jackson, Polly Farmer, Norm McDonald, George Egan, Ted Lovett, they weren't even (rated as) human. I had nothing to worry about."
Dean Rioli, the Territorian who will return to Essendon's side tonight, feels the same way. Rioli is the nephew of Maurice Rioli, the Richmond champion of the 1980s. "You hear stories about when Maurice played and Phil Egan. I haven't experienced it at all. If that's the way footy is going, hopefully society will follow."
Terry Wallace believes that the burgeoning of Aboriginal players in the AFL can only continue. His club, Richmond, has drafted Richard Tambling and today's debutant, Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls, in the past two years. "The game is now speed, run and carry, and the indigenous boys have got it in volumes," said Wallace.
Sheedy worked this out before just about anyone else, and he had the agent of his original plan sitting beside him at the bridge this week. Long gently, but theatrically, bumped his old coach as Sheedy reeled off a list of Aboriginal sportspeople he admired, as though to remind him that he was missing someone. They have this way of bouncing off each other, a little comedy routine. "Sorry, Michael," said Sheedy. "No, it's OK," said Long.
Sheedy, who is a hero to many Aborigines, played in an era when there were hardly any indigenous players. "We missed out in the VFL days," he said. "When you see a team like Port Power roll out there in the last quarter (of the grand final) two years ago and win a premiership and most of the indigenous players were best on the ground, that's put another wave of interest there in what we can achieve.
"All those young kids out there throughout the country, we're trying to inspire them that they can come and dance here at the MCG any time, because we've got the great game."
Murphy is realistic enough to know that football can't solve everything, but it's some sort of a start. "It's not just a football game. It's telling people that there are big issues that need to be dealt with, and we're not talking about welfare hand-outs. We're talking about real things. It won't solve everything, but if we all chip in and people are given opportunities, if people are given the profile of AFL footballers, their voices will be heard."
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