Aborigines in Sport

MY THANKS TO:

the Department of Aboriginal Affairs for help in publishing

this

book;

Macquarie

University

for a grant that enabled the

work;

James

Jupp for permission to publish this much expanded

version

of a

chapter he

commissioned

for

the

Encyclopedia of

the

Australian People

(Angus and Robertson, 1988);

Simon Tatz for assisting in the research;

Paul Tatz for his cover

design and work on the photographs:

Wray Vamplew,

editor of this

ASSH

series,

for many things;

David Middleton

and Tony Durkin of

Rugby League Week,

and

Tom

Brock for league statistics; Jeff Iles, of the Victorian Football
League,

for help in compiling tables; Ray Mitchell

and

Arthur

Tunstall for assistance with boxing records; Yvonne Williams

and

Peter Windsor for resource materials;

the

Advertiser

(Adelaide),

AUSSIE SPORTS

(Australian Sports

Commission),

Courier-Mail

(Brisbane), Herald and Weekly Times

Limited,

Melbourne -

and Darrell Richardson in particular,

John

Fairfax

and

Sons

(Sydney), News Limited (Sydney),

Northern

Territory

News

(Darwin),

Australian Soccer Weekly, Rugby

League

Week

(Sydney),

West Australian Newspapers Limited, the Melbourne

Cricket Club, Ted Egan, Brett Harris, Ray Mitchell, Percy Mason,

Pat Mullins,

John Mulvaney,

and Jack Pollard for generous use of

their photographs;

Alan

Moir,

Mac

Vines,

and

Paul

Zanetti

for

permission to

reproduce

their cartoons:

Ted Egan for allowing reproduction of

his

two ballads,

Pastor Doug

and

The Hungry Fighter;

Bruce

Dawe

for permission to quote his poem

Watching the '82 Games;

Helma

Neumann,

Judy Howison,

and Hilary Hatfield for

the

word-

processing

and presentation;

John Cleasby and Richard

Birch of

Macquarie University for the map and typesetting respectively.

(vii)

FOREWORD

Aboriginal people

have

played an important

part in

the

history of

Australian

sport.

They are very much a

part of

Australia's

sporting

heritage.

Most

sports

played in

this

country

have

fielded an Aborigine who has achieved

excellence.

All

Australians

have

feted sporting heroes

Evonne

Goolagong-Cawley in tennis,

Lionel Rose in boxing, Graham 'Polly'

Farmer in Australian Rules,

and Eddie Gilbert in cricket.

Aborigines

have achieved success even though racism exists

both on and off the field,

and has been one of

many

obstacles

they have had to overcome.

Despite this,

many succeed.

Some

triumph

not

only in Australia but in the sports arenas of

the

world.

Some

who

achieve

success

in sport

carry it

over

into

prominence in private and public life.

Others experience a brief

moment

of glory,

only to fall by the

wayside,

embittered

and

exploited because

they are neither accepted within

the

sports

they play nor within Australian society generally.

Many of the stories in this book will sadden.

Some readers

will be outraged at many of the individual

histories.

Others

will

question

the inhumanity of those who

exploit

and

vilify

their fellow man.

'Aborigines in Sport'

Colin Tatz has written about

some

230 Aboriginal sports men and women.

He does so objectively and

with compassion.

am honoured not only to introduce this book but to have

been included amongst those whose stories have been selected

for

record.

I commend the book to you,

in the hope that it may lead

to a more tolerant Australia.

Charles Perkins,
Canberra 1987

(x)

Writing on

racism and sport has begun. The

pity is

that

almost all of it is American based - and in spite of some

recent

excellent

histories

and biographies, much of that

material is

conceived and written in a constipated 'sociologese'.

The detail

on sports apartheid in South Africa is 'rich' indeed.

But it has

been described rather than analysed - possibly because the

shock

of the facts requires, firstly, belief, then digestion, let alone

a moment for thought.

The Nazi Olympics is now being

re-visited

and

re-searched.

In short,

this small body of writing lacks an

outwardness,

a breadth and a perspective.

American David Wiggins contends that we need 'to compare and

contrast the plight

of the black athlete in America with those

in . . .

England,

Australia,

and the West Indies'.

Indeed we do.

This short case study may assist,

though direct comparison is not

- at this stage - my intention.

The purpose of this

work is,

rather, to

tell us more, or something

different,

about

the

nature

and

extent

of racism in our society -

and

about

the

Aboriginal

experience

within the confines of

that

closed

and

artificial world of fair play we call sport.

Until

the

1960s most of the

writing

on Aborigines was

anthropological.

Volumes

recreated an

idealized

species of

people, physically and culturally very different indeed.

Rituals

were

sometimes quaint,

occasionally positive,

usually

curious,

often

'barbaric'.

Other

academics began

their

studies.

Two

political

scientists assessed Aboriginal

administration; a

few

historians viewed the black experience on 'the other side of

the

frontier';

medical people moved away from a not so

magnificent

obsession

with skulls to a look at the socio-economic causes of

Aboriginal ill-health; and serious work started on Aborigines in

the

economy.

Lawyers and educationists emerged as

analysts

and

critics.

This

past quarter century has seen an explosion in

Aborig-

inal studies. Two features stand out: firstly, a shift in

stance

from

'scientistic'

curiosity about interesting 'objects' to

some

sense of

care about the dignity and autonomy of

Aborigines as

people;

secondly,

a change from white sovereignty over all

that

is studied and broadcast about them to an era in which Aborigines

have begun to write their own history.

But while

almost

every

discipline has

examined Aborigines in society, one topic has been

badly neglected by everyone: Aborigines in sport.

That

focus

may tell us something fresh about their

exper-

ience with white Australia.

If nothing else,

the sporting

life

may

'humanize'

Aborigines.

Few works portray them as

persons:

they are almost always plural,

an impersonal collective regarded

as tribe,

clan,

or as fringe-dwellers. Real people are presented

more as symbol than as human:

Bennelong,

King Billy, Truganini.

Even

in sport Ron Richards is seen not as the great and sad

Ron

Richards but as the representative of a 'race' of boxers who can

make it but never sustain it in the mainstream society.

Sport

is not separate from life.

Where there is racism in

political,

social,

legal,

and economic life,

so there is racism

in the sporting one

- diluted sometimes,

tempered perhaps,

when

medals

and

prizes are being won.

Black sport - Aboriginal

and

Torres

Strait Islander sport - is all-too-commonly presented as

the triumph of half a dozen boxers,

a tennis player,

and

three

rugby brothers.

But it is so much more than that, in fact and in

principle.

Beyond

the

long

list of

achievements

there

are

questions - perhaps even answers - of substance.

Australian

society is racist.

It also worships sport.

What

happens

when

these

two

values

intersect?

Aborigines

have

succeeded in sport.

Does this mean that the prevailing racism by-

passed

the champions? Perhaps they emerged despite the

policies

and

practices which sought to exclude them? Sport is said to be

avenue

of social mobility, a way out of

discrimination, a

road

to equality.

Has this been the case? Why

don't Aborigines

participate

in some sports and why are they over-represented in

others?

Do Aboriginal players have the same motives as

other

Australians?

Do they play in the same way?

Are Aborigines so

physically

superior

that

'one can get any Aborigine

off

the

street and he'll go four rounds'?

Has sport afforded Aborigines

arena for political action?

Has sport been used as an

'aid'

their assimilation - or been used consciously to

excite

and

sustain Aboriginality?

Some

answers emerge as we look at Aboriginal

participation

fourteen

sports:

athletics,

Australian

Rules

football,

basketball,

boxing,

cricket, cycling, darts, horseracing,

rugby

league,

rugby union, soccer, tennis, volleyball, and

wrestling.

The

figure fourteen is indicative: these sports - together with

netball

- represent virtually all

major Aboriginal

achievement.

There

is no participation in archery, bowls,

equestrian

sport,

fencing, golf, gymnastics, motor sports, polo, rowing,

swimming,

or yachting.

This banal American explanation could well serve the

Aboriginal situation:

'Few blacks are competitive skiers for

the

obvious

reason that most blacks live far removed from

snow

and

mountains

and because skiing is very expensive.'

The

question

'why

football?'

to Doug Nicholls brought this

answer:

'cheaper

than cricket - no pads, or white trousers'.

Within

the

fourteen,

Aboriginal success is

most

uneven.

There

are two representatives of note in men's basketball,

only

one

in each of horseracing, cycling, and tennis, two in

darts,

one in

wrestling,

and four in volleyball.

The

cricket

story

really belongs to the nineteenth century and to the start of this

one.

The

golden black era of

professional

athletics,

called

pedestrianism,

was between 1880 and 1930. There have been

three

soccer stars and four rugby union internationals.

It is in boxing, Aussie Rules,

and rugby league that we find

not

only the greatest number of top-level sportsmen but also an

over-representation,

proportionately,

of Aborigines.

There are

several

reasons

for these choices of sport:

the attraction of

money as professionals;

the easier access to 'stadium' sports as

opposed to entry into private cycling or tennis clubs; the lesser

class

requirements

involved than in

cricket

and

rowing ;

the

relative ease of starting a career -

a football (however grim the

ground),

a pair of gloves (even without a ring), a stint in Jimmy

Sharman's

boxing

tents;

the

increasing number

of Aboriginal

participants

as role models;

the mass following of these

three

(ostensibly)

'working-class'

sports and the often giddy swiftness

stardom,

popularity,

and

'whitening'

involved ('Ladies

and

Gentlemen,

introducing

Lionel

Rose, a

great

Australian!');

finally,

the

framework

of a different

racism:

not

exclusion

because

of blackness

(as with Queensland's Aborigines from

amateur

athletics because they were black),

but inclusion as a

special

black breed of gladiators and entertainers.

Perhaps

Aborigines

feel greater social comfort in team or brotherhood

games;

possibly

they

prefer

'mainstream'

activities

and

'mainstream' sports.

Recently several Aboriginal sportspeople have emerged in the

so-called

minor

sports of

women's

basketball,

netball,

volleyball, softball,

and darts. Their achievements are discussed

- briefly, because this is not intended as an anthology of

all

Aborigines in

all

sports at

all

levels, To

assess

the

sport-

racism relationship,

emphasis must be on the sports selected

and

the

men

and

women

who

have

achieved at

international,

national, state, or 'first division' levels.

Aborigine means anyone who identifies as such - irrespective

of non-Aboriginal perceptions.

Throughout the research there

was

gratuitous (and well-meant) information that 'Joey Smith is

only

eighth',

'Molly Brown a half', 'Harry Jones a "not

really"'.

For

the

majority,

colour alone is still the only

criterion of

Aboriginality. The 'scientific' equation was, till recently:

the

fuller

the

'blood',

the darker the skin, the closer one is to

barbarism,

savagery,

and heathenness; the lighter the skin,

the

nearer one stands to

civility,

civilization, and

enlightenment.

White

society defined degrees of 'fullness', of mixture, and of

alleged 'impurity'

on the sole criterion of what our eyes told us

was

full or half or quarter or eighth blood.

Since

science

and

government

together

could

produce such a

civilization

scale

based

on the arithmetic of colour,

why should everyone else

now

see it any differently?

Of all black minorities,

Aborigines have suffered most from

definition by others.

Self-definition is clearly the only

sane

and moral approach to the question.

To the best of my knowledge,

I have not included people who do not identify - though reference

made to

those who denied Aboriginality at

some

stage but

admitted to it later.

Omitted are those who some Aborigines claim

as their own but who themselves deny Aboriginality.

Australia's

migration

program has led to a multicultural

book industry,

one which has the ugly habit of lumping Aborigines

alongside all other ethnic groups:

a conjunction that may well be

the ultimate insult to the 40,000 year old indigenous people. In

that

literature

there

is no serious

analysis

of Aboriginal-

migrant

relations.

What little there is suggests that

European

migrants are not generally or necessarily more tolerant than

the

white natives.

Soccer

in Australia is hardly a reservoir or repository of

ethnic tolerance.

But given the positive personal experience of

three

Aboriginal stars,

it comes as a surprise that soccer

has

not attracted Aborigines in the manner of other football codes.

Charles

Perkins

was

born on the table at

the

old

Alice

Springs telegraph station.

From that stark beginning,

and after

difficult early years,

he moved to Adelaide as a teenager. It was

a junior player with Adelaide's Port Thistle that he found a

place

where he

'could be somebody'.

At age 21 he was one of the

highest

paid players in South Australia;

in the

leading

team,

Budapest,

he won the best and fairest award in the state.

An invitation to join Liverpool's famous Everton FC ended in

disaster.

Perkins then joined the renowned amateur team,

Bishop

Auckland. A Bishop match against Oxford

was to change his life -

'that day it started to go through my mind that I

would like to

go to university...'.

Back

in Australia he captained Croatia in South

Australia.

He represented his state on many occasions. As a star he learned,

with bitterness,

what happens to Aboriginal sportsmen and women:

'They are apologized out of existence.

Sporting fame gains

them

acceptance,

not

as Aborigines or even as people,

but merely as

sports

stars - everyone's heroes.' The English were also 'decent

people

who gave one a fair go':

'they treated me better than I

was ever treated in Australia'.

In Sydney he enjoyed success with Pan-Hellenic. Again it was

Greek warmth and acceptance that was so

positive.

Migrants, he

wrote,

'give a

person a

feeling of

dignity

and

self-

respect'.

Football gave him the money to study, it kept him fit,

and it was the vehicle to 'mix socially' and enjoy himself.

'With

new status and the financial rewards it brought, I

was

now

a position to pursue my immediate objective of a

university

career,

and beyond that, I hoped, a revolution in race

relations

Australia.'

The rest is history: the first

Aboriginal

arts

graduate,

the leader of the politically significant 1960s Freedom

Rides in NSW,

the politicking days of the Federal Council for the

Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the

early

troubled years

in the federal public service, the

(now)

first

Aboriginal permanent head of a federal department, the continuing

outspokenness

on Aboriginal conditions, the

driving

force in

promoting Aboriginal sport.

John

Moriarty

graduated (from Flinders University) a

few

years after cousin Charles Perkins. Now Director of the Office of

the

Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in South Australia, he

has

been a senior public servant since 1970.

Like Perkins,

he began his soccer with Port Thistle, moving

to Port Adelaide,

Croatia,

International United

and,

from

1961, to

six seasons with Juventus - in which time the club won

six premierships.

He represented South Australia seventeen times.

1961 he won national recognition when chosen

to play

for

Australia

on an Asian tour. Unhappily, Australia was

that

year

banned

from internationals by the Federation

Internationale du

Football Association (FIFA) and John was denied his glory and his

due.

Recommended to three English clubs, he travelled to

England

1963,

'looked at soccer,

looked at the world'

and

concluded

that

football

'was

but a passing phase'.

The

editor of

Australian

Soccer Weekly calls him cool and elegant,

and

above

all,

'a cultured player'.

Moriarty describes soccer as

'a great social eye-opener and

equalizer'.

Be was treated not as Aboriginal but as equal,

as a

person,

particularly by European migrants. Asked why soccer

has

not

attracted more Aborigines -

given his and Perkins's

careers

as role models -

he suggests that 'Aborigines have always striven

to be mainstreamers,

and soccer is not in the mainstream'.

There

is much less discrimination in soccer than in Aussie Rules -

the

glamour game, he concedes, but one still 'a colonial bastion with

colonial

attitudes'.

He sees Aboriginal people treated

somewhat

shabbily in other football codes.

Harry

Williams was the first Aborigine to actually play for

Australia.

Born in 1950,

he began soccer life at nine with the St

George Police Boys Club.

A third-grader with Western Suburbs, he

rose

through the ranks with St George Budapest in 1970.

In that

year he moved from their reserve team into the national side that

toured the world.

His

performances at

left back were brilliant. He

had

tremendous

acceleration

- so much so that he was still

running

professionally in the mid-80s.

Local pundits felt he would

have

been a sensation in European soccer,

at home among them as people

and at home with their style of play.

Despite a

serious

illness

he went on to a

career of

seventeen

full internationals and 26 other representative

games

for

Australia.

In 1977 he played six World Cup

games.

Injuries

hampered him and in 1978 he transferred to Canberra City club. Be

now holds a

senior position with

the

Department of

Foreign

Affairs.

Charles

Perkins

became

Vice-President of

the

Australian

Soccer Federation in 1987.

Soon after,

in June of that year, he

repeated to SBS television's

Populi

program what he'd written

in 1975: that he was not

'welcomed by Australian society' but was

'more welcomed by ethnic groups'.

He found the Aboriginal-ethnic

relationship in

soccer

to be a good one,

something

that

was

psychologically

satisfying.

Three men hardly provide the basis

for a theory in inter-ethnic relations,

but perhaps one can argue

that

their experience reveals a special empathy among

'aliens'?

to Aboriginal

non-participation in

the

sport,

perhaps

Moriarty's

'mainstream'

explanation is sufficient.

Perkins's book

- A Bastard Like Me

- is vital.

It is one of

only seven works on Aborigines in sport (the Evonne Goolagong and

the Lionel Rose as-told-to books,

a biography of Pastor Doug, Ray

Mitchell's

The Fighting Sands,

the important Mulvaney

works on

the

1860s

cricketers,

and the Brett Harris tribute,

Ella

Ella.)

Only

Perkins

treats the whole racist

dimension - in

strong, harsh,

and often bitter terms.

It is assuredly his book,

and his black perspective.

Running

for money became a private sport in Britain in

the

late

eighteenth

century.

The absence of

official

rules

and

governing bodies for

pedestrianism (professional athletics)

led

cheating, heavy gambling,

and the fixing of races. The

sport

fell

into disrepute

in England but

flourished in Australia,

especially

in the years 1870 to 1912. The famous

Stawell

Gift,

first run in 1878,

lives on as the world's oldest and most prest-

igious race.

(The first Bay Sheffield in South Australia was run

1887;

the Burnie and Bendigo Gifts in Victoria began in

the

1940s,

and several others were established in the 1980s.)

the

earlier

years Aborigines were

prominent

and

controversial

- because

they

were good and because

they

were

black.

But black pedestrianism, cricket,

and boxing must be seen in

the

context of Aboriginal policy and practice in the

nineteenth

and

twentieth

centuries. While

Australian

racism

transcends

state

boundaries,

there is

justification

for

singling

out

Queensland : for its particularly long history of race hatred and

violence,

for

its

special

legislation

that

demeaned

and

discriminated,

for

its negation of human

rights as

generally

understood. The sporting experience sustains the picture.

Between

1824 and 1908 some 10,000 Aborigines were killed by

white settlers.

One

writer to the

Queenslander

in 1880 expressed

a commonly held view:

'You say we treat them like wild

animals:

Well to a certain extent their attributes are the same,

and must

be met in the same manner...

It would be almost as useless

for

whites

to try and make animals moral as [make]

the Queensland

Aborigines...'

In 1883 the British High Commissioner wrote privately to the

Prime Minister,

William Gladstone:

The habit of regarding natives as vermin, to

be cleared

off the face of the

earth,

has

given to the average

Queenslander a tone of

brutality

and

cruelty in

dealing

with

'blacks'

which it is

very difficult

for

anyone

who

does not

know

it, as I do, to

realize.

I have heard

men of

culture

and

refinement, of

the

greatest

humanity

and

kindness to their fellow whites... talk,

not

only of the

wholesale

butchery... but of

the

individual

murder of natives, exactly as they

would talk of a day's sport, or of having to

kill some troublesome animal.

The

blood-letting had to be

stopped

and in

1897

the

Aboriginals

Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium

Act

was passed.

In essence and essentials

it remained in force until

the

mid-1980s. The spirit of the Act was to be protective -

but

the protections in

practice

once became

discriminations.

Stopping white grog, sexual,

or opium predators from coming

near

Aboriginal communities resulted in their incarceration, for life,

even

generations,

on the most remote and

inaccessible

reserves

Yarrabah,

Palm

Island,

Cherbourg (Barambah),

Bamaga,

Woorabinda.

Protection of

Aboriginal morality came

to mean

censorship of

their

movement,

labour,

marriages,

leisure,

religious

and cultural rituals.

Protection of their income

came

to mean

officials

controlling

their

wages,

withdrawals

from

compulsory

savings bank accounts, their rights to

enter

into

contracts of

labour.

Teaching Aborigines

'good

order

and

discipline'

became imprisoning them for acts neither

actionable

nor

criminal in the open society, or punishing them on

missions

and

settlements

when they should have been

tried in

ordinary

courts.

Similar

'protections'

operated in each colony and state -

yet

harsh

as they were,

they didn't match the grim

quality of

Queensland's 'control' provisions.

Genny

Blades's thesis

presents the issues in

this

sport:

amateur athletic 'respectability'

versus

pedestrian 'vice':

grim

exploitation

of black peds by their stable bosses; the

'running

stiff' to

secure a lesser yardage handicap for

future

events:

Aborigines

seen as

'lower class'

yet excluded from

some

races

because whites

feared their likely

victories;

the Aboriginal

Protector's attempts to keep them in strict isolation, away

from

society,

from

tracks,

from the 'influences'

which

made

some

Aborigines

cheeky

enough to question

the

'protection'

system

created in 1897.

The Queensland Amateur

Athletic

Association's behaviour

illustrated

the Aboriginal experience:

it sought to disbar

all

Aborigines

from

athletics,

first,

because they

lacked moral

character,

then because they had insufficient intelligence, then

because they couldn't resist white vice.

Unable to sustain these

'reasons', in

1903

the

Association

simply

deemed

them

all

permanent

professionals!

(The

secretary of

the

Australian

Amateur

Athletics

Union,

however,

felt it was contrary to

the

ideas of

the amateur athletics world to disbar a

man

'merely

because he was an aboriginal'.)

On programs Aborigines had an '(a)' after their names, half-

castes an '(h.c.)':

'without these distinguishing marks...

the

public are misled'. Distinguished they were: Combardlo Billy (who

ran

150 yards in 15 seconds in 1882), George Combo,

Tom Thumb,

E Hubert,

Patrick Bowman, Tommy Smith,

Evans ('the Balmain nigger

ped'),

Jacky from Queensland, Paddy Doyle ('an

honest

trier'),

Harry Murray ('a straight ped'), A Watts, Charlie Mitchell.

The earliest account of an Aboriginal runner is of Manuello

in Victoria: in February 1851 he beat Tom McLeod, regarded as the

fastest man in Australia, over 100 yards (91m); he also beat

the

NSW champion,

Freddie Furnell,

over 100 and 150 yards

(137m).

Bobby

Kinnear,

born

and raised on

the

Antwerp

Mission

near

Dimboola in Victoria, won the big one, the Stawell Gift, in

1883

- with three yards to spare!

A memorial has been erected to

him

the

Antwerp

cemetery.

An Aborigine, J

Dancey,

won

the

Stawell in

1910. Another Aboriginal sprinter, A Loughlin,

was

clear

favourite to win the 1918 Stawell after the heats. But on

the day he went walkabout and was never seen

again.

A fine

runner,

Fred

Kingsmill,

was described as 'the

coloured

Adonis

whom nature created and then threw away the mould'.

The early sports writers had some nice turns of phrase.

'Bowman

the Aboriginal', the

Referee said:“ 'He is

rather a

peculiar made sprinter,

having little or no calf and a tremendous

thigh at the top of the leg.

It is the most peculiar shaped

leg

I have ever seen on a runner...'; but shapely or not, he won this

Carrington

Handicap

(in

1887)

'and I am told that

the

party

reaped a harvest of something like 500 pounds for the win'.

Larry

Marsh ('one

of the greatest runners in

Sydney in

1894'),

won a

great deal of money.

From Cumeragunga on

the

Murray River came Alf Morgen,

Billy Russell,

and the

legendary

Bobby

McDonald,

creator of the 'crouch start' in

1887 -

many

years before Lewis Hope 'invented it'.

The photograph on p 12

is of

interest,

especially in the way it

tries to

show

the

relationship between Aborigines and 'nature'.

Later,

'Cummera'

produced Eddy Briggs, Doug Nicholls, brother Dowie Nicholls,

and

perhaps the greatest of them all, Lynch Cooper.

1929 Doug

Nicholls

won the Nyah

Gift

and

then the

Warracknabeal,

second

only to Stawell in importance. He

was a

finalist in

the Melbourne Thousand, then

the world's

richest

event.

On that particular day, in April 1929, Lynch

Cooper

won

the

World

Sprint

Championship from Austin

Robertson

over 75

yards,

100,

130, and 220 yards (68m, 91m, 118m, and

201m). In

1928 he won

the Stawell Gift, at his

third

attempt.

Having

failed

in 1926 and 1927,

and with only twenty pounds

left,

his

fishing boat sold and then unemployed, he risked all on himself

60 to 1.

He had a long and

rewarding

career,

sustaining

himself and his family through the Depression years.

In 1961 Ken

Hampton

won the famous Bay Sheffield race in Glenelg;

also

won

the Broken Hill and Murray Bridge Gifts.

In 1971 Wally

U X

Victoria came second in the Stawell; in 1977 he won

the VFA

Centenary Gift worth $2,000.

Doug Nicholls had careers in boxing,

running,

Aussie Rules.

Jack Marsh

and

Albert

Henry were excellent peds as

well as

cricketers.

In 1896 the

Referee said of Jack Marsh that 'no

man

in Australia can beat him at the present time in a 75 yard

run'.

won

at least five major handicap events.

Much

later

Wally

Macarthur,

the Australian under-19 100m sprint champion,

was in

line

for Olympic selection but

'was denied a place in the

South

Australian Athletic Squad because he was an Aboriginal'.

As the

'Black

Flash',

he went on to a sensational rugby

league

career

with Rochdale and Salford in the United Kingdom in the 1950s.

The

exclusions

were ugly.

The Queensland

Home

Secretary

wrote

(in

1897)

that

'the whites complained of

the

superior

capabilities of the blacks at Fraser Island, and asked me to stop

them

competing with the whites...'.

Fortunately this

prejudice

and behaviour was not universal.

Not every ped was seduced by civilization; not every athlete

wound up on the skids;

and not all white runners were prejudiced

against the black stars.

One

'sable party'

from north Queensland

rejected all lures of 'money,

baccy and grog';

alas,

cried the

press,

for

'there's a gold mine in this black

diamond'.

Many.

Nicholls and Harry Williams, went on to solid careers;

and

Nicholls's

case, from

'Black Streak' and 'Flying Abo' to a

knighthood and the Governorship of South Australia.

The

recognised prince of black runners was Charlie Samuels,

stock

rider from Dalby in Queensland. In

1894 the

Referee

wrote:

Thus it

is that I am about to claim for an

aboriginal

runner

what an

overwhelming

majority

of foot racing critics will concede

his due -

the Championship of

Australia.

It might be more

pleasant

reflection to

Australians, perhaps, if a white man... could
be quoted as champion;

but as we are

sizing

the

sprint

runners on

the

'all-in'

principle,

a black aboriginal

has

to be

accorded the laurel crown...

Samuels has, in

long

course of consistent

and brilliant

running,

established his claim,

not only to

be the Australian champion,

but also to have

been

one of

the best exponents of

sprint

running the world has ever

seen.

In 1886 he ran 136 yards (124m) in 13 l/5 seconds, 'the best

yet done

in Australia'.

He is credited with a 300

yard (274m)

race in 30 seconds,

equalled only by Englishman Harold

Hutchens,

officially rated the greatest sprinter of the nineteenth century,

amateur or

professional.

Charlie's

greatest

yet generally

unbelieved

achievement was his running of a 9.1 hundred yards -

nine

yards

inside even time - at Botany, Sydney in

1888!

(The

clocks

were

probably correct: possibly the track

lengths were

shorter - to heighten the dramatic times.)

'One of the most intelligent men of his race', he trained on

'a box of

cigars,

pipe and tobacco,

and plenty of

sherry'.

Despite this,

he began a successful mastery of Hutchens in 1897.

Samuels won the series to the extent that no one,

claimed

Austr-

alian

Town

and Country, could 'dispute Samuels'

claim to

the

title

of champion sprinter of the world'. The Hutchens camp

did

not

see

it that way.

Claiming lack of a trainer and

his

poor

condition,

Hutchens

called

the series

'an

exhibition',

thus

denying Samuels that title.

Another celebrated victory was over

Tom Malone, the Irish champion.

Many peds,

said a critic,

'fall to pieces under pressure...

Samuels

was not one of these.'

But in many respects he

couldn't

cope with the system: severe handicapping,

running stiff to get a

few yards back,

dubious managers.

running to exhaustion, winning

90,000 pounds

for his backers against Ted Lazarus in

1887 but

paid only the prize money,

'assault upon an artillery man over a

lady',

drunk

and

disorderly

at the Centennial

Park

'black's

camp'.

After

a comeback he went to live at La Perouse in

Sydney.

Somewhat

predictably he was seen as a 'troublemaker' and sent by

the police

to Callan Park Lunatic Asylum for

'intemperance to

drink'.

Three

months

later he went back to Queensland.

The

Referee:

Poor

old

Charlie

was

one of

the

most

marvellous sprint runners the world has

ever

seen,

and his name will go down to posterity

the

Deerfoot of

Australia. He

made

fortunes . . .

but he is likely to die in

the

gunyahs of his own people,

dependent on

the

protection of

charity of

the Queensland

Government of which he is a native.

died in

1912 at 49

- not in a gunyah but in

one of

those

abysmal penal-type government settlements,

Barambah,

to which he

had been

'removed on the Minister's order'.

The fates of Albert

Henry,

Jerry

Jerome,

and Ron Richards were to be

pathetically

similar.

Aboriginal statistics in cricket are quite dismal - yet the

history of

the

twenty or so men in the

game is

fascinating.

The

figures

tell us nothing of the racism,

the

harshness of

cricket for men of colour and 'lower class', of the tragedy,

the

pathos,

and even the humour involved for the few. Simply, of 7076

Australian first-class cricketers between 1850 and 1987, only six

have

been Aboriginal: Johnny Mullagh, Twopenny,

Albert

Henry,

Jack Marsh,

Eddie Gilbert, and Ian King.

The

first Aborigine in Australian cricket,

Shiney,

made

three ducks

in a row in Hobart Town in 1835.

But

things did

improve: in 1872

Billy the Blackboy from Charleville (Q) threw a

ball 140 yards

- a controversial record which appeared in

Wisden;

and

in 1869 Johnny Taylor from the Canberra region scored 35 off

four-ball over - at a time when all hits

were

run!

Cricket

became popular with South Australian Aborigines in the 1870s. An

Aboriginal team from New Norcia - encouraged by the missionaries

to engage in this 'civilizing' process

- became a leading team in

the

West.

But by

1905 the inexorable and by

then

universal

segregation-protection policies saw them play their last match.

Taught by the sons of pastoralists,

Aborigines in the

Lake

Wallace

district of western Victoria became the nucleus of

the

famous

black

tour of England in 1868 - exactly a decade

before

the first white team went abroad.

The

full story of the men from the Edenhope

area is

well

told by John Mulvaney (1967),

and in a much expanded version by

Mulvaney and Rex Harcourt (1988).

Much briefer versions are those

of MacDonald (1917)

and Pollard (1987).

Mulvaney has pointed

to the significant issues:

settler attitudes to, and their sense

'ownership' of,

blacks on their properties;

'dying

race',

fossil

culture,

and

surviving remnant

theories:

governmental

protection of Aborigines from predators,

and actual exploitation

of their skills and their naivety; concerns about Aboriginal ill-

health,

and

the reality that so many of these

cricketers

died

young,

and alcoholic.

Briefly,

the

story is that William Hayman of Edenhope sent

pictures of 'his'

Aborigines to Rowley and Bryant,

owners of the

Melbourne

Cricket Ground refreshment tent,

suggesting a

match.

With the

'sympathies of the whole of the population of

Melbourne

behind them',

and before 10,000 spectators at the MCG on Boxing

Day

1866,

'these children of the forest'

- as the

A g e

called

them

2 0

- lost

by nine wickets.

Three weeks later Bullocky

and

Cuzens played for the Victorian XI against a Tasmanian

XVI,

won

by the latter because Mullagh was absent,

ill,

according to the

Age.

(Weaker teams were allowed up to four or five more

batsmen,

hence XVs,

XVIs and even XVIIIs).

Thereafter things fell apart. Suggestions about a black tour

England

were bedevilled by

some

financial

skullduggery,

concerns

about Aborigines being in ill-health,

anxiety by

the

Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines that they might be

deserted while abroad.

'There was a feeling' - wrote MacDonald -

'that

it might prove a better thing for the promoters

than

for

the blacks'.

Sugar

had died before the first MCC

match;

his

replacement,

Watty,

died on the way home from Sydney matches;

Jellico and Paddy died of pneumonia soon after;

Tarpot and Dick-

a-Dick were

seriously ill.

Watty's inquest

revealed

constant

drinking and a general inability of these Aborigines to cope with

what went on in city life.

Charles Lawrence,

Sydney hotelier and coach,

was persuaded

to captain a resurrected team that would play in

England.

They

toured

Victoria and NSW in fund-raising matches

and devastated

the Army and Navy team in Sydney before 5,000 spectators,

with a

Cuzens

double

of 86 and 8 wickets for 23. The touring

team of

thirteen,

plus

Lawrence,

arrived on 13 May

1868.

'Nothing of

interest

comes

from

Australia except gold nuggets

and black

cricketers'.

said

the

Daily Telegraph.

Indeed, the

line-up of

tribal names and

sobriquets

was of interest:

Dick-a-Dick

Jungunjinanuke

Peter

Arrahmunijarrimun

Johnny Mullagh

Unaarrimin

Cuzens

Zellanach

Sundown

Ballrinjarrimin

King Cole

Brippokei

Tiger

Bonmbarngeet

Red Cap

Brimbunyah

Bullocky

Bullchanach

Mosquito

Grougarrong

Jim Crow

Jallachmurrimin

Twopenny

Murrumgunarriman

Charley Dumas

Pripumuarraman

This first ever Australian team abroad and its record of 47

matches,

nineteen draws,

fourteen losses and fourteen wins is now

part

of sporting history. Of interest here is what

the

quaint,

sometimes generous,

sometimes carping British press

made of the

'exploits of an impossible coffee-coloured team'.

The black physique fascinated them.

'They seem'.

wrote the

Rochdale

Observer,

'generally

stalwart

men'.

The

Sporting

Gazette

found

them

'sturdy-limbed too,

nothwithstanding

their

slight

peculiarity

of build,

deep in the chest,

and

with an

almost

English

width

the

across

shoulder'.

The

Times

highlighted

their hair and beards as long and wiry, their

skins

varied shades of blackness.

The

Sporting Gazette

predicted

surprise

for those who expected broad noses, thick lips and

the

'wool' Of

the

Negro: 'The

Australians

were

handsome,

good-

tempered

looking

fellows' -

'quite the race

one

would

expect

Macaulay's New Zealander to spring from'.

Indeed!

'It must not be inferred',

warned

Sporting Life,

'that they

are savages'.

The Times

had the first and last word:

'They are

perfectly

civilized,

and

are quite familiar with

the

English

language'.

The public relations men did a fine job. Said

Sporting Life:

'since

the ingenious George Martin brought Deerfoot from America

contend

against

English pedestrians no

arrival

has

been

anticipated

with

so much curiosity and interest'.

'Certainly

the

cricket

event of the age',

wrote

Sporting Gazette,

as a

record

critical

assemblage of spectators

- between

7,000 and

9,000 - came to see the

'Eleven Gentlemen of Surrey

versus

Eleven

Aboriginal

Black Australians' at

the Oval in May 1868.

The Times,

of course, was critical.

They had little chance

'against

the cultivated team' from Surrey.

Bowling was

second-

rate,

fielding not precise.

'Batting,

save that of Mullagh, is

sadly

wanting in

power',

with deficiencies

in defence,

and

running between wickets 'much at fault'.

In the Marylebone game,

the Aborigines

collapsed in their second innings

and

Bullocky

'was

absent without a satisfactory reason being

assigned'.

The

result,

snorted

The

Times,

'may be called a

travestie

upon

cricketing at Lords'.

The

sports papers saw their batting as 'steady' and

'their

wrist-play good'.

'To the

cognoscenti,

their fielding is quite a

treat',

wrote

Sporting Gazette,

their catching amazing and

'they

throw in very well indeed,

making the ball whizz along at a great

pace'.

Mullagh was the star, 'a cricketer

unmistakably'.

The

Gazette

raved

about his 73 in 80 minutes against

Surrey - 'a

clever performance,

and worthy of any batsman, no matter what his

country

or colour'.

'An innings', wrote MacDonald, 'described

as being worth

at least a hundred, for they at

once

noticed

Johnny's

aversion to hard running'.

'Mullagh and

Cuzens', he

concluded,

'were in all-round capacity not only the backbone of

the side, but some of the ribs as we11'.

Each game was followed by 'Australian' and 'native sports' -

thrilling to spectators and sportswriters. The

Rochdale

Observer

went

overboard

in eulogy of the boomerang

and

spear-throwing,

dodging the barrage of cricket balls, Dick-a-Dick's throw of

107

yards,

and

his

victory

in the

100 yards

backwards

dash.

3 7

Sporting Life

summarized the

'doings of the Darkies': 'No eleven

has in one season ever played so many matches... so

successfully

- never

playing

less

than

two

matches in

each

week,

and

frequently

three,

bearing an amount of fatigue that now

seems

incredible...'

Indeed: King Cole had died of

tuberculosis in

mid-tour

and

illnesses forced Sundown and Jim Crow to be

sent

home in August.

The remaining eleven were

much

fatigued.

The

final

honour

was the

Sportsman's

publication of the

full

tour

statistics,

of which only part is shown in Table 1 on page 28.

On return the players dispersed,

many dying prematurely and

obscurity.

Only

Johnny Mullagh achieved

fame.

'The

Black

"W.G." of the team,

[he] was a superior man in many ways. He had

all-round capacity in cricket,

with something of a personality to

back it',

wrote MacDonald.

Great praise comes from critic David

Frith.

The Fast Men

he describes Mullagh as 'a kind of

early

Sobers,

who batted "elegantly",

sometimes kept wicket, and with

his

fastish bowling took 245 wickets at ten runs

apiece'.

played

for Victoria against Lord Harris's touring English

team.

He remained a member of the Harrow Club, playing in

the

Murray

TABLE 1

ABORIGINAL BATTING AND BOWLING AVERAGES

Batting Averages

Matches Inns.

Mullagh

.......

Lawrence

......

Cuzens

........

Bullocky

......

Redcap

........

Twopenny

......

King Cole

.....

Tiger

.........

Peter

.........

Dick-a-Dick

...

Mosquito

......

Dumas

.........

Jim Crow

......

Bowling Averages

Inns.

Lawrence

.......

Mullagh

........

Cuzens

.........

Redcap bowled
Twopenny "
Dick-a-Dick "
Bullocky "
King Cole "

Most in Most in Times

Runs an inns.

a match not out Aver.

1679

129

22.51

1191

20.51

1364

566

64*

628

574

35*

421

286

304 27

218

17*

Not out

18.68

9.26

8.44

8.38

7.5

6.7

4.50

4.40

3.13

2.64

2.9

Overs

Runs

wkts.

Aver.

1595

3041

255

3.51

1841

2128

237

3.15

864

1287

113

2.21

in 28

innings and took 54 wickets

" 34

" 5

" 4

" 1

the

first

innings against Rochdale and the

second

innings

against North Shields no bowling analysis was kept,

but Lawrence

took seven and Mullagh twelve wickets.

NOTE: 1)

Batting averages do not take account of Times Not Out,
and bowling averages are for wickets per

innings:

both cases,

decimal points are incorrect.

These statistics and averages differ,

marginally, from

those

published in

Sporting Life

on the same date

and

which appear in Mulvaney's

Cricket Walkabout.

I have no

argument for the correctness of one set over the other.

Cup

until 1890.

Sensitive to racial slurs, Mullagh stood up to

indignity,

on one occasion spending the night in the open

rather

than

accepting a room across the yard next to the stables

which

the

inn-keeper judged good enough for 'the nigger'. He

died in

1891.

'The Western district',

wrote the

Sydney Mail,

'will regret

his

death'.

A memorial

was

erected to

this

'virtuous,

exemplary'

man on the local ground,

later named Mullagh Oval. One

side of his headstone is inscribed with his English tour

average

(23.65),

the other with his Murray Cup performance (45.70).

There is

a sense of inevitability about

the careers

and

fates of

three

great Aboriginal fast men

this

century:

Jack

Marsh,

Albert

('Alec') Henry, and Eddie Gilbert. Talented,

erratic,

'unreliable',

'chuckers',

all fared and died badly.

A 'fiery,

unpredictable' fast bowler,

'a genuine character,

subject

to moodiness',

Henry (1880-1909) played seven

first-

class games for Queensland in 1901-2 and 1904-05. He averaged 6.0

for batting and took 26 wickets at 32.04 runs each.

In a

1904 club match he

was

constantly

no-balled

for

doubtful

action by well-known umpire A L Crossart.

Henry's

(immortal)

reaction

was

reported to

the Queensland Cricket

Association thus:

Henry,

when

the

over

was

completed,

deliberately went over to Umpire Crossart and
said

words to

this

effect,

viz.:

'YOU

bastard!

You

no-ball my good balls and

the

ones I did throw,

you never! You know nothing

about

cricket!'

- at the same time

shaking

his hand in Umpire Crossart's face.

Henry achieved fantastic figures in grade cricket.

In April

1902 he was selected to play against NSW,

that side including the

other 'black diamond',

Jack Marsh.

Henry took 2 for 63 and 1 for

38,

Marsh

2 for 64 and 3 for 67. At he season's end

Henry

won

the best average trophy for his 5.15 per wicket. The

Englishmen

who faced him during the 1903-04 tour thought him just about

the

fastest bowler they had ever seen, 'even the fastest trundler in

the world',

though his action was 'not

above

suspicion'. And

despite earlier difficulties he was selected for the state

again

in 1905.

Involved in cricket and running,

like so many, he was also,

like so

many,

enmeshed in the rigid

authoritarianism of

the

protection

era.

He was removed to Barambah (now Cherbourg)

and

imprisoned

for

a month

'for loafing,

malingering

and defying

authority'.

From

there he was

isolated

further

afield, to

inaccessible Yarrabah,

to die of tuberculosis at 29 - defiant at

the system,

yet certain victim of it.

Jack

Marsh

(1874-1916) was a controversial right-arm fast

bowler

for NSW.

A 'full-blood' from the Clarence River

district,

he came to

cricket when the campaign to

eliminate

chucking was near hysterical.

At a state trial match in Sydney in

November 1900,

he clean bowled the great Victor Trumper for one.

This

led not to acclaim but to trouble.

Umpire W Curran said he

would no-ball Marsh at play next day.

The

Sydney Morning Herald

wrote:

4 5

Marsh,

who

was

no-balled . . . feels so

confident that his delivery is fair,

that he

is prepared to have his arm so bandaged as to
render it

impossible

to bend or

jerk

the

elbow

- which is

generally

accepted

constituting a throw. As a matter of fact,

has

already demonstrated to

some of

the

principal members of the Sydney Cricket

Club

that his

delivery

absolutely

fair. He

caused a

piece of wood to be tightly

fixed

along

the arm,

and bowled as fast as

ever.

Orders

have been given for a splint for

the

arm,

which

will keep it

absolutely

rigid,

and,

if completed in time,

will be worn for

the balance of the eleven's innings... If the
splint be

not

ready

something

equally

effective will be used.

This,

reported the paper,

'was unsatisfactory to the umpire and

he decided to retire from the match.'

All believed the throwing

stigma would end at this point - but this was not to be.

In a match against Victoria,

Umpire Crockett no-balled Marsh

three

times. In

the return game,

according to

Jack

Pollard,

Victoria

'had

brought

with

them

their

own

umpire,

the

controversial

Bob

Crockett - [who] proceeded to

no-ball

Marsh

nineteen

times

for throwing'.

The crowd believed Marsh was

victimized:

Crockett called only his slower ball, whereas

Curran

and others only his faster one.

No one in Sydney cricket objected to his action.

In 1902 he

took

58 wickets at less than ten apiece.

He was

described as

having

'gifts no other man in Australia - and probably no

other

bowler in the world - possesses:

he curves the ball,

he bowls a

peculiar dropping ball,

and his break back on a perfect wicket is

phenomenal for a bowler of his pace'.

Marsh,

wrote J C Davis in

1916,

'could make the ball do stranger things in the air than any

other bowler I ever saw'.

His first-class batting average was only 5.00 but he took 34

wickets at

21.47 each.

In 1903-04 the triumphant English

team

played a Bathurst XV. Marsh took 5 for 55,

after which the

Sydney

Mail

quoted an unnamed senior English player as saying that

his

action was perfectly legal and that 'Marsh was the best bowler in

the

world'

- this,

despite the English captain's

objection to

Marsh's presence in the match.

M A Noble,

then selector of NSW teams, felt he was a chucker

- nor did he

'have class enough'

for representative matches: 'his

bowling was

erratic and could not be relied

upon'.

1905

there

were

suggestions he

should

make

the

tour to

England

'because of

his

clever manipulation of the ball'.

The

noted

English cricketer,

L 0 S Poidevin,

commented that this wouldn't

happen

'probably because the absurd White Australia

policy

has

touched or tainted the hearts of the rulers of cricket, as it has

the

political

rulers'.

Davis,

in the

Referee,

said it

all:

'That

Jack

Marsh would have been one of

the

world's

greatest

bowlers if he had been a white man I have always believed...

his

bowling

would have established a fresh standard of

hard-wicket

excellence

and

created a new type,

differing

altogether

from

anything ever known before.'

Warren Bardsley,

the great left-

hander,

said in his recollections

'that the reason they kept him

out of big cricket was his color'.

Phil Derriman's article 'Death in Orange' in 1985 pointed to

Marsh's

tragic

end.

5 3

His skull had probably been fractured by

'the toe of a boot' in 1916.

Judge Bevan opined that 'so far as

the

kicking

[of Marsh as he lay on the ground] was concerned,

Marsh

might have deserved it'!

His two assailants were

charged

not

with murder but manslaughter and acquitted without the

jury

leaving the box.

Marsh has the quality of legend about him. Some

70 years after his sordid end,

people still talk about him.

His

life is now celebrated in a 70 minute SBS television documentary

produced by Robert Kitts.

Eddie

Gilbert

(1908-1978) was 'a dynamic Aboriginal fast

bowler who

at his prime ranked second only to Bradman among

Queensland fans'.

Off only four or five paces,

he bowled

sizzling

speed.

With long arms,

'he achieved his pace

with a

right

arm

that swung in such a blur it was difficult to

assess

claims that he threw'.

first-class matches he scored a mere 224 runs at

7.22;

however,

his

87 wickets cost 28.97 each. In

December

1931 he

bowled Bradman for a duck - after a five-ball spell of which Sir

Don

wrote:

'he sent down in that period the fastest "bowling" I

can remember . . .

one delivery knocked the bat out of my hand

and

I unhesitatingly class this short burst faster than anything seen

from Larwood or anyone else'.

The NSW team claimed his

bowling

was

a blot on the game. Bradman wrote later

that his bowling

looked fair from the pavilion but was 'suspect'.

his first state match against South Australia he took 2

for

22 and 2 for 76.

In a spectacular match against

the West

Indies

he took 5 for 65 and 2 for 26.

Hit for a mighty

six by

Learie

Constantine, he

replied

in kind off

the

great

man's

bowling.

Perhaps

his best performance was in the Bradman 'duck'

game:

then

the

famous Stan McCabe played one of

his

greatest

innings

ever - 229 not out.

Against

that

feat Gilbert

finished

with 4 for 74 off 21 overs.

1931 Umpire Barlow no-balled him eleven times in

three

overs in Melbourne.

Yet in the next game against South Australia,

bodyline umpire George Hele didn't call him. Injuries plagued him

but in 1934-35 he took a total of 9 for 178 against NSW and 5 for

77 against Victoria. For those matches, the Aboriginal

Protector

would not pay his expenses but 'gave his permission' for

Gilbert

to play.

Frith

says that for four or five overs he was

'exceedingly

fast'.

'He lacked stamina,

he was black,

and he came from

the

Cinderella

State.

Otherwise

he might have

become

Australia's

first

and so far only Aborigine Test player.'

David

Forrest's

short

story,

That Barambah Mob,

tells of a Gilbert souvenir one

player took to his grave: '...nufactured in Austra...' stamped in

reverse on his head,

an imprint from a Gilbert bumper!

1972 Frith

confirmed

that he was in a

state

mental

institution in Queensland,

having spent 23 years there, incapable

of speech.

Be died there in 1978 - not at Cherbourg as so

many

accounts have it.

Ian King,

'an exuberant right-arm fast bowler',

came

into

the Queensland side in 1969-70 after only four seasons of grade

cricket.

Unlike his predecessors,

'his action was as smooth as

silk

though he

was the fastest bowler to play

for Queensland

since Wes Hall'.

A non-conformist,

his elegant clothing in his

boxing

days earned him the nickname 'Rainbow',

later changed to

'Sammy' because of his uncanny resemblance to Sammy Davis Junior.

Be also played hockey and basketball.

King's

grade figures were excellent.

In only eight

first-

class

matches

he made 65 runs at 8.12 and took 30 wickets at

28.36.

After

'troubles

in Brisbane' he settled in

Perth

and

continued

with

grade cricket.

Despite his short

career,

says

Pollard,

'he gave glimpses of rare talent,

exceptional pace and

splendid fielding ability'.

In 1986 Charles Perkins resolved to send an Aboriginal

team

England (in

1988) to

retrace

the

1868

itinerary.

The

Australian Aboriginal Cricket Association was founded, with

Ian

King

appointed

organiser of the venture. Czech

novelist

Milan

Kundera says the idea of eternal return is a mysterious one,

but

nice one if the memory is pleasant. Despite its troubles,

the

1868 tour is one of the better Aboriginal memories. Some argue it

is better left that way:

others support a re-enactment.

Whatever

the outcome - for now,

and for the perspective to come -

simply

evoke

discussion

about

1868 is of

significance

for

the

Aboriginal vision of their history.

Fascinating,

says

British

novelist Brian Glanville

about

boxing

- albeit a sport

'blemished by its

essential

brutality,

its

exploitation of

the poor and simple'.

In so

many

ways

boxing is close to the bone.

Under harsh lights two men engage in

undisguised

aggression,

with courage,

skill,

resilience,

and

power.

They represent - in Glanville's sense - a social ('poor'),

mental ('simple'),

and physical ('brutal') class:

which is very

indeed to the inevitable (white) portrait of the

'racial'

type.

But there is another dimension to black boxing:

a political

one.

Ever

since

Jack Johnson

won

the

world

heavyweight

championship in Sydney Town in 1908, the holder of that title has

been seen as the symbolic physical master of the world. The lower

weights are but lesser,

paler versions of that theme.

And so the way out of poverty and racism for some minorities

has

been

boxing,

the glory sport.

Certainly this is true

for

American blacks and for African fighters.

Yet it

has

achieved

less

for Aborigines.

In fact,

says historian Richard

Broome,

boxing has

'done

more to reinforce

the basic

oppression of

Aborigines than to overcome it'.

Why?

At first blush the ring was a route to

money,

upward

mobility,

a break in the caste barrier,

to a temporary (but often

sweet) victory over chronic powerlessness. It offered a chance of

self-identity,

some dignity,

certainly a collective pride and a

heightening of

Aboriginal-consciousness

for

the

city

and

riverbank people as they barracked for their heroes.

The statistics are impressive, the conclusions and

outcomes

less so. In 1980 Broome reported that while only one per cent of

the

population, Aborigines had produced 30 of the 225

champions

(or

fifteen

per cent) in eight boxing divisions.

To date 32

Aborigines

have

won 51 professional titles (Table 2 on p

41).

They

have

held six British Commonwealth titles

and

the world

bantamweight championship. Three fought unsuccessfully for world

titles.

They

have won at least 100 state

titles.

The boxing

authority Ray Mitchell says there are more Aboriginal boxers

per

their

head of

population than among any

other

group in

the

world.

6 4

Most writers have diminished Aboriginal achievement somewhat

by presenting

the

'standard'

list - Richards,

Sands,

Bennett,

Hassen,

Bracken, Rose, Thompson,

and Mundine - as if it was

the

total list. The 'forgotten'

ones don't deserve forgetting: Tables

2 and 3 indicate the dimension of black fighting.

Statistics

notwithstanding,

the odds have always been

too

tough:

entrapment in

Australia's

inherent

and

often

vicious

racism;

unending stereotyping:

the almost universal exploitation

of the

typical black boxer.

There were crippling percentages off

the

top by

managers,

and sometimes the full per cent by

the

Aboriginal Protector,

especially in Queensland. Aborigines were a

separate

legal

class

of persons.

The

lifestyle was

one of

'immediate consumption' and 'kinship obligations'.

Perceived as

a separate biology - always as quick,

reflexive,

strong, tough,

enduring

- they were seen as especially 'explosive' and

'excit-

ing',

hence as a special breed of gladiator and entertainer. The

famous West Indian writer, C L R James,

always deplored Caribbean

cricketers being called 'spontaneous':

it suggested they were an

instinctive

people,

incapable of

thought. In

similar

vein,

Aborigines were 'naturally' exciting fighters,

always

a 'credit

their race';

they were never individuals - they were

always

(in Paul Coe's words) bodies, never brains.

TABLE 2

ABORIGINAL WINNERS OF AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL TITLES

HEAVYWEIGHT:

Tony MUNDINE
Ron RICHARDS
Dave SANDS

CRUISERWEIGHT:

Tony MUNDINE

LIGHTHEAVYWEIGHT:

Wally CARR
Tony MUNDINE
Ron RICHARDS
Dave SANDS

J U N I O R LIGHTHEAVYWEIGHT:

Doug SAM

MIDDLEWEIGHT:

Dick BLAIR

Wally CARR

Jerry JEROME

Tony MUNDINE
Ron RICHARDS
Dave SANDS

JUNIOR MIDDLEWEIGHT:

Wally CARR
Trevor CHRISTIAN

W E L T E R W E I G H T :

Lawrence Baby Cassius
Gary COWBURN
Steve DENNIS
Harry GROGAN

Alden HOVEN

George KAPEEN
Russell SANDS Jr.

LIGHTWEIGHT

Lawrence Baby Cassius AUSTIN
George BRACKEN
Jack HASSEN
Hector THOMPSON

JUNIOR LIGHTWEIGHT:

Big Jim WEST

FEATHERWEIGHT:

Elley BENNETT

Merv BLANDON

Brian ROBERTS
Russell SANDS
B o b b y S I N N
Gary WILLIAMS

JUNIOR FEATHERWEIGHT:

Brian ROBERTS

BANTAMWEIGHT:

Elley BENNETT
Merv BLANDON
Johnny JARRETT
Brian ROBERTS
Lionel ROSE
B o b b y S I N N

F L Y W E I G H T

Harry HAYES

AUSTIN

Bindi JACK
Big Jim WEST

JUNIOR FLYWEIGHT:

Junior THOMPSON

JUNIOR WELTERWEIGHT:

Lawrence Baby Cassius AUSTIN
Gary COWBURN
Norm Kid LANGFORD
Pat LEGLISE
Hector THOMPSON

TABLE 3

RECORDS OF LEADING ABORIGINAL BOXERS

(To July 1987)

TB WKO WP WF

LP LF

LKO NC

AUSTIN, Lawrence

Baby Cassius*

BENNETT, Elley

BLAIR, Dick

BLANDON, Merv

BRACKEN, George

CARR, Wally

CHRISTIAN, Trevor

COWBURN, Gary

DENNIS, Steve

GROGAN, Harry

HASSEN, Jack

HAYES, Harry

JACK, Bindi

JARRETT, Johnny

JEROME, Jerry

KAPEEN, George

LANGFORD, Norm Kid

LEGLISE, Pat*

MUNDINE, Tony

RICHARDS, Ron

ROBERTS, Brian*

ROSE,

Lionel

SAM, Doug*

SANDS, Alfie

100

146

148

July 1987)

SANDS, Clem

SANDS, Dave

SANDS, George

SANDS, Ritchie

SANDS, Russell

SANDS,

Russell Jr.*

SINN, Bobby

THOMPSON, Hector

THOMPSON, Junior*

WEST, Big Jim

WILLIAMS, Gary

TB WKO WP WF

LP LF

LKO

100

110

100

CODE:

- total bouts;

WKO - won on knockout; WP -

won on

points: WF -

won on foul; D - drew; LP -

lost on

points;

LF - lost on foul;

LKO - lost on knockout; NC -

no contest.

Still active in 1987.

NOTE:

Table compiled and supplied by Ray Mitchell.

Like Charlie Samuels,

Jerry Jerome (1874-1950) was born at

Jimbour

Station,

Dalby.

Given an exemption certificate by

his

employer,

he was free to run, rifle shoot, and to box. The first

major fight of the

'weirdly constructed native' was at 33, and in

1913 this southpaw won the Australian middleweight title. Popular

with the crowds,

this

'unmanageable,

unpredictable' man won big

purses,

and lost them quickly.

Disliking training, he fought in

poor condition,

often

'hog fat'. Deemed a

'pernicious influence'

Taroom Aboriginal Settlement - for 'inciting all

others to

refuse to

work unless paid cash for it'

- Chief

Protector J W

Bleakley

claimed

that

this

'moneyed gentleman'

took a

'mean

advantage' to

'obstruct discipline and defy authority'.

Jerome

never took a drink in his life.

He died,

squalidly,

at Cherbourg

1950,

his

earnings 'poached'

(according to

Australian Ring

Digest)

by the Native Affairs Department and the 'hangers-on'.

1933 Merv 'Darkie' Blandon won the

Australian bantam-

weight championship.

One-eighth Aboriginal, he considered himself

white,

yet the fans insisted on the dark label. He is recorded as

an Aboriginal boxer.

In the 1950s Jack Ryan called himself Greek

in Sharman's boxing tents

- yet his son is proud of his

father's

Aboriginal

heritage.

Being forever defined by others has been a

constant theme in the Aboriginal experience.

In many respects,

Randell William (Ron) Richards - born at

Ipswich in

1910 - was the greatest of them

all:

the

national

champion

in three divisions,

the Empire middleweight

champion,

victor over Gus Lesnevitch (later world lightheavyweight champion

for

eight years),

twice loser on points to that

great

legend,

American

Archie

Moore.

Had

the

chance

come

his

way,

said

Ray Mitchell, he

would have been a world

champion.

'But his

hardest battle',

according

to Peter

Corris,

'was

for

full,

dignified

human status within a prejudiced community'.

won

it,

for a moment, then lost, badly and sadly.

Richards fought often,

too often.

He lost fights he should

have won. He fought too many of the same men:

Ambrose Palmer four

times,

Fred Hennenbery ten!

Attempts to get to England

failed.

Yet here he earned the highest acclaim from champion Vic Patrick:

the best fighter he ever saw. Fast,

a renowned counter-puncher, a

strong hitter, resilient,

he was a competent boxer.

His life was a disaster.

The early death of his

Aboriginal

wife,

the

victim

of poor

management, of

police

harassment,

involved in a

few

fight

scandals,

alcohol,

he wound up in

Darlinghurst pubs where customers would beat him for the glory of

saying

'I ko'd Ron Richards'. Arrested for vagrancy, he was taken

remote

Woorabinda Settlement, near

Rockhampton,

for

three

years.

After

arrest in

Sydney

came

the

final

humiliation:

gardener and vegetable man at penal Palm Island (where I met

him

in 1962). Richards died penniless in 1967. Singer and writer

Ted

Egan has captured the reality of the Aboriginal

experience in

boxing in his ballad,

The Hungry Fighter

(see Appendix 1 for

the

text).

The name is missing but the tribute is to Richards.

Much of black sporting success rests on hero-worship:

Elley

Bennett

revered

Ron

Richards and Lionel Rose

idolized

George

Bracken.

Born

at Barambah in 1924,

Bennett won the

Australian

bantam title in 1948 and the featherweight crown in

1951.

Rated

'the hardest hitting man of his weight in the world', he won many

fifteen-rounders by sensational knockouts in the dying seconds of

fights he was losing. World ranking came when he beat the world's

number

two,

Cecil

Schoonmaker,

but he

could

not

achieve a

challenge against Champion Ortiz.

'Boxing's

Greatest Sportsman'

was

Ring Digest's

opinion of

him,

but he was often in trouble against good boxers.

Bennett,

Hassen,

Sands all took heavy punishment in their winning

fights.

Exploited,

says Corris,

they were never properly trained. In 1953

the magazines were saying Elley had 'looked after his

money' -

some

16,000 pounds

in purses - and 'if he

still

wants

that

fishing vessel,

he can now buy it'.

This was not to be: in

1955

he began a long battle with booze. Later he became a member of

the Aboriginal

Sports Foundation and put

something

back into

Aboriginal sport. He died in Queensland in 1981.

Boxing

may

have been Jack Hassen's 'chance for money

and

security' but the outcome was never happy.

Born in Cloncurry in

1926,

he began his

'brawling career'

in Jimmy Sharman's tents -

and ended it there,

fighting for a pittance.

The boy who didn't

want fame and fancy lights but only a dairy farm ended up

losing

some 20,000 pounds earned in three years.

The highlight of his 36

fights

was

the

win over Pierre Montaine that

gave

him world

ranking. In

1949 he won the Australian lightweight championship

from Archie Kemp.

The beaten man died the next day: Hassen never

recovered

his

confidence or his will to hit hard.

fought

well

against

future

world

champion,

Joey

Brown,

and

all-

conquering Freddie Dawson,

but his career was at an end. He lost

his

title to Mickey Tollis in a great fight in 1951.

Despite a

newspaper's

claim

that

'he hates

being

referred to as an

Aborigine',

he was the lionised king of the Newtown kids

and

today he is part of the La Perouse community.

One

man

who

looked for a time 'to be

verging on

world

greatness'

was George Bracken.

Born at Palm Island in 1935, he

was a dynamic puncher and a classy boxer.

He won the

Australian

lightweight title

in 1955,

lost it in 1958 and

reclaimed

the

vacant

title in 1959.

Popular Bracken,

hampered by undiagnosed

hepatitis,

fought some tremendous battles with other Aborigines,

notably

Russell

Sands and Gary Cowburn.

(There is a pervasive

myth that Aborigines don't fight well against each other.)

In December

1957 he was arrested on a fake charge

by the

Innisfail

(Q) police:

there he was pummelled for an hour.

one

detective

said:

'I've seen you fight in Brisbane

and you

couldn't fight for nuts!'

The successful black,

it seems, had to

be brought

low.

This

'interrogation' cost him

two

scheduled

fights and 2,000 pounds in earnings.

Bracken spoke out against settlement life,

the indignity of

missionary

paternalism,

race

prejudice,

lack of Aboriginal

education

and

welfare.

He was a keen advocate of an

insurance

scheme

for

black athletes,

especially

fighters:

Aboriginal

boxers,

he said, were

'exploited and mismanaged' and finished up

'with impaired health and no money'.

He was able to avoid

those

pitfalls.

The

Ritchie brothers - renamed Sands for boxing purposes -

came from Burnt Ridge, near Kempsey,

NSW. Statistically they were

every kind of a record:

between them,

605 fights,

249 knockout

wins,

one Commonwealth (Empire) title,

one

Australasian,

four

Australian,

and three state titles.

In mid-1941 Ritchie Sands was regarded as possibly 'another

Les

Darcy'.

In mid-1966,

after

career

ruined by crass

mismanagement

and

then seventeen years of tent

fighting,

this

totally damaged

48 year-old was sentenced to

three years

for

indecent

assault. Russell,

born in 1937, with a badly withered

leg

from aged two,

was still good enough to take the

Australian

featherweight title.

Clem (born 1919) and George (born 1924) were

both competent welterweights.

Alfie (born 1929) had an incredible

148 fights: but,

as Ray Mitchell points out, he was

permitted,

even encouraged,

to go on binges after fights the sooner to

work

through his money and be ready to fight again.

(His son,

Russell Sands Jr.,

was later Australian welterweight champion.)

The best of

them was Dave,

born in

1926 and dead, by

accident,

26 years later.

'Everyone loved him and admired

his

character',

wrote

Mitchell in eulogy.

He was

fast, a

quick

thinker,

keen to defend himself against punishment and cuts.

1946 he

won

the

Australian

middleweight

and

lightheavyweight titles,

in 1950 the heavyweight crown,

in 1949

the

Empire middleweight championship,

and in 1952 the

somewhat

meaningless

Australasian lightheavyweight title.

In England he

fought badly,

hampered by allergic reactions to

innoculations,

overawed by the expectations of him.

The Daily

Telegraph

claimed

his

reputation

was

'the veriest,

flimsiest bubble'.

But his

first

round

knockout

of Dick Turpin to win

the

Empire

title

redeemed him.

Watching the Randolph Turpin

versus

Sugar Ray Robinson world

title bout,

Sands - a shy,

sensitive,

generous man - said he

believed

he could beat them both.

Freddie Dawson had no doubts:

'He is

the

greatest

fighter I have

ever

seen

- h e i s

the

uncrowned world champion.'

Back in

Australia moves began for him to

fight

Randolph

Turpin

and

Sugar

Ray.

But

a timber truck

accident in

1952

resulted in his death.

A frugal man,

he gave generously to

his

mother,

friends,

relatives,

to the extent that money had to be

subscribed

for

his funeral.

Mitchell's final words

say

much:

'World boxing

has lost a great fighter;

Australian boxing has

lost its mainstay;

society has lost a gentleman.'

Late 1960 was a better time for Aborigines.

The 1967 Refer-

endum

on Aborigines -

in a sense falsely promoted to the public

as a

'new deal'

for this minority - resulted in a record 90

per

cent

vote in favour (see note 137).

A sense of both guilt

and

atonement

was

abroad,

with

the major

newspapers

and, in

particular,

ABC

radio

and

television presenting a

case

for

radical change of attitude and behaviour.

Into this climate

and

arena stepped Lionel Rose,

certainly one of Australia's best all-

round boxers.

Rose

won

the Australian bantamweight title in

1966,

the

world

title (at twenty) from Fighting Harada in Tokyo in

1968,

defended it twice,

and lost it to Ruben Olivares in Los

Angeles

in 1969.

He lost on points for the world junior lightweight title

in 1970.

Much has been made of the one-out-of-nine children rise from

total obscurity in Drouin,

Gippsland to international fame, to 'a

glimpse of Valhalla from the valley of squalor'.

We know of

the

careful management by Jack and Shirley Rennie, the investments in

units,

insurance

and

the

sandwich

shop, of

Lionel's

acute

awareness of

the

fates of

Richards,

Sands.

Bennett.

This

'uncommonly sensible young man'

seemed destined to show the world

it could all be different.

The

Harada fight was acclaimed world wide.

The Times,

less,

produced this gem:

'He is also only the second aboriginal

to be successful in top class boxing.'

Commenting on this item to

Australian journalist Murray Hedgcock in London in 1985,

I asked

him who he thought the prestigious paper might have had in mind

the

first:

Sands?

Richards?

The answer lay in

the

first

edition

of the paper.

It carried this immortal phrase after the

words

'top

class boxing,'

: 'the

one being Albert

Namatjira. '

Hedgcock had quickly phoned the duty editor of

The

Times

- who haughtily omitted the howler from the main

editions

(found in libraries).

The

contest was not televised.

But,

wrote American

Sports

Illustrated,

'all across Australia that night people

clung to

radios as

if the ringside announcer were Winston

Churchill'.

The

continent did indeed go wild:

'women wept over Lionel

Rose

and men shouted'.

There was national elation but for all Aborig-

ines

'Lionel Rose was Hercules,

Charles Lindbergh and the Messiah

all rolled into one'.

From the Todd River in Alice to Redfern in

Sydney he represented a hope

'that their own futures might

rise

beyond futility'.

Melbourne

gave

him an unprecedented homecoming - from

the

airport

to Town

Hall

some

250,000

tumultuous

people

massed,

shouting

'Good on ya,

Lionel! You beaut little Aussie!' Not even

the

Beatles pulled such crowds. I think that there was a

strong

sense

of guilt about Aboriginal treatment at work and at

large

that day.

Rose retired in 1970.

Comebacks in 1975 and 1976 were not a

success.

Rather,

there was a downhill slide to a life 'littered

with indiscretions and transgressions'.

In mid-1987,

at 39, he

suffered

a serious heart attack.

Rose won more money than

any

other Australian fighter.

He also spent, in his words, '$100,000

one year on wine,

women,

and song'.

He gave Aborigines a

moment of glory, perhaps the greatest boost they have ever had.

Good enough to fight for world titles,

Hector Thompson

and

Tony

Mundine were never quite going to make it.

Thompson

was

talented: a

good puncher,

resistant,

persistent.

Yet he

was

bedevilled by bad luck and injuries.

Mundine had his sensational

moments

and

an extraordinary record but was not

the

class of

Richards or Rose.

Thompson

was born in Kempsey in 1949.

He twice

challenged

for a world title:

losing in eight rounds to the awesome Roberto

Duran

for

the

lightweight title in Panama City in

1973,

and

having to retire with cut eyes against Antonio Cervantes for

the

junior welterweight crown in the same Canal city in 1978.

Holder

the

Australian lightweight championship,

the

national

and

Commonwealth junior welterweight titles, he was often injured. He

also

had the

misfortune to watch two men die after he

fought

them:

Roko Spanja in 1970 and American Chuck Wilburn in 1976. He

retired

in 1978,

made the inevitable comeback and suffered

the

inevitable knockouts in 1980.

Mundine was born at Baryulgil, near Grafton, NSW in 1951 and

began life looking for a rugby league career. In 1970 he took the

national

middleweight

c r o w n ,

followed by the Australian

heavy-

weight

and

the

Commonwealth

m i d d l e w e i g h t

titles in

1972. A

triumph was his outpointing of former champion Emile Griffith in

Paris. Then came the world middleweight title bout against Carlos

Monzon in 1974: Tony was out of his class, losing in the seventh.

retired in

1975, came back, and

took

the

Australian

and

Commonwealth lightheavy c h a m p i o n s h i p s .

Sensational in some fights yet

mediocre in others, he went

on until 1984.

He earned world ratings in three divisions: he is

the only Australian to have won two Commonwealth titles; he

held

eight

titles

all told;

he scored 65 knockouts,

than

any

other

Australian

ever.

Mundine,

at least, has

saved

something

from it all:

he has some property and he is now active in

Aborig-

inal sport and community affairs.

There are many others,

not shown in the tables above:

Alby

Roberts

in the 1930s,

whose

'obscurity is

undeserved';

Henry

Collins,

Banjo

Clarke,

Buster

Weir,

Bobby

Buttons,

Michael

Karponey,

Graham Dicker.

The

amateurs were outstanding. Table 4 shows that

thirteen

men have won 26 national titles.

Joe Donovan won no less than six

championships;

Jeff

Dynevor won four,

and the bantam gold

for

Australia at the 1962 Commonwealth Games. It is interesting

that

neither

turned

pro:

both said they loved the

sport

amateur

boxing.

Donovan,

like Trevor Christian (former

junior

middle-

weight champion),

went into refereeing and coaching.

Boxing has doubtless been a vehicle of

discrimination

and

exploitation.

But

the

ring

as such has been one of

the

few

sources of

collective

pride,

and the one venue in

which to

vanquish

the oppressor.

In a life in which all things black are

declared inferior to all things white,

winning in the ring is a

matter of

great moment.

Many must have felt as Henry

Collins

did:

'I felt good when I knocked white blokes out... I knew I was

boss

in the boxing ring.

I showed my

superiority...

but they

showed it outside...'

TABLE 4

ABORIGINES HOLDING AUSTRALIAN AMATEUR TITLES

NAME

WEIGHT AND NUMBER OF TITLES

Eddie BARNEY

Adrian BLAIR

Graeme BROOKE

Robert CARNEY

Gary COWBURN

Joe DONOVAN

Jeff DYNEVOR

Adrian JONES

Pat LEGLISE

Lionel ROSE

Doug SAM

Bobby WILLIAMS

Gary WILLIAMS

flyweight

(1) (Eddie Gilbert's son]

featherweight (1), lightweight (2)

featherweight (1)

flyweight (1)

featherweight (1)

light-flyweight (l), flyweight (2)

bantamweight (3)

flyweight (l),

bantamweight (3)

lightweight (1)

welterweight (1)

flyweight (1)

light-middleweight (l), middleweight (1)

featherweight (1)

bantamweight (1), featherweight (2)

Horseracing,

basketball,

cycling,

darts,

volleyball,

wrestling,

and tennis:

seven sports with no Aboriginal tradition,

participation

until 25 years ago, no heroes to

emulate, no

mutual

support or camaraderie. In racing, certainly,

there

was

prejudice to overcome.

In the early days Aborigines were allowed to ride - and many

still

are among the bush fraternity at Birdsville and

Brunette.

But

organised

racing

was

different:

there

were

'undoubted

barriers which kept

coloured riders out of

senior

Australian

racing in

post-war

years'.

The outstanding

'aberration'

was

Richard

Lawrence (Darby) McCarthy,

born in 1952,

the son of a

Cunamulla (Q) stockman.

A newspaper reader once complained of a reporter's reference

to his Aboriginality.

The then 17 year-old Darby replied:

I think the man is sincere

and trying to be

fair,

but he misses the whole point.

If any

newspaperman

wants to do me a favour he

can

call

me an Aborigine as often as he mentions

my name

- because that is what I am,

and if

I'm going

to be a success it is

important

that I be known as an Aboriginal success.

The highlights of

his

22-year

career

were

winning

the

Newcastle Gold Cup (1962). three Stradbroke Handicaps

(1963,

1964,

1966,

the Brisbane Cup (1966), the Doomben One Hundred

Thousand (1968)

and,

a remarkable feat, the AJC Derby

and AJC

Epsom in successive races at Randwick in 1969.

The critics are full of praise for him.

Tom Brassel says:

'he is

one

of the finest jockeys I have

ever

seen

- he was

consistently good: a quiet man,

he was a thorough gentleman'. 'A

very gifted rider',

is the opinion of trainer Pat Murray.

Bert

Lillye

describes

McCarthy as

'a genius rider';

'no jockey

was

riding better in 1968 and 1969'.

He had a

'natural talent': 'he

never

worked at

his riding as did

George

Moore

- the great

champion who once described Darby as "a freak"'.

The

lowlights of his career were several disqualifications,

suspensions,

injuries,

bouts of ill-health,

and something of a

drink problem.

In late 1978 he made a comeback in New Caledonia.

Darby rode extensively in Ireland, France, and Germany. In recent

years he has been coaching young riders.

In 1987 he stood as the

Australian

Democrat

candidate for the seat of

Maranoa in

the

general election.

McCarthy

deserves

study

- along the

lines of

Wiggins's

portrait

of Isaac Murphy, possibly America's best jockey in

the

late nineteenth century.

The author laments that his narrative

lacks

material

on the famous black jockey's

motives,

desires,

fears, on what

sport and racing meant to

him.

And whereas

Wiggins

had to rely on newspaper and secondary sources,

someone

could interview McCarthy and explore with him what it was to be a

black jockey in

a racist society and in a

prejudiced

racing

fraternity.

the contemporary scene two young Aborigines are

riding:

Lyall Appo in Queensland and Glen Pickwick in Sydney.

Competent,

neither is considered in McCarthy's class.

terms of registered players,

basketball is our

eighth

largest sport.

Despite its accessible,

inexpensive, and 'class-

less'

approach,

only

two Aborigines of

national

note have

emerged:

Michael Ahmatt and Danny Morseau.

One explanation for lack of Aboriginal participation is that

basketball

as a sport is seriously under-manned in the

Northern

Terriory.

the home of Michael Ahmatt and Joe Clarke (who

played

for South Australia).

But this problem is unlikely to be true of

the

states:

for me,

Aboriginal

'under-participation'

still

remains

something of

a surprise.

Ahmatt was the outstanding player in the 1964 Olympic

team.

His

slick and tricky ball handling and passing - admired by

all

who saw him - was a key factor in our ninth placing in the event.

represented Australia again in Mexico in 1968, but this

time

Australia

failed to make the finals section. Chris

White,

now

national coaching director,

revered Ahmatt. His youthful view of

the man remains:

'a fantastic basketballer, a real whizz kid, a

great ball-handler,

a man who excited the crowds and was idolized

the

kids'.

Ahmatt was an

enthusiastic

member of

the

Aboriginal

Sports Foundation,

created in 1969 to

encourage

and

finance Aboriginal

sport.

Born in Darwin in 1943, he played a

record

588 games

for

South

Adelaide. He

represented

South

Australia for ten years, retiring in 1979. A brewery

technician,

he died in 1983, at 40, of a heart attack. (His daughter, Kirsty,

has

played

under-16

basketball for

South Australia,

and is

considered a major prospect.)

Danny

Morseau,

a more robust and solid type of player

than

'flashy'

Michael Ahmatt,

represented Australia at least 27 times.

A Thursday

Islander,

Danny

played for St Kilda in

the

tough

Melbourne

competition,

and later in ten World Cup games in

the

Philippines,

seven games in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and

eight

in the LA Games in 1984.

Cycling is one of the 'unlikely' Aboriginal sports.

And to

date

only

one

rider of note has

emerged:

Brian

Mansell of

Tasmania.

A top-class road and track rider in the late 1960s, he

was

state

champion,

champion of champions, and

winner of

two

silver

and two bronze medals in both sprint and road

events in

each of the 1967,

1968, and 1969 national championships.

Darts has some 52,000 registered, serious players.

Ease of

access no

doubt explains in part

the

high

Aboriginal

participation in the sport.

But Horrie Seden and Ivy Hampton are

the

other

half

of the explanation: it is

their

outstanding

success that has stimulated others to play.

Seden, a

Darwin-based

Thursday

Islander,

played

for

Australia in World Cup V in Brisbane in 1985 and in World Cup VI

Denmark

in 1987.

He has also represented Australia in

the

Winmau

World Masters.

He has been winner of, and runner up in,

the Australian Singles and in the Australian Grand Masters. 'A

gentleman's gentleman,

a fantastic little fellow', is the opinion

of Peter McMenamin,

president of the Australian Darts Federation.

Ivy Hampton is discussed in Chapter 10.

Barry Rowan, a

lad

from the Territory,

was runner up in the World Youth Cup in 1986.

It would seem that Aborigines,

especially in the north, are

'over-represented'

in this than in any other sport.

Volleyball is a relatively new international sport, included

the Olympics

only since 1964.

Our

first

national

men's

championship dates from 1962.

With 30,000 registered competition

players,

the game is growing quite dramatically.

Cyclone Tracy brought the remarkable Tutton family from

the

Territory to Adelaide.

Steve played in Australia's national team

from

1980

to 1985,

and captained the side from

1983 to

1985.

Brother Reg was an Australian junior in 1982, and a national side

senior in 1983.

Brother Mark was a junior in 1980-82, and in the

national

team from 1983 to 1985.

In short, the trio

played in

the

same

Australian team in the Asian

Championships in

1983.

Given

that

there are six players in a side, this was

quite an

achievement!

Tony Naar,

the national coaching director,

calls

Steve

'an excellent athlete':

'he is the ultimate nice person -

a good representative for his sport and a great role model'.

Wrestling,

once

the major event in ancient Games, is

now

(undeservedly)

a Cinderella sport.

John Kinsella's

achievement

is outstanding.

National flyweight champion three times

(1968,

1972,

and 1975).

he wrestled for Australia in the Mexico and in

the

Munich Games.

Wrestling is lucky if it gets three places -

out of

ten weight divisions - in the national

contingent. To

make

the

three is a badge of great distinction. He

was

fifth

selection

for Montreal in 1976 - and so didn't get

there. In

1974 he participated in the world championships in Turkey.

The

year

1968 was

his big one: the national title,

the

Mexico

Olympics,

and a personal presentation by the Duke of Edinburgh of

his

Gold Award in the Boy Scouts.

John served in Vietnam,

had

two

years

all told in the army, and is now

owner-driver of a

courier service vehicle in Sydney.

Evonne Goolagong is the dream story. What makes her the most

successful,

most

revered, most

acclaimed Aboriginal

sporting

figure?

Several factors,

in combination perhaps: daughter of a

sheep-shearer:

first tennis dresses made by mother out of sheets;

no discrimination in dusty Barellan,

NSW;

only

two

racist

episodes in

her

life;

the

early

Vic

Edwards

coaching

and

'adoption';

the very

handsome

person

and personality;

the

somewhat

temporary

'age of atonement' feeling at the

time

and,

paradoxically,

her

abstinence

from Aboriginal

affairs

and

politics;

the

good marriage to wealth and conservation of

her

substantial

winnings;

the quite

magical

talent;

the

famous

victories:

the quiet determination to win everything, to overcome

that vexed 'walkabout'

in concentration label, a term she gave to

the press;

the joy she gave to the tennis world.

Some

consider her record 'light' for her talent.

But, as

Table 5 on p 65 shows, she

did it all, with the exception of the

American

singles.

World champion at nineteen - on

grass at

Wimbledon,

on clay in Paris

- she was at the top again nine years

later,

injuries,

motherhood,

Chris Evert Lloyd, and some

critics

notwithstanding.

Evonne

was accorded national and world-wide acclaim.

'$1.5

million in

prize

money,

and a place in

the

heart of

every

Australian

sports lover'

is our press verdict.

Rex Bellamy of

The Times:

'wonderfully gifted...

with a swift grace of balanced

movement,

an instinctive tactical brain,

a flexible repertoire of

strokes,

and an equable temperament';

'inspired,

imaginative',

her

tennis

'was

so beautiful that at

times it

chilled the

blood'.

In their book on Wimbledon women,

Little and

Tingay

entitle their Evonne chapter 'The Joy Maker':

'she radiated fun,

reminded one of the real values of lawn tennis'; a 'genius',

'she

almost gave the impression that she was too nice to win'.

popular yet so unspoilt,

wrote Max Robertson, of

this

'happy grace, as

instinctive

and

natural as a

gazelle'.

Generous praise from Virginia Wade:

'Evonne played with a kind of

giddy pleasure...

she had no drive for money or power or stardom.

She played because she loved it.' 'She's

still in

people's

minds',

'memorable',

someone you always wanted to win: 'there was

not a single false thing about her . . . people just loved her'.

The Americans

were

somewhat

tougher.

They

probed

for

comments

on her visits to South Africa,

on that country's

visa

refusal

to Arthur Ashe,

on Charles Perkins's swipe at

her that

she

should be using her prestige on behalf of Aborigines.

There

were

two reasons,

she told the

New York Times,

for

not

talking

out: busyness with tennis and the fact that she had endured only

WIMBLEDON CHAMPIONSHIPS:

Singles runner up:

1972,

1975: to Billie Jean King;

1976: to Chris Evert

TABLE 5

MAJOR TITLES OF EVONNE GOOLAGONG-CAWLEY

STATE SINGLES:

NSW

1971-72, 1974, 1975, 1977

VICTORIA

1971, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978

QUEENSLAND

1970, 1971, 1972, 1974

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

1971-72, 1972-73

WEST AUSTRALIA

1972, 1974

AUSTRALIAN HARDCOURT CHAMPIONSHIPS:

Singles winner

1970, 1971, 1972

AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS:

Singles runner-up:

1971, 1972, 1973

Singles winner:

1974:

bt Chris Evert 7/6, 4/6, 6/0

1975:

bt Martina Navratilova 6/3,

6/2

1976:

bt R Tomanova 6/2, 6/2

1978:

bt Helen Cawley 6/3, 6/0

Women's Doubles:

1974, 1975: won with P Michel;

1976: won with H Gourlay

Singles winner:

1971: bt Margaret Court 6/4, 6/l
1980: bt Chris Lloyd 6/l, 7/6

Women's Doubles:

1971:

runner up;

1974: won with M Michel

FRENCH CHAMPIONSHIPS:
Singles runner up:

1972 to Billie Jean King

Singles winner:

1971 bt Helen Gourlay 6/3, 7/5

U.S. CHAMPIONSHIPS:
Singles runner up:

1973:

to Margaret Court;

1974: to Billie Jean King

1975 :

to Chris Evert;

1976: to Chris Evert

AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION CUP MEMBER:

In 24 ties,

Evonne won 33 of 38 rubbers played.

OTHER MAJOR TITLES:

Italian Championships:

1973: singles winner

South African Championships: 1977: singles winner

1971, 1972: doubles winner

Virginia Slims:

1973, 1974, 1976: singles winner

Aussie

Rules

fans,

says

Keith Dunstan,

are as

sure of

themselves as nuns in a convent. Indeed,

and many followers still

acclaim,

with reverence,

'that old black magic' of the Aboriginal

stars,

the

'men of explosive pace,

great ball

control,

great

courage,

determination

to do well'.

The

achievements

are

impressive:

TABLE 6

ABORIGINAL PLAYERS IN THE VICTORIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Club

C, BF,

Player

Club

Years Games Goals

CO,GF**

Les BAMBLETT'

Footscray

83 on

45 71

Phil EGAN*

Richmond

82 on

99 69

Polly FARMER

Geelong

62-67

101 65

Syd JACKSON

Carlton

69-76

Eddie JACKSON

Melbourne

47-52

Bert JOHNSON

N Melb.

65-68

Jim KRAKOUER*

N Melb.

82 on

Phil KRAKOUER*

N Melb.

82 on

Chris LEWIS

W C Eagles

87 on

Wally LOVETT

Richmond

82-86

Norm M

DONALD

Essendon

47-53

Phil NARKLE*

St Kilda

84 on

57 45

Doug NICHOLLS

Fitzroy

32-37

Brian PEAKE

Geelong

81-84

66 49

Derek PEARDON

Richmond

68-71

Elkin REILLY

S Melb.

62-66

Maurice RIOLI*

Richmond

82 on

118 80

Nicky WINMAR*

St Kilda

87 on

20 37

136

164

GF 1969,1970,1972

82 8

GF 48

31 5

104 185
113

187

19 29
28 17

128

C 1965-67
BF 1963,1964
CO 1973-75,GF 1963

BF 1986

GF 1949
GF 1950

C 1982

BF 1982,1983
& N Smith's BF 1982

To end of 1987 season.

CODE: C=captain; CO=coach; BF=club's best and fairest;

GF=grand final appearance.

What the Table doesn't show is that most of the VFL men

are

not

Victorians.

The West has been the great reservoir:

Polly

Farmer,

Syd Jackson,

the Krakouer brothers,

Phil Narkle, Nicky

Winmar,

and

Brian Peake are 'Sandgropers'.

In 1986

and

1987

Peake

and Stephen Michael (playing in Perth) were rated as

the

two best footballers in Australia.

The honours list is outstanding.

Between them they have won

seven

Sandover Medals (for the best and fairest in the

season's

League matches):

Farmer (1956,

1960),

Ted ('Square') Kilmurray

(1958),

Brian Peake (1977),

Stephen Michael (1980,

1981), Phil

Narkle

(1982).

It should have been eight. In

1987 Claremont's

Derek Kickett won the Medal by a record voting margin,

only to

lose it on the ground that he had been suspended for a match

for

slapping an

opponent.

It was the first time a Medal has been

'lost' in

this way since inception in 1921. They have

won

ten

Simpson

Medals (for the best player in a grand final or

inter-

state

match) :

Farmer (1956, 1958, 1959, 1969),

the

legendary

Bill Dempsey (1969), Maurice Rioli (1980, 1981,

1983),

Stephen

Michael

(1983),

and Jim Krakouer (1981).

Possibly

the

highest

accolade of all is the Tassie Medal - for the best player in

any

Australian National Football League Championship.

Farmer (1956),

Peake

(1979),

and

Michael (1983) have

been

such

illustrious

winners.

Irwin Lewis played for Claremont in the WAFL from

1958

to the end of the 1964-65 season and was in the 1964 premiership

side.

Son

Chris Lewis began a career with

the new-born West

Coast

Eagles in

the expanded VFL competition in

1987.

This

strong

tradition will certainly continue:

today,

in fact,

some

ten per cent of players in the WAFL are Aboriginal!

South

Australia has had some very distinguished black

men:

Roger Rigney,

with 212 games for Sturt,

including the team's five

consecutive premierships from 1966 to 1970;

Sony Morey, with 215

games

for Central Districts and runner-up in 1972 for the Magery

Medal (for the fairest and most brilliant player in the

League);

Michael Graham,

runner-up for the Magery in 1973, with 282 games

for Sturt and eleven for South Australia.

There are at least ten

players in the current League

- and more in district football.

The

Northern

Territory is an

interesting

nursery.

discussed later,

the facilities to nurture players were

either

non-existent or pathetic.

Yet three great players emerged,

and

went

south and west.

Bill Dempsey was a Retta Dixon 'boy' - a

Darwin

institution for orphaned,

abandoned,

or illicit

'half-

caste'

children.

Starting out with St Mary's team in Darwin, he

came

to West

Perth and there played an incredible

343 League

games.

The late David Kantilla,

a Tiwi man from Bathurst Island,

went

south:

he played 113 games for South Adelaide,

won

their

best and

fairest in

1961 and

1962,

and

represented

South

Australia in 1964.

Maurice Rioli,

the Richmond star, is also a

Top

Ender

- coming to VFL via South Fremantle and

West

Perth.

Early on Doug Nicholls discovered a principle: the only way

to crack

the

white world was to do something better

than

the

white

man.

9 7

Trying

out

for

Carlton, he

experienced

their

rejection: because of his colour, they said,

he smelled. For five

years he played Association Rules football for Northcote, in that

time

twice

winning their best and fairest and

playing in

the

first ever Association

versus

League match.

'Brilliant',

'polished',

'spectacular',

'scrupulously fair'

were typical newspaper comments.

Astonishingly, he left football

for

a stint in Sharman's tents,

running in Gifts between bouts.

signed a three-year contract with Sharman,

at a

far higher

wage than football paid.

After seven months Tom Coles,

Fitzroy's

secretary,

sought Nicholls's release.

Sharman insisted that he be

offered

something

secure:

Coles obliged,

giving

him a

ground

curator's

job in addition to playing fees. In

1932 he

began a great career on the wing with Fitzroy, playing

alongside

the legendary Haydn Bunton and Chicken Smallhorn. These men,

and

others,

so respected Doug that they took part in

the

'football

church

parades'

he organized.

Never

reported,

he was

long

remembered.

the

mid-1960s

the

Victorian

government's Aborigines

Welfare Board - of which I was a member as the representative of

the Aborigines

Advancement League - was

hell-bent on

closing

beautiful

Lake

Tyers (Aboriginal) settlement

and

selling

the

prize

acreage

to the tourist industry. During

the

'Save

Lake

Tyers

Campaign'

Doug endured some very nasty

comments in

the

Victorian

parliament

- but even the likes of the

Premier,

Sir

Henry Bolte,

and the late Sir Arthur Rylah, Chief Secretary, felt

obliged

to listen to the Aboriginal view as presented by

Pastor

Doug.

His

sporting

fame

undoubtedly gave

credence to

his

political

stance.

Written before

the

knighthood

and

the

Governorship,

Ted Egan composed and sang a fine tribute to

this

remarkable man (see Appendix 2).

The

'Steel Cat',

Polly Farmer,

ranks as one of the

greatest

players of all time. Peter McKenna, John Nicholls, and many other

great

players include him in their 'All Star' teams.

Dozens of

books

refer

to him as

'one of the

immortals' -

a brilliant

ruckman and kicker,

the man who revolutionized modern footy

with

his accurate long- and short-distance hand passing.

was the key man in Geelong's defeat of Hawthorn in

the

1963 grand final:

'Farmer Inspires in Great Win' was the

common

headline.

Born in Perth in 1935,

he was one of the best of

the

truly big men.

Farmer played an incredible 392 senior games:

176

with

East

Perth,

79 with West Perth, 101 with Geelong,

and 36

state

games

(31 for WA).

He began life in what

was

to become

Perth's

'assimilation

factory',

Sister Kate's

Orphanage.

(Any

Aborigine with any

'white blood' was deemed salvageable for

life

mainstream society and shipped to the good

Sister's

place.)

Awarded an

MBE in 1971,

he finished his

career

without

ever

receiving a suspension.

Unlike Nicholls,

Syd Jackson was often reported.

Enigmatic,

volatile,

he could turn a game in just one quarter of

explosive

football. Winner of two Hayward Medals for South Bunbury, in 1961

and

1962,

he moved to East Perth, and then on

to Carlton

for

eight

seasons.

He starred in the Blues'

grand final loss to

Richmond in 1969 and was in the winning Carlton team in 1970

and

1972.

His

clashes with coach Ron Barrassi were legion. In

the

1970 second semi-final against Collingwood he was

reported

for

striking

Lee

Adamson. He

pleaded guilty but claimed

the

provocation of racist insults.

He was outstanding in the next two

games,

including the grand final.

His comments on these games are

given in the last chapter.

The

Krakouer brothers have achieved some fine

things

for

North Melbourne since 1982.

From Mt Barker in the south-west of

WA,

it took some time for them to ignore racial taunts and

keep

their tempers: in fact,

by 1981 they were winner and runner up in

premier

Claremont's best and fairest awards. Maurice

Rioli, a

Melville

Islander,

went to South Fremantle at seventeen. One of

the best

players

to come from the West, his

career

has been

marred

somewhat by contract problems between

the

Swans

and

Richmond. In

1985

he captained

the

powerful

'All-Australian

Aborigines'

against

Premier Cain's 'All Stars' at

the

MCG, a

match now part of National Aborigines Week.

All

is not sweetness and light in Aussie Rules. In 1985 an

Aboriginal

Rules player in the West struck two umpires during a

match.

One

of his

relatives

then

contributed by

abusing a

boundary umpire. Quite accordingly,

Rodney Cox was suspended

for

life by

the WA Football Association, and nephew

Ronnie

for a

season.

But then their Eastern Districts Club revoked the playing

permits of

nine Aboriginal

family

members.

Odd?

The

Cox's

thoughtso -

and took their case to the Human Rights Commission.

1986 Aborigines in Victoria went to the Equal

Opportun-

ity

Board seeking admission of their team into the

Kyabram

and

and District League (KDL) .

Ten teams in the League

was

enough,

claimed

KDL:

racism,

claimed

the people

from

Rumbalara

settlement.

In 1987 the Fitzroy All-Stars in Melbourne,

winners

several minor league premierships, claimed they couldn't

get

into a more senior league.

Glenn

James

became

the first black

'Man

in White'. He

achieved a

notable

double,

umpiring the 1982 and

1984 grand

finals.

He also handled three night grand finals and two

inter-

state

games.

Now an

'adviser'

to VFL cadet squad umpires, he

reached a sporting pinnacle.

But he was often subjected to gross

racist

vilification from fans.

In 1978 lawyer Greg Lyons

posed

the

serious

question as

to whether

the

abuse of

James -

specifically,

spectator

yells

that he was 'a

useless

fucking

boong'

- amounted

to a criminal offence.

He pointed to

the

particularly racist aspects of the abuse and the obscenities: 'he

is [considered] a boong and a Sambo long before he is an umpire':

'One has the feeling that James will have to excel as an umpire -

that he will have to be better than most white umpires

- before

he can hope

to win acceptance as a football

umpire

who

just

happens to be an Aborigine.' Excel he did.

'Killing the

umpire'

may

well be part of this sporting tradition:

but

'killing

the

black umpire'

showed James as the victim of

that extraordinary

racist-sportsloving ambivalence so prevalent in Australia.

'There

used to be racism in sport, but not any more' is a

common-enough

platitude,

especially among good-thinking

liberal

democrats. In

1982 Michael Gawenda of the

Age

reported

that

every

time

Jim Krakouer went near the boundary line he could

clearly

hear

the

chorus

of voices

singing

out:

'you black

bastard'.

The taunts came not only from fans - players were as

guilty.

Five years later the

Age’s

Martin Flanagan

described

how the MCG crowds 'bayed for the blood' of Jim Krakouer,

how

nice young men in the Members'

Stand went pink from the

exertion

yelling

'hit him' whenever the black man came

near.

l 0 0

John

Moriarty's

opinion of

the game as 'a

colonial bastion with

colonial attitudes'

seems warranted in some respects.

Rugby league:

a tougher,

more spectacular, more intellect-

ually

satisfying

sport

than rugby union

- or so

its

fervid

supporters claim.

Not always working-class,

it is certainly less

class-conscious than other codes.

League,

perhaps,

has been more

generous

to Aborigines:

it has provided easier access,

readier

acceptance,

better facilities,

and more encouragement by way of

junior coaching camps.

Pre-World War II there was

prejudice.

Certainly the

number

of Aboriginal

players increased sharply after

the

1950s:

for

example,

45 of 49 players on the South Sydney books played

from

1960 onwards.

101

Several

reasons come

to mind:

the greater

mobility

from

country

to city,

improved health

and living

conditions,

a greater sense of self-assurance, and a

newly-found

determination to assert Aboriginal identity.

less than twelve Aborigines have

represented

Australia

(see Table 7 on page 81).

There can be no doubt about the best of

them.

Born in Roma (Q) in 1945, Arthur (Artie) Beetson

came to

Sydney football in 1966 - and in that first year played the first

his

28 Australian games. Described then as

'the

laziest

forward in senior football',

l02

he played sixteen of the nineteen

matches

on the 1973 English tour - hardly the picture of a

man

said to

last only

half a game. The

English

called

him

the

greatest

forward in

the world.

In retrospect,

Max

Krilich -

former

captain of

the

'best rugby team in

the world',

the

Fifteenth

Kangaroos of

1982 - considers him one of

the best

footballers

he has ever seen.

l03

Now the

successful

coach of

Eastern Suburbs

- he won the best coach award for 1987 -

this

giant

has

been a

profound

influence on

the

game,

and on

Aborigines who play it and watch it.

TABLE 7

ABORIGINAL RUGBY LEAGUE PLAYERS CAPPED FOR AUSTRALIA

104

Player

C l u b

W o r l d

Y e a r s

Clubs

Matches Tours Tests

c u p s

George AMBRUM

1956-74

N Sydney

157

Balmain

Arthur BEETSON

1966-80

E Suburbs

133

Parramatta

Larry COROWA

1978-83

Balmain

Steve ELLA

1981-86'

Parramatta

134

Newtown

John FERGUSON

1981-86* E Suburbs

Canberra

Mal MENINGA

1979-86* S Suburbs(Q) 140

Canberra

106

118

131

206

Lionel MORGAN

1959-68 Wynnum-

Manly (Q)

Ron SADDLER

1963-71 E Suburbs

Colin SCOTT

1980-86* Wynnum

Manly (Q)

Dale SHEARER

1986-87 Manly

Eric SIMMS

1965-75 S Sydney

Lionel WILLIAMSON

1969-74 Newtown

1973

1978

1981
1985

1985

1982
1985
1986

1967

1986

1971
1973

Till end of 1986 season, and still playing mid-1987.

Eric

Simms,

the

South Sydney fullback,

played World Cup

but no Test matches.

He retains an indelible place in

football

history. In

1969 he scored 265 points in 24 premiership

games :

131 goals,

including nineteen field goals (then worth two points)

and

a try.

This record eventually fell to Mick Cronin in

1978.

Lionel

Morgan,

the Queensland winger. was the

first Aborigine

capped

for Australia: he played two Tests and a World Cup match

1960.

Larry Corowa was certainly one of

the

most

exciting

wingers in Sydney competition. In his first season he headed

the

try-scoring list. (A fine athlete, he beat the 1978 Stawell Gift

winner,

Steve

Proudlock, in a

special

match

race.)

Lionel

Williamson and Mal Meninga have indeed been the men of flair, the

crowd-pleasers who give 100 per cent of their effort and

talent.

Meninga scored 155 points from thirteen tour matches in 1982, and

50 from thirteen matches in the 1986 trip abroad.

The

talent is widespread.

Stars included Eastern

Suburbs's

Bruce

'Larpa'

Stewart, Newtown's Bruce Olive,

Balmain's

Percy

Knight

and Kevin Yowyeh,

Penrith's Terry Wickey, North

Sydney's

Eric

Pitt,

South's

Kevin

Longbottom,

Eric

Robinson,

Eric

Ferguson.

As part of

the 1987 National

Aborigines

Week, an

all-

Aboriginal

NSW 'honour'

side was chosen - a kind of

'origin of

the

species'

side based on the models used for state of

origin

and place of

origin teams. Selection

was by

the Aboriginal

community,

in association with Paul Broughton of the

NSW Rugby

League Board,

with endorsement by that state body.

The team was

proudly announced at the Sydney Cricket Ground prior to the

1987

semi-final:

Dale Shearer (Manly), David Liddiard

(Penrith,

and

Paramatta in

1988),

Tony

Currie (Canterbury), Mal

Meninga

(Canberra), John

Ferguson (Canberra),

Steve

Ella (Paramatta,

captain),

Scott Gale (Balmain), Cliff Lyons (Manly, winner of the

Clive

Churchill

Medal

for the man of the

match in

the

1987

premiership grand

final),

Jeff Hardy (Illawarra), Ron Gibbs

(Manly),

Sam Backo (Canberra), Mal Cochrane (Manly, and winner of

the

Rothman's

Medal

in 1986),

Paul

Roberts

(South Sydney).

Reserves: Rick Walford (St George), and Craig Salvatore

(Easts) .

Coach,

Arthur Beetson; manager, Cecil Robinson;

trainer,

Bruce

'Larpa'

Stewart.

There is much other talent in the competition:

St George's

Bert

Gordon and Wilfred Williams: South's Lester

Biles,

Graham

Lyons,

and Brad Webb;

Manly's Paul Shaw; West's Ian Naden,

Brett

Davis,

Brett Gale, Phil Duke, and Dennis Kinchella;

Illawarra's

Malcolm Kelly:

East's Michael Lyons; and Cronulla's Phil Dotti.

1987

there

were between 29 and 32 Aborigines in

the

senior

Sydney

premiership

competition.

That

figure is

remarkable:

between one and two per cent of the NSW population,

they constitute close on nine per cent of the players in thirteen

premier

and

reserve

grade

sides in

Sydney. It is

simply

astonishing

that there were seven Aborigines on the grand

final

field for the 1987 Sydney premiership: five for victorious

Manly

and

two

for

Canberra!

There

are between

ten

and

fifteen

Aborigines in Brisbane's premiership competition. The Aboriginal

over-representation is

more pronounced in Queensland and NSW

Country leagues,

particularly so in North Queensland. There is a

large and talented Aboriginal presence, in 'general' teams and in

black teams: Woorabinda (Q) in the Callide Valley competition,

Cherbourg (Q) in the South Burnett division; the Wilcannia Tigers

and

Wilcannia

Boomerangs

in NSW Group 12;

the

famous Moree

Boomerangs in

Group 4;

Armidale's

champion team,

Narwan, in

Group 19.

Narwan is perhaps the most interesting of the all-Aboriginal

league teams.

In the mid 1970s.

a number of Aboriginal

players

sat on the benches for the Armidale team in Group 5,

not getting

games

and feeling unwanted:

'we weren't getting a fair go'

was

the expression.

Three of them - Mitchell Morris,

Colin Ahoy and

Lance

Moran,

and a Catholic priest,

David Perrett - decided to

form

an Aboriginal team in 1977,

even if only to play in

the

town's

second

division competition.

After winning

the

Caltex

Shield

and

then country league's most

prestigious

event,

the

Clayton's

Cup,

Narwan joined the new Group 19 after 1980

- and

proceeded to win five consecutive premierships.

The assertion of

their Aboriginality wasn't easy.

This enlightened university town

showed

much opposition to Narwan:

playing for white

teams, or

sitting on their reserve benches,

was considered in their better

interests.

League

offers

Aboriginal

men

means

group

identification.

Whether

as Aborigines, or

'Rabbitohs', or

whatever,

the

sport

provides

what

are

called

'bonds of

similitude',

of similarity - in short, a place of some

security

for people who otherwise have few chances of mobility.

It is not

surprising that in the 1960s Aboriginal parents saw the ring

and

the

league

arena

as better avenues for

their

sons

than

the

classroom.

Eric Simms and company held out greater promise

than

the (then) two graduates,

Charles Perkins and Margaret

Valadian.

But

even

with 800 Aborigines in tertiary studies in

the

late

198Os,

it seems that league, at any rate, is still a major

(even

if temporary) way out of futility.

Peter

Bowers

of the

Sydney Morning Herald

has

turned his

sharp

pen to sport.

At the French Open Tennis in June

1987, he

wrote:

'When Yannick Noah wins he is the No 1 French player. When

he loses he is the No 1 Cameroon player.'

105

In the

same

vein,

they're

Australians when they're winning but Aborigines at

all

other

times

- an

attitude that stirs Perkins, and

others, to

anger.

Rugby World

illustrates the point: 'the simple

fact is

that

the Ellas are Australian,

truly revered in every

sense of

the word'.

106

But

complex, not simple.

The

talent

was

revered;

but the extra dimension,

the added admiration, was

for

asserting

their Aboriginality, for claiming it and contending

with it as

they wrought

victory

for Australian Schoolboys,

Randwick, Sydney, New South Wales, and for Australia.

An unnoticed but

important

predecessor

was

Lloyd Clive

McDermott,

born near Eidsvold (Q) in 1939. A well-built athlete,

he was

an even-time 100 yards sprint champion at

his

Greater

Public

School college.

His father battled to give him an educa-

tion,

and scholarships took him to Church of England Grammar

and

to Queensland University to study law. In 1962 he played on

the

wing for Queensland and for the Wallabies in two Tests against

New Zealand. That season was a little clouded by his being sent

off in

the University versus Souths grand final. To

finance a

house,

he played league for a year. Called to the NSW Bar in

1972, he is a barrister involved in company and Aboriginal

Legal

Aid matters.

The

Ella

story has passed into

sporting

and Australian

folklore:

the courage

of parents May and

Gordon,

the twelve

children in the tumbledown shack in Sydney's La Perouse, the fame

and

adulation that rugby brought. Sir Nicholas Shehadie's

heady

emotion

says it all:

'This family has proven to all

that given

the opportunity, Aboriginal people can aspire and achieve to

the

h i g h e s t '

l 0 7

The

truth is, rather, that despite

the

lack of

opportunity,

despite the prejudice and the obstacles,

Aborigines

do aspire

and do achieve even in this amateur game,

played in

private

schools by a class of 'gentlemen', an activity

normally

outside the reach of La Perouse black boys.

For

the

Ellas,

everyone

reached

for

new

superlatives:

'thrilling footballers',

'creators of the most spectacular tries

in Australian rugby',

'an indefinable something that urges crowds

through

the gate',

'a supernatural ability to anticipate

each

other'.

'Bloody

unfair that one team should have all

three of

them',

said

Gordon's

coach on their 41-3 loss to

Randwick in

1980.

108

Former

national coach Bob Dwyer

concluded

that

'the

influence of

the

Ella brothers on Australian

rugby has been

absolutely immeasurable'.

Jack Pollard offers this summary: 'The

simple

truth is,

the

Ellas

have

injected

excitement

into

Australian

rugby.

given

endless

pleasure to

thousands,

and

attracted

such a big following that they have become victims of

the old Australian anti-hero syndrome.'

109

Perhaps: but several

years

after

their

retirement they

are,

Evonne

Cawley,

embedded in the mind.

Gary.

born

in 1960, was an outside

centre.

An efficient

tackler, he had superb footwork and 'smart hands'. Be toured with

the

Wallabies

three times, but played only four Test matches.

Injury

was responsible for this small number.

Only

after

some

devastating injuries, said brother Mark, did better

sense

make

him quit

the

game in 1984.

He works

for

the

Department of

Aboriginal Affairs in Bourke, NSW.

Glen,

Mark's twin brother, was born in 1959.

At fullback or

inside

centre,

he was a sound kicker and a fine handler of

the

ball.

Bob Dwyer calls him 'a freak'.

As with his brothers, he

starred in

the rampant Australian Schoolboys tour of

1977-78.

Glen

played

in four Tests,

still represented NSW in

1987,

and

retired after his Randwick team won the 1987 premiership.

His

retirement prompted writers to recall 'the

disgraceful

episode' at

Ballymore in Brisbane in July 1982.

Chosen,

with

Mark,

for the Test against Scotland, the Brisbane crowd booed and

abused

their

every move: because they'd been

chosen

ahead of

Queenslanders Roger Gould and Paul McLean.

This verbal

violence

made

the Ellas feel they were playing Queensland, not

Scotland.

While this is talked about as a classic case of state chauvinism,

there is no doubt the Ellas black presence figured in the crowd's

emotions.

Mark writes of only one or two disappointments in

the

Ella careers: one was this Ballymore 'debacle', when he and

Glen

were

'greeted with the same abuse that generally occurs in

South

Africa'.

110

Mark,

the man of

marvellous

hands

and

anticipation,

captained

Australia

in nine Tests, winning four,

losing

four,

drawing one.

There has been much rumour and speculation as to why

he lost the captaincy. Spiro Zavos, reviewing the

Terry

Smith-

Mark

Ella book

Path to Victory,

says that Smith

'does

not go

deeply

into

why Alan Jones,

almost in his first act as

coach,

took the Wallaby captaincy away from Mark Ella'.

111

Other

rugby

scribes

assure me that it was not Jones who deposed him but

the

other two selectors. Ella,

in the

Path to Victory

book, says very

little indeed,

six short sentences in fact: 'It still hurts

that

lost the Australian captaincy.

I thought I'd done a good job

for Australia.

Still,

I can't be too hard on Alan Jones.

A new

coach

has different ideas . . .

I just didn't fit in'.

And

'the

lead-up to

that [dismissal] was very distasteful. It

left me

feeling

bitter for a long time.'

112

Smith continues:

'Although

this

is now a closed chapter,

perhaps Ella would have stayed in

the game longer if Bob Dwyer hadn't lost the Australian

coaching

job.'

So who did drop Ella? There is a general

view

that his

nature - reserved and retiring - was not the quality required for

a captain. Zavos, however, says Ella was

'confident of his gifts,

natural

leader'.

Nevertheless, it is

most

unusual

for an

appointed

captain (in any sport) to have that office taken

away

from him: it is usually surrendered voluntarily, if at

all. It

would

seem that his Aboriginality was in no way

connected

with

this

issue.

He played in

26 Tests -

against

New

Zealand,

France,

Scotland,

England,

USA, Argentina, Italy,

Fiji,

Ireland,

and

Wales. The statistics do not convey his artistry: 'he must', says

Pollard,

'rank as one of the most naturally talented exponents of

Rugby

Australia

has

ever

seen'.

Jim

Webster's

tribute to

'Markella' on

his

retirement,

at 26, is

probably

the

most

flattering

given

to any figure in our

sporting history.

113

prodigy,

with God-given gifts seen only in Russell

Fairfax

and

Ken

Catchpole,

he had a brain moving at shutter

speed

'quicker

than anyone else in the game'. Finally, Webster's view of Ella at

play:

'It was like watching Bradman. Or Torvill and Dean. Or Carl

Lewis. Or

listening

to Sutherland... You just

know

there is

greatness

about

them.'

Ella did what few Aboriginal

sportsmen

have

been

able to do: retire at the top. In so doing,

he will

remain in the memory while passing into history.

Sexism in

sport

is harder to write about than

racism in

sport.

Racist sexism is even harder.

Women in sport is not

the

subject

of this study,

but one aspect of it is:

black women in

sport.

The

crucial question is whether their

participation in

sport

is hampered more because they are black than because

they

are

women: or,

put another way,

do black women have a tougher

time of it than white women?

There

are

several problems, layers of

problems

perhaps.

Firstly,

there is Brian Stoddart's question:

have

sportswomen

connived,

or acquiesced,

in the restricted view of

themselves?

Did men

simply say:

'our sport is meaningful and yours is, at

best,

an adjunct?'

He believes that male sporting dominance was -

and

for

the most part still is -

something both genders

agree

w i t h .

1 1 4

Secondly,

the

sisters

in the women's movement

- whatever

their

ideological differences - have one thing in

common:

they

haven't considered sport a feminist issue. Thirdly, we don't have

anything like

Title IX

(of the 1972 Educational Amendments) which

insists on equal access,

resources,

pay,

facilities, and so on

for American women athletes. As of 1986 we have only a Task Force

on Women in Sport, with a long,

steep haul ahead of it.

Fourthly,

the

feminist

interest in sport

has

taken

two

unfruitful paths:

the strategy of seeking better

opportunities

rather than challenging the causes of women's continued status in

sport;

and

focusing on the 'biologic' approach,

the search for

equal physiologies and anatomies and a narrowing of the perform-

ance gaps.

Women,

says Susan Birrell,

have three choices: conservatism,

liberalism,

and radicalism.

115

Conservatism is what we

have: a

view

that sport is still the 'natural' domain of men

and

women

shouldn't

'masculinize'

themselves.

Liberal

feminism

wants

evolution,

gradualism,

a seeking of equal access, equal

rights,

equal

rewards.

In short,

they want what

the

philosopher

John

Rawls calls the

'liberty principle': that no one person or

group

- whether majority or minority, black or white, male or female -

is inherently entitled to more liberty (opportunity) than

anyone

else.

116

Title IX

is a good liberal solution. Radicalism,

however,

challenges

the

whole

system:

men

and

women

are

different,

and

therefore

the uniqueness of

women

should be

celebrated.

This brings us to the crucial question in this context: does

the future of women (and of Aborigines) in sport lie in

integra-

tion

or separation?

Where are their best interests served?

The

liberals favour integration;

the conservatives and radicals want

segregated/separated sport,

albeit for very different reasons.

I don't

know

the

answers. The

1954 Brown

v Board of

Education

case

in America declared that

'separate but equal'

could

never

mean equal for blacks. That decision is

mighty

yardstick

for

the liberals. But,

argues Susan Birrell so

very

powerfully,

'human dignity is a matter of social

permission' -

and so

within integrated sport

'women are who men allow us to

be'.

that

very sentence and sentiment lies the essence of

the

Aboriginal

sporting

experience:

black sportspeople are

indeed

only who whites

- both male and female - allow them to be.

What,

then,

of the black sportswomen?

They are,

simply,

what

white

chauvinist

men,

what

white racist men,

and what white

racist

women perceive them as being.

Angela

Davis,

Bell Hooks,

Cherrie Moraga and many others -

including Aboriginal Dr Roberta Sykes - have blasted the

women's

movement for failing to see that black woman's problem in life is

that she is black first, woman second.

What needs to be said very

sharply here is that what black Australian woman has endured,

white woman - native or migrant - has ever endured, or come close

enduring.

The gradations of discrimination, the

scales

and

dimensions of

injustice,

are

enormous: and it is

just

not

possible to 'equalize'

the problems that confront black and white

women,

on and off the sportsfield. In sporting terms, if

white

women

are having difficulty getting to first or second

base in

sport,

then by comparison their black sisters

are

not

coming

within

cooee

of the ballpark.

A long preamble, perhaps,

but needed if we are to understand

why Aboriginal women have not been as prominent as their men in

sport.

The Goolagong story - for the reasons suggested earlier -

a grand exception.

The great majority of her sisters

didn't

grow up in kindly Barellan.

Faith

(Couthard) Thomas was an outstanding cricketer,

representing

South Australia and Australia against

England

and

New Zealand. When nursing in Alice Springs, she played hockey for

the

Territory.

Later she became a key member of the

Aboriginal

Sports Foundation.

Rowena

Randall has played softball for West

Australia

and

been a member of the national squad:

Joanne Lesiputty played for

Australia

in the South Pacific Games (in Melbourne in 1986)

and

that

year was voted Australia's most valuable player

during

the

World Youth Series in

America.

Since

1987

she

has

represented

Australia in the senior national side. The Northern

Territory's

amazing Rose Damaso has also

played

representative

softball.

Louisa

Collins,

Phynea Clarke,

and Rose Damaso have

played

brilliant hockey for the Territory.

Rose has

also

represented

the

NT in

netball

and basketball -

which

adds up to

the

astonishing record of one athlete representing her state 36 times

across four different sports!

netball

several

players of

note

have

played

state

matches:

Andrea

Mason for South Australia,

Beverley

(Bobbie)

Dillon and Erica Bartlett for Tasmania,

and Marcia Ella for NSW.

Marcia,

sister of the rugby brothers, has achieved her own

fame:

she

played netball for Australia in 1986 on a tour

to England;

then

followed the tri-Test series with New 'Zealand and

Jamaica,

held here in 1986:

capped by her place in the national side which

played in the World Tournament in Glasgow in 1987.

Laura

Agius

(SA),

Leonie

Dickson,

and

Bobbie

Dillon

(Tasmania) have played state basketball.

Other quality players

are

Andrea

Collins

and Priscilla West (Q),

Rose

Damaso,

and

Louisa Collins in the Territory.

Dalma

Smith

has been one of

Australia's best

volleyball

players

since

the

mid-1980s. In

the

World

U n d e r 2 1

championships in Italy in 1984-85, she was voted Australia's best

player.

Later

that

year Dalma was

selected

for

the

senior

national

side,

and

then

played in

the

World Championships

qualifying tournament in Melbourne.

Ivy

Hampton of Alice Springs first represented her

country

when

she

won the first Pacific Cup darts singles

in Newcastle

(NSW) in 1980. In England she represented Australia several

times

when

competing in

the

Winmau

World Ladies

Masters

tournaments.

In the first national Aboriginal darts championship

1987, so strong was the competition that Ivy was

only

first

reserve

for

the Territory.

In that year,

her

sister,

Eileen

Wilson

was selected for Australia to play in the first major US

competition for 'soft darts'

- a new form of the game.

1986 Treahna

Hamm of

Victoria

was

awarded

junior

sportswoman

of the year at the first National Aboriginal

Sports

Awards.

Winner of

49 firsts in her first ten

years of

judo

competitions,

Treahna

was Australian junior champion in

1978,

1980, and 1981.

West

Australia's May Chalker has achieved perhaps the

most

difficult of

feats:

in 1982 she won

the

state

women's

golf

championship

and in that year she captained the state side.

1984

she was appointed non-playing captain.

Born in Wagin,

one

ten

children,

she took up golf at 23 'because there

was no

other sport for women in the Wialki district' - a wheatbelt area.

May represented WA six times.

In 1980 daughter Marion played in

the

state

junior side.

In 1979 May won the WA

mixed

fourball

championship

with

son

Mark,

now

Australia's

first

black

professional.

Much of the 'sport'

for Aboriginal women in remote Australia

has been a joke: it either didn't exist, till recently, or it was

caricature of nineteenth century

modestly-dressed,

modestly-

performed

calisthenics.

Many

sporting

activities

unrecognized,

unfunded,

and

unpublicized.

all

such

Cinderellas,

black

women's

sport has the

strongest

case

for

encouragement, change, and a fair go.

100

August

1984 Channel

9 in

Sydney

commissioned

and

presented

a short and sympathetic feature on the Yuendumu

Games

under the affectionate title 'The Black Olympics'.

This was an

important tribute to a unique event in Aboriginal life.

Since 1962 this annual sports and cultural festival has been

held on

the remote settlement some 300 km north-west of

Alice

Springs.

Crowds of

between 3,000 and

5,000

travel

enormous

distances -

even from South and West Australia - to

join

the

Walpiri

people for the four-day celebration.

The

major

sports

are

Aussie Rules, softball, basketball, and

athletics.

Events

usually

include

spear- and boomerang-throwing.

The

cultural

centrepiece is

a corroboree,

followed by bush band,

rock 'n'

roll,

country,

western,

and

gospel

concerts.

The carnival

atmosphere

doesn't

take

the edge off the

seriousness of

the

sporting competition.

Organized and run by Aborigines for Aborigines,

Yuendumu is

several

triumphs in

one:

major

sporting

event in

the

continuing

absence of any real sports facilities;

the creation

of a sporting tradition out of literally nothing;

the insistence

on a carnival of,

and for,

Aboriginality in an era (the

1960s)

which

insisted on

their being turned into

white

folks;

the

ability to

stage,

without

fuss,

what

they

value in

their

traditions alongside what they like in modern life.

Martin Flanagan,

reporting on the 1987 'Aboriginal Olympics'

for the

Age,

has perceived the essence of this event.

117

It is a

focus

of contemporary Aboriginal culture, a time for

initiation

and

'tribal business',

an occasion where Rules football parallels

the corroboree -

'the elements of flight and grace, an

emphasis

ritual'.

is an event

which

involves

the community's

elected

leader,

Albert

Wilson - a

man

whose

living

father

104

witnessed the punitive police raids in the Conniston massacre in

1928,

a man taken away to Melville Island at seven and

returned

at 33,

a man who doubts

'whether this rump of

the

traditional

Aboriginal

nation

can withstand another 20 years'

exposure to

Western society'.

Flanagan's

reactions

are of

interest.

Three

days at

Yuendumu

caused

'the

glass tower' of

his

preconceptions to

shatter.

What

were they?,

I asked him. He

wants to

support

these

people but there is 'no place for

urban

sentimentality';

there

is no place for

'rigid Western values'; this area of

land

their

country,

not

ours;

and it is

all so

much

complicated

than he imagined. What he sees is the truth of

the

matter -

that this carnival is as much about survival as it is

about sport.

David Wiggins points to the importance of looking at

black

sportspeople

who

emerged from

within, or

even

without,

the

institution of plantation slavery.

There is no exact Aboriginal

equivalent.

But there is,

indeed,

a system not too far removed

from it:

the remote, segregated, closed Aboriginal

settlements

and missions.

Until only a

decade

ago settlements and missions in northern

Australia

fully warranted the label Erving Goffman once gave to

asylums:

'total institutions', that is, places of residence

and

work

where

'like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider

society

for an

appreciable period of time,

together

lead an

enclosed,

formally administered round of life'.

118

Inmates

they

certainly

were,

compulsory

(or

compelled)

residents

who were a separate legal,

economic,

political,

and

social class of persons.

They needed permission to come and go;

105

they earned

'pocket money' and rations,

not wages;

they ate not

as family groups but as gender-segregated boarders in

matron-run

communal kitchens;

they drank water

lemonade,

on penalty of

fine or imprisonment,

or both,

for anything stronger;

they saw

only

sanitized

films

and

received

only

politically-approved

visitors;

they

obeyed

orders

from

hierarchies

superintendents,

managers,

matrons,

head

teachers,

hygiene

officers;

they went to church Sundays,

in default of which they

forsook rights to shop in the canteen - and so on, and on.

Sometimes they played sport - amid the dearth of facilities,

the

occasional

dusty, red 'oval'.

Sometimes

couple of

slender saplings served as a semblance of goal posts (see p 110).

Here and there a school had a pair of baskets.

Physically,

Yuendumu

was

(and is)

a disaster.

But a

resilient

Walpiri

people did meet with a

few,

rare,

talented

staff.

Ted Egan was superintendent there from 1958 to 1962. He

bucked orders to

'socially engineer'

people by forcing them into

impossible

aluminium

'transition' huts,

into

communal

feeding

programs,

and into rote-learning exercises of dubious value (like

T is for Train and S is for Skyscraper,

when neither existed in

their lives).

Be sought,

rather,

an association of worlds through

song,

language,

and

sport.

A dedicated

St Mary's

(Darwin) Rules

player.

he coached and encouraged the

game in

the

choking

bulldust. By

1961 he had regular competitions running between

Yuendumu,

nearby Papunya,

and distant Warrabri (now Ali

Curung)

settlement (see photo on page 110). He was followed by a head

teacher,

George

McClure,

who

turned

the

original

football

carnival for three

communities into what is now a major

vehicle

of Aboriginal identity for some 30 communities.

106

Yuendumu

is unique in respect of this particular tradition,

but the poverty of sport and facilities is well-nigh universal.

To redress this,

federal governments have since 1969 made efforts

to develop

sport

and recreation programs.

In that

year

the

Minister

responsible

for

Aboriginal Affairs,

W C Wentworth,

agreed to establish an Aboriginal Sports Foundation to

encourage

Aborigines

in sport,

to gain for Aborigines more open access to

sport, to

arrange

tours

and

competition,

and to

reward

distinguished performances.

Prime movers behind the scheme

were

Ted Egan -

then a special project

officer

with Dr

'Nugget'

Coombs's Office of Aboriginal Affairs, and Charles Perkins,

then

senior

research officer with that Office.

Both had a vision of

something better than a 'milking cow'.

As Egan wrote in a

memo:

'The presentation of a couple of footballs at Maningrida by Polly

Farmer

would probably have more positive effect than the

"let's

give

them a couple of thousand" approach, where there is a

risk

the money being spent on fleecy lined jock straps and Adidas

boots all round'.

But the Foundation did have to adopt a handout approach. Of

the $50,000 total budget then available, bits and pieces

(from

$300 to $3,000) went, for example, to Numbulwar for a basketball

court,

to a women's hockey club in SA, to Warrabri for a

grass

oval,

to Amoonguna football club for jerseys and

insurance, to

the

Redfern All Blacks for a visit to New Zealand.

Looking at

the early applications caused me to scrawl in the margins: 'Where

the

hell are the Aboriginal Affairs Departments?' -

the bodies

charged

with

promoting the physical and social

advancement of

Aborigines.

Given their almost total abdication in this

field,

given

the

appalling state of Aboriginal health

and

nutrition,

107

given

that male life expectancy is still below 50 years of

age,

one

can

only marvel at Aboriginal sporting achievement in

the

1970s and 80s - let alone in the 1870s and 80s!

The

original

Foundation

members

were :

Doug

Nicholls

(chairman),

Michael Ahmatt,

Elley Bennett,

George Bracken, Bill

Dempsey,

Evonne Goolagong, Syd Jackson, David Kantilla, Ian King,

Wally McArthur, Darby McCarthy, Charles Perkins, Reg Saunders (of

military fame),

Eric Simms,

Faith Thomas,

and - in association -

Lionel Rose.

The

National Aboriginal Sports Council (NASC) replaced

the

Foundation:

it represents 32 sporting communities in

Australia.

Between them these two bodies have now allocated several

million

dollars

to Aboriginal sport.

In 1986-87, $3.65m was given for

sport

and

recreation

programs - which

includes $800,000 for

sports

grants.

In the same year NASC

recommended

that

four

national

championships

be funded - in darts,

netball,

indoor

soccer,

and golf.

The National Aboriginal Golf Association

was

created in

1987 and in October that year a twelve

man -

four

woman

team

went on a tournament visit to Hawaii. In

1987

ten

amateur boxers,

accompanied by Trevor Christian and Tony Mundine,

were assisted in a visit to the US Olympic Training Centre - with

view to preparation for places in the 1988 Olympic

team.

all-Aboriginal indoor soccer team went to Canada on tour.

Rugby

league,

basketball,

netball

and

athletic

carnivals

were

underwritten.

Further,

fourteen young Aboriginal

sports

stars

have

been

assisted to compete

overseas,

some

world

championship

level.

At this time of writing,

athlete

cousins

Lynton Johnson and Jason Terare are Ipswich Grammar School

boys:

both are considered Olympic prospects for 1992.

Tony Briggs, a

nephew

of Pastor Doug,

is a hurdler of promise, the first

black

108

athlete to

win

a scholarship to the

Australian

Institute of

Sport.

Kyle van der Kuyp is a 100m hurdler of

promise.

These

are

the

youngsters

receiving both educational

and

sporting

support.

1986 the first National Aboriginal Sports

Awards

night

was held in Adelaide.

Televized by SBS,

the program showed just

how

far Aboriginal

sport has come in the

past

quarter of a

century.

Australia,

said Charles Perkins,

'hasn't recognized the

Aboriginal contribution to the sporting sphere'.

But that night,

part due

to Perkins's fine efforts over the

years, a

new

Aboriginal

confidence

and respect was revealed.

Lionel

Rose,

Polly

Farmer

and

Evonne

Cawley

posed

for

the

cameras:

threesome

now

inducted

into Australia's

Hall of

Fame.

The

immortal Herb Elliott made a discovery:

'I had never given

much

thought

to the Aboriginal contribution to sport - but, by Jove,

what a powerful message it's been tonight!'

109

Sport is a

vehicle for

many

things:

for

nationalism,

ideology,

for

demonstrating

attitudes

(such as a dislike of

apartheid),

for scoring political points in a dramatic way.

The

'revolt of

the black athletes'

in America began with

the

1968

Mexico

Olympics.

Their

argument was that

they brought

fame

abroad to

a nation that spurned them at home;

their

feelings

erupted

with

the now legendary Tommy

Smith-John

Carlos

black

power salute on the 200m sprint victory platform.

The Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982 had two political

items

on the agenda:

African displeasure at New Zealand's

South

African rugby connections; and Aboriginal anger over land

rights

and their treatment in Queensland generally.

The

Organization

of African Unity was determined to

show

what it thought of the Lions tour in 1980,

and particularly what

felt

about

that most disastrous and most

violent

tour in

sports

history,

the

Springbok visit to New

Zealand in

1981.

Rumour

was

rife

that Africans would boycott

Brisbane if

New

Zealand took part.

Aborigines

had pleaded

all

along

that

Africans

should

boycott

Brisbane because of

their

condition,

not because of the

South Africa-New Zealand rugby affair.

Political action had been

sparse,

and scarce:

that stratagem of genius, the Tent Embassy

on Canberra's Parliamentary lawns in distant 1972;

and the visit

Geneva

in 1980 to tell the world about the

West

Australian

v Noonkanbah

oil-drilling-on-sacred-sites

d i s p u t e .

119

1981

two Aboriginal delegations

visited

Africa.

The

first -

led by Les Melezer and Bob Weatherall, members of

the

Foundation

for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action -

sought

African boycott

of the Brisbane Games while on

visits to

Ethiopia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Kenya.

They failed to

112

persuade

these states.

Later,

Ossie Cruse and Michael

Anderson

visited

Africa,

Geneva and Vienna,

with Gough Whitlam as

their

political adviser.

They didn't seek boycott

such - that, said

the

ex-Prime

Minister,

would be

'counter-productive to

the

Aboriginal

cause'.

120

(What,

one wonders,

is productive to, or

for,

the Aboriginal cause?)

Aboriginal

groups saw the Games as the means of

presenting

their

case to,

and through,

the world's cameras.

The

Black

Protest

Committee made a video,

'The Whole World is

Watching',

aimed

at redressing what it claimed was

government

propaganda,

namely,

that

there

were

'black training camps in

Libya'

and

'guerilla

armies in

North Queensland'.

They

feared

police

harassment and violence.

Steve Mam told ABC radio: 'We must grab

this media chance,

this international gaze, to make

Queensland's

racism known to the world'.

121

1980

Premier Bjelke-Petersen said he would

repeal

the

discriminatory

Aborigines

Act

- not because it was bad law but

because he

feared

rioting and international

backlash at

the

Games.

That Act,

he said,

was what Aborigines wanted: 'we care

for

them,

look

after

them. In

Queensland

we're

all

Queenslanders,

we're

all

equal,

we're all

the

same'.

122

(He

didn't repeal that particular statute until 1984 - and then he

enacted

another piece of legislation, hardly radical, and

still

little

different in

its

spirit

and

tenor of

control

over

Aborigines.)

For a host of curious and devious reasons - which don't need

discussion here - the rugby issue and the New

Zealand

presence

did not result in African boycott.

Abraham Ordia, president of

the

Supreme

Council of Sport in Africa, came

to Australia in

113

1981.

While here he visited Cherbourg settlement, possibly

the

best of all places to show visitors.

His first response was to

confuse Queensland with Australia: 'Well', he said, 'we trust the

Australian

government,

they have a good image, a good stance on

apartheid'.

123

In the end,

the African presence was our

reward,

or rather (then Prime Minister) Malcolm Fraser's reward, for

his

stance on South Africa generally.

This

left the way open for Aborigines to march,

speak out,

and

appear daily on the world's media.

There

was,

indeed, a

'Black

Shadow

over the Games',

as the

Sydney Morning

Herald

reported.

124

In 1981 Charles Perkins said he'd have to stand up

and be counted on the Queensland land rights issue - and if

this

meant

violence,

so be it.

It is just possible that government

reacted to the spectre of this one-man army: whatever the reason,

Queensland

thereupon

enacted

the most draconian

law in

Australia's peace-time history,

the

Commonwealth Games Act

1982.

the

manner of Russia clearing Moscow of

all

Jews

and

dissidents

for

the

1980 Olympics,

this statute

'cleaned up'

Brisbane's

Aborigines.

It allowed

the police

rather

than

government

to declare

'a state of emergency'; it

allowed

the

seizure

of persons and of property by police and by

non-police

sworn in as

'authorized persons';

it introduced

the

finger-,

palm-,

foot-,

toe- and voice-printing of suspected persons; the

designation of notified areas where other than accredited persons

could not be;

the seizure of any 'thing',

animate or inanimate,

that an

arresting

person

believed

could

lead to an offence

against the Act:

and the imposition of sentences of $2,000 or two

years or both for 'offences' under the Act.

The

1980s began with

the conservative

Sydney

Bulletin

denouncing Aborigines going abroad:

there was 'a

considerable

114

danger'

in these

'ratbags getting an overseas audience'

because

they

could

affect

the

Games - worse,

they

could

'damage

Australia's

good

name

a b r o a d ' .

1 2 5

I n

the

end,

even

the

conservative Queensland press showed some sympathy.

The cartoons

Alan

Moir,

Paul Zanetti,

and Mac Vines on p 118

were

not

untypical.

Newsweek

was not alone in depicting an

'Aborigines

versus

Queensland'

conflict.

126

Others saw things differently. The

general

manager

of the Commonwealth Games

Federation

declared

the protest 'a

non-event'.

127

Phil

Derriman

concluded

that

Brisbane

would

'be remembered as the

Games

which

Australia's

athletes

won

- but which its Aborigines

lost.'

128

Under

the

pretentious

heading,

'Triumph of

the

Human

Spirit',

the

Australian

intoned

'that the Games provided neither the time

nor

the

cause to

press a domestic

issue'.

The

protesters

'did

nothing to

advance

the Aboriginal

cause'.

129

Nothing

that

Aborigines

do, it seems,

is ever considered as

advancing

their

cause.

As an observer and recorder of these events, I have

another

view.

Aborigines did not stop the Games, or even disrupt

them.

matter - since neither purpose was ever intended.

From

the

start

they

insisted on

peaceful

demonstrations,

and

they

maintained that stance.

The police handled matters well -

apart

from

two senior officers,

one of whom insisted

throughout

that

the

protests

and the illegal marches (a few such were

held in

addition

to the authorized ones) were caused by

'drunken and

disorderly southern black trouble makers'.

130

Aborigines won a little something from the public,

from the

street

spectators

at the marches.

A number of people in

the

115

buses

and on the streets felt

'there has to be some right

about

their cause, somewhere'.

This was particularly evident following

a brilliant ABC

Four Corners

program on

land

rights,

screened

amid the marches.

The Queensland Aboriginal Affairs Minister,

Ken

Tomkins,

lost his

portfolio at this time

- largely because he chose

the

Games

period to announce that Aborigines weren't advanced enough

to be granted freehold land:

they didn't know what a

mortgage

w a s !

1 3 1

They also drank a lot, ate birds, goannas, and fish.

132

The

internationalization

of the Aboriginal

political

and

legal

struggle began in earnest in Brisbane,

with the Games as

venue

and

vehicle.

It was

perhaps

fitting

that

the

ABC

television

anchorman,

Peter

Mears.

was

responsible

for

one

memorable

sentence in the event.

As the

Four

Corners

program

ended

- during the evening dinner break in the coverage - and as

the telecasts resumed, he said: 'Ladies and Gentlemen, you've now

seen

another side of the coin.

Perhaps these Friendly Games can

help

the

Commonwealth and Queensland break

down the barriers

between

them

and

the

Aborigines'.

Neither

the

peaceful

Aborigines nor

Peter Mears were the 'triumphant human

spirits'

the

Australian

editorial had in mind.

one short. sharp,

poetic speech Bruce Dawe has

captured

the essence of it all:

133

WATCHING THE '82 GAMES

Funny . . .

I couldn't concentrate upon

the athletes,

white and black, within the gates,

for those with fewer friends who sat outside.
I cheered,

of course (Michelle, Tracey, Lisa,

and Raelene capping her career with gold),

was proud (who wasn't?),

kept count of the tally

- the Poms were trailing . . . or so one

might

have said,

had not conscience urged suppression of

such dangerous thoughts -

these

were 'the Friendly Games'!

116

There

is a lot we now know about Aborigines in

sport. As

Herb

Elliott

said, we

have a

'powerful message' as to

their

achievements.

There is much we need to know - about their lives

as athletes,

their circumstances, frustrations, their experiences

the way to the top.

There is much we will never

know

- in

particular,

about the thousands who never had the opportunity to

get to

the starting line.

In 1986 Alma

Thorpe,

receiving a

special

award

for

her

services to black

sport,

said it so

succintly:

'I've never played sport

- it wasn't available in my

life'.

There

are many gaps.

We need to know what Aborigines

feel

about

sport

- as sport,

as a way out of poverty, as a moment of

social

acceptance

and equality.

The only

serious

address of

these

issues

comes from Perkins, and in a handful of

all-too-

brief quotes from a few others.

The

Isaac Murphy model in America has been

suggested. Of

immense

value,

and

excitement,

would be a

set of

detailed

portraits of

the lives and times of

these

important

figures:

Johnny Mullagh in the 1860s and 70s, Charlie Samuels in the 1880s

and

90s,

Jack Marsh in the 1900s,

Jerry Jerome in the

1910s,

Lynch

Cooper

in the 1920s,

Doug Nicholls in

the

1930s,

Ron

Richards in the 40s,

Charles Perkins in the 1950s, Lionel Rose -

Polly Farmer -

Evonne Goolagong in the 60s.

Artie Beetson in the

70s,

and

Mark

Ella in the 1980s.

Despite the

difficulty of

reaching back in time,

it is worth trying to capture the

black

perspective

on sport,

their attitudes and hopes,

their stories

and tragedies.

Such portraits could also tell us how Aboriginal

policy and administration affected the day-to-day lives of

these

individuals.

need a serious study of settlement and mission 'sporting

120

life'

- such as it was, and is.

We know something

about

these

places as

institutions

but next

to nothing

about

their

recreational

life.

Why did so many cricket,

football,

and

athletic stars emerge from tiny 'Cummera' mission on the

Murray?

Why

so many footballers from among the Tiwi people at

Bathurst

and at Melville Islands?

The

St Mary's story needs

researching,

and

telling. In

their

first Rules season,

1950-1951,

there were only two white

men in the team.

One was Ted Egan,

their captain and coach for

many years to come.

The rest were Tiwi.

With the development of

the

Nguilla

League on the two islands,

St Mary's

places

were

filled by the former residents of Garden Point - an

enclave on

Melville across the narrow strait from Bathurst.

This was where

the

'mixed race' kids,

taken from their mothers,

were sent for

'rearing'.

Anastasius

Vigona -

see the photo on page 130 - was

the father of Benny Vigona,

who plays for Swan District and

West

Australia.

Cyril

Rioli,

Maurice's father, was

also a

Garden

Pointer.

Billy

Roe,

also in

the photo, is a

remarkable

sportsman.

He played in six grand finals for St Mary's,

winning

the best player award in four of them.

He took the

first

all-

Aboriginal Rules team overseas -

to Papua New Guinea in 1972. He

played basketball for the Territory,

and played it professionally

Perth.

Father Witty at Bathurst may have been a key in

Top

End football - Ted Egan certainly was.

the

face of it, it

seems

that

those

who

were

'emancipated'

- those

who

were

not

controlled by

special

legislation,

who didn't live an institutional life - participated

in sport,

and that those who were incarcerated didn't, or didn't

for

the

most part.

This division between

the

'urban'/'free'

121

blacks

and

the

'plantation'/'reserve'

blacks

needs

careful

exploring.

There is evidence to show that sport was not just an

avenue to something better,

but was,

literally,

a ticket out of

the

institution.

Certainly

it was for men like Jerry

Jerome,

Elley Bennett, Eddie Gilbert, Doug Nicholls.

What

happened

to the boys at those other,

rather

special

institutions - Kinchella Boys Home in NSW, Retta Dixon and Garden

Point

and Croker Island in the Territory,

at Sister

Kate's in

Perth?

Some stars had their origins in these places:

why?

how?

were

there others?

What happened to,

and with,

girls in such

institutions?

Jimmy Sharman's mobile,

tent-booth business needs

study.

What he

did to,

and

for,

Aborigines is

important.

Certainly he played a significant role in Doug Nicholls's life.

A major issue in Aboriginal sport is why so many communities

have given birth to separate, all-black teams.

Narwan's

origins

seem

plain

enough. But what of the Redfern All

Blacks

and La

Perouse

United?

We need a study not only of the aims,

motives,

and values of these teams but of their function and place in

the

lives of the communities.

it simply a matter of pride, or an

outlet

for

frustration?

Is it that

such

teams

foster,

and

sustain,

an Aboriginal togetherness?

Is it reaction to

their

exclusion or

unwantedness,

or is it something Aborigines

have

worked

out

for

their social solidarity, for

their

'bonds of

similitude'?

Aborigines

play

sport

in a

white

world:

white

games,

venues,

rules,

directors, officials, selectors.

Always players

or performers,

they are never partners in the sports enterprise.

It is possible that the birth and growth of black teams has

been

to enable them to make their own decisions and selections;

to be

winners,

for a change;

to provoke - if possible,

to evoke - a

122

sense of respect for them as a people.

Separate or integrated,

why is it that practically all black

athletes

are seen and described as 'exciting',

'scintillating',

'natural',

'explosive',

'brilliant'?

What

lies behind the

playing styles of Aborigines?

This is a different question from

the matter of so-called physical superiority, discussed later.

Thomas

Kochman,

in his recent

Black and White:

Styles in

Conflict,

suggests

that black Americans go

beyond

the

purely

mechanical

and

technical aspects of play.

134

They

improvise,

they

engage

in personal manoeuvres and moves

that

are

very

distinctive

and individual.

Whites,

he says,

play

cohesively,

they

play efficiently in set patterns in order to win, never to

lose.

No one has approached the question of why Aborigines

play

the way they do.

Mark Ella says

'the secret of our success

was

the

total enjoyment we received out of rugby ...'.

Do Aborigines

play sport for different reasons, for different motives?

Someone

should ask them.

What

we do know about Aborigines in sport is both positive

and negative.

The achievements are extraordinary.

The titles,

championships,

the

medals

are a matter of record

- at

state,

national,

and international level.

There is no need to inflate

stories or embroider the successes.

There is no need to claim as

Aboriginal

those who don't wish to be so, even though a few

the

non-identifiers are in the 'Hall of Fame' class.

But

there

a need to insist that not one single Aboriginal champion

was

born - to

use an appropriate pun - on the right

side of

the

track,

sporting or social.

The essence of sport is that competition,

opportunity,

and

resources must be fair and equal for all.

But a different ethos

123

has applied to black Australians.

In our society there has been

exclusion

from competition,

discrimination within it,

and at

times gross inequality of chances, choices, and facilities.

Denial

of competition takes two forms.

One is

structural

denial,

where because of their place in the political,

legal,

economic,

and social system Aborigines simply cannot and do

not

get to the ski lodges and A-grade golf courses (with very few and

very recent exceptions).

The other is institutional denial, that

is,

within their domains and lifestyles the facilities simply do

not exist.

Where most Aborigines have lived - on settlements and

missions -

there has been, literally, no grass.

Pools,

gyms,

courts, tracks, ranges, nets, coaches, physios, scholarships have

not been part of their vocabulary or experience.

Sport has hardly been fair.

There has been discrimination

in motive,

in behaviour,

in conscious and non-conscious attitude,

even

among those considered enlightened and well-disposed.

The

list is

long - and dismal:

most of the 1868

cricketers,

save

Mullagh

(possibly);

the railroading of Charlie Samuels

into a

Sydney

asylum:

the striking out of Jack Marsh's name

from

the

list of

first

grade cricketers to be admitted to

the

Sydney

Cricket Ground in 1905,

thus ending his career:

the hounding of

Jerry Jerome as a

'moneyed

troublemaker':

the Carlton

rejection

of Doug Nicholls:

the exploitation of Ron Richards; the

vicious

insults

to Syd Jackson,

Glenn James and, nowadays, the

Krakouer

brothers.

In boxing and in some football codes Aborigines were seen as

a special race of performers,

with separate sporting and physical

attributes.

Often

'a credit to their race', they did well - 'for

their

race'.

Often

they were

'not Aborigines' when at

their

peak, but 'Aborigines now', afterwards:

'once they fade', argues

124

Perkins,

'they're history'.

For

all minority groups there is a truism:

one has to be

doubly good

in order to rate equal.

Aborigines

have had to

struggle against this discrimination,

to struggle to compete, to

gain a guernsey,

to keep wearing it.

Many of their performances

have

been of

world

standard,

as the international

press

has

acknowledged.

To get there,

to get to the top,

is one set of

problems. To

stay in the memory.

to pass into

history,

with

respect, is

another.

A handful have done so:

Doug Nicholls,

Evonne Goolagong-Cawley,

Lionel Rose,

Artie Beetson, Mark Ella.

Why?

Simply because they were that good!

Racism is

not a simple matter of

exclusion or

avoidance

because of skin colour.

There are many forms, some obvious, some

subtle indeed.

The Aboriginal athlete has always had to

contend

not

only with sports competitors but with a racist society

that

places

a negative value on all things black.

This produces

what

one of the founding fathers of American black power, W E du Bois,

called

'double consciousness', that is, the

very

uncomfortable

sense in which one is

forever aware that one is black and forever

aware that the white man is aware that one is black.

Syd

Jackson has explained it well.

At a

sports

history

conference

at the MCG in May 1987, he related what

being black

means.

1 3 5

For a start,

he was taken, aged two, from his

parents

in Leonora and sent to Roelands Native Mission (near Bunbury) 'to

be saved'.

He was reunited with his mother in

1981,

some 37

years later!

The West Australian racism, he said, was no better

than

the Queensland variety.

After a fine

career

with

South

Bunbury,

he wanted to join the team with the same red and white

colours,

South Fremantle:

they rejected him because he was

125

black.

He used sport

'as a stepping stone, as a door opener, as

means to an

end'

- but he was

always

made

aware of

his

Aboriginality.

When

dropped

for a game by

Carlton,

was it

because of prejudice or his form?

Prejudice,

he believed.

When

he came onto the sacred turf at the MCG in the 1970 grand

final,

his

feeling

was that all 121,696 spectators were aware of

his

blackness:

the 60,000 Collingwood fans made that awareness

only

too

plain;

the Carlton-lovers showed him the

required

Carlton

loyalty.

The Collingwood bar wouldn't serve him after the match.

Only at

the

Yuendumu

Games, he

concludes, is

there

the

satisfaction of coming together, being together, of not having to

bother about this double awareness.

Jackson

- as organiser and promoter of Aboriginal

sport -

believes that the 'system' must be confronted,

tackled,

fought.

Lionel

Rose

told

the

same conference

that

despite

sporting

achievements,

'the racism won't diminish': 'we are what we are',

he said,

with a sense of fatalism rather than with despair.

important aspect of racism is stereotyping.

Aborigines

have

to contend with it daily,

not only in general life

but in

sport as well.

For example,

one boxing writer said to me:

'One

can

get any Abo off the street and he'll go four rounds -

they

have

tremendous

natural

talent'.

The

comment

was

meant

positively,

but it

comes close to the

common

assertion

that

blacks generally are physically superior to whites in sport.

Martin

Kane of

Sports Illustrated,

among others, has

long

argued

that

racial

genes explain black

superiority in

some

sports.

136

With black sociologist Harry Edwards, I reject

this

nonsense that we are what we are, and always will be, because of

our

'racial' genes.

In 1986 a pair of British

doctors

claimed

that West Indian fast bowlers were unfairly advantaged:

they had

126

anatomy

and a musculature that others didn't

have.

Former

English

cricket

captain,

Ted Dexter, made

this

sharp

reply:

there are thousands of black kids out there busting to bowl

fast

for

their country, he said,

and there are thousands of

British

kids

out there too soft and too lazy to bowl fast

for

their's.

short,

blacks excel where and when they are

hungry

and in

need:

when

they have role models (whether Griffiths,

Hall or

Holding,

Viv or Ron Richards, Bracken or Rose);

and

when

they

have access to a particular sport and its facilities.

Aborigines

are over-represented in boxing, in Aussie

Rules

West Australia,

in rugby league,

in most spectator sports in

the

Northern

Territory.

Why

these

high percentages?

The

essential answers lie in having access to these sports;

in these

sports providing some group identification; in having role models

before

them, heroes to emulate;

in seeing these sports as

the

means

of escaping from futility.

But there is more to

it:

addition,

there is a

hunger - a

physical,

emotional,

and

psychological

hunger;

there is a will to win, to

prove

some

points,

to achieve a vindication of themselves, even to achieve a

sense of sweet revenge on the system.

Has

sport

'broken down

the barriers',

has

it been a

breakthrough

mechanism in Australian race relations?

There are

neat

one-line conclusions about sport as a

transport to a

better world,

as a vehicle of tolerance and understanding.

For

the few - for the Ellas, Evonne Cawley, perhaps two boxers, and a

handful of footballers in soccer, league and Rules - there can be

no doubt that sport has been a 'door opener'.

Pastor Sir Douglas

Nicholls is

the

beacon and the benchmark:

he came up

from

further down,

and against greater odds,

than most.

For many -

127

the Sands brothers, Richards, Bennett,

the cricketers - sport was

all-too-brief

high,

followed by

crashing

and

crushing

disaster.

the

long

term,

however,

what matters

most is

that

Aboriginal sporting success,

no matter how brief or tragic,

has

given Aborigines more uplift,

more collective pride,

more kudos,

than any other single activity.

This sporting uplift is crucial.

As this is written,

there

are two birthdays:

200 years since white settlement and 20 years

since

the

1967

Referendum on a

supposed

'new deal'

for

Aborigines.

137

Yet

the Aboriginal world is

something of a

nightmare -

and

not just in 1987. It so

happens

that

particular

year saw the lucky country - with all its

resources,

brains,

technology,

and commitment to a social welfare philosophy

appoint a

Royal

Commission

into

the

(proportionately)

astronomic

number

of black deaths in police custody

(44 since

1980);

138

listened

as a federal court judge of

the

Human

Rights

Commission described

the Toomelah Reserve in NSW as 'a

concentration

camp,

both psychological

and

physical';

1 3 9

i t

heard

the

NSW Director of the Bureau of

Crime

and

Statistics

portray 'a

culture

harassed and beaten down

for

decades', a

'wholesale

destruction

of their entire social fabric'

akin to

Germany

after the war in 1945!

140

It read that the Director of

the (British) Anti-Slavery Society was

'particularly disturbed by

allegations of police brutality against Aboriginal children', and

perturbed

enough

to tell the Commonwealth Heads of

Government

Meeting in Vancouver that

'Australia's good reputation abroad is

undeserved'.

141

It heard the NSW Ombudsman describe the

Police

Department as having an attitude bankrupt of commonsense and good

f a i t h i n

its

procedures

when

dealing with

Aborigines.

142

128

Australia watched

the

eruption of

frustration

into

riot at

Brewarrina.

143

the

same

year

SBS television

presented

pictures of

Aboriginal sporting achievements,

a black tie and gown affair in

splendid colour.

What it signifies (for me,

at least) is this:

that

such

respect as Australians

accord Aborigines

however

little

it is,

however grudgingly it is given - comes from their

sporting prowess,

not from their social

organization,

survival

skills,

music,

art,

lore,

law,

culture,

their

civility and

civilization.

Perhaps

that

tells us

something

fresh, or

something

else,

about

white

Australia

- and

the Aboriginal

experience within it.

129

He stood in the dusty showground
Of every country town you've ever known
He'd come in from the Mission
Sixteen years of age, but fully grown
He had a shilling to spend so he bought a pie

It was then that he caught the showman's eye

At the boxing tent on his platform high -
And another hungry fighter was on his way
Yes another hungry fighter was on his way

Hear the big bass drum, see the yokels come

'Will you take a glove?'

- that's what the showman said.

'You might make a quid,

wadda ya say there kid?

You'll fight THE KILLER! Have you got rocks in your head?

Don't you know THE KILLER'S a professional, son,

And you say you're not insured

But step on up, you're a likely lad
And THE KILLER will knock your block off, rest assured
Yes THE KILLER will knock your block off, rest assured.'

'Roll up! Roll up! Tickets for the big boxing show.

This young darkie has dared to challenge THE KILLER.

We have the ambulance standing by... Roll

p. Roll

Tickets at the ticket box... Show starting now...

The young darkie versus the champ. Roll up. Roll up.'

(BASS DRUM)

THE KILLER was a tired old has-been

And even though the referee tried his best,

THE KID soon flattened the old bloke
Two left hooks and a right cross did the rest
They signed him up and he joined the show,
Three fights a day, what a way to go,
Better than school,

he was earning dough,

And another hungry fighter was on his way,
Yes another hungry fighter was on his way.

They took him down to the city
And pretty soon he was fighting main events,
Fancy suits and taxi cabs
He'd come a long way since he left the boxing tents.
And was he good? Best in the land
With a knock-out punch in either hand

And a walk-up style that they couldn't withstand,
And the hungry fighter was really on his way

Yes the hungry fighter was really on his way.

He won the national title

So his managers brought in stars from overseas,
Tough stuff but he was gutsy

And one by one he demolished all of these.

But he took such punishment in each fight
It scrambled his brains, impaired his sight

132

His managers said:

'Kid, you'll be right',

But the hungry fighter was on the way downhill
Yes the hungry fighter was on the way downhill.

And then he lost his title

But still they matched him time and time again

And soon he gave up training

Found a couple of drinks would kind of ease the pain

His managers all stayed rich and fat
They bought him a guitar and a cowboy hat
And then a second-rater knocked him flat
And the doctor said: 'Son. give the game away,
Hungry fighter,

give the game away.'

Hear the big bass drum, see the yokels come

'Will you take a glove?'-that's what the showman said.
'Now here's a jackeroo. And your name, son? Blue?

You'll fight THE CHAMP.

Have you got rocks in your head?

Don't you know THE CHAMP ko'd that Yank
Present world title holder?
But step on up you're a likely lad
I've probably never,

ever seen one bolder

Yes,

I've probably never ever seen one bolder.'

'Roll up. Roll up.

Tickets for the big boxing show.

This here young jackeroo named Blue has dared to challenge
THE CHAMP,

the greatest Aboriginal fighter

This country has ever seen.
Blue,

are you determined to go through with this?

It's called suicide....

And he hasn't made out his will....

Yes roll up for the big boxing show....
Tickets at the ticket box... Show starting now!'

(BASS DRUM)

He shuffled through the Sydney markets
Puffed-up face,

no shoes upon his feet

Checked out all the rubbish bins

And then a kind old lady gave him a bite to eat
He'd been bashed last night in Redfern Park

By a gang of thugs lurking in the dark

And one of these was heard to remark

'That old boong was once a fighter so they say

That old boong was once a fighter so they say.'
So the hungry fighter faces another day,
The hungry fighter faces another day.

Words and Music by

TED EGAN

133

There's a man in Melbourne Town named Pastor Doug,

And his skin is brown and he's a gentle man.
His ancestors have roamed all over this Australian land

For countless centuries.
He was born in a little place in New South Wales
Called Cumeragunga:
He had it tough when he was a kid,

And he learned to do as the other kids did -

To fight,

use the knuckle.

Pastor Doug,

you've had it tough,

Used the knuckle when things were rough,
Hit the bottle but you called 'enough',

And then you read the Bible and that's good stuff.

This man went down to Melbourne town,
His skin was brown and his name it was Doug Nicholls.

It was the time of the Razor Gang,
Squizzy Taylor and Red Malone -
Tough place, Fitzroy.
There was no place down in Melbourne town
For an Aboriginal boy in Gangsterland down at Fitzroy -

Or so they said.
But he'd had it tough when he was a kid,

And he learned to do as the other kids did -

To fight,

for his rights!

Pastor Doug,

you've had it tough,

Used the knuckle when things were rough,
Hit the bottle but you called 'enough',
And then you read the Bible -

And that's good stuff.

This tiny Cumeragunga lad went down to the Fitzroy Club
To try for a football.
He thrilled the Melbourne crowd

With the big white Vee upon his chest -

Became a champion.
He fought in the stadium at Fitzroy,

And in the boxing tents,

this brown-skinned boy,

For Jimmy Sharman.
He was the fastest thing on legs in the State,
He loved to run and the money was great -
Professional - win the contest.

Pastor Doug,

you've had it tough,

Used the knuckle when things were rough,
Hit the bottle but you called 'enough',

And then you read the Bible -
And that's good stuff.

135

CHAPTER NOTES

David Wiggins,

'From Plantation to Playing Field: Historical

Writings

on the Black Athlete in American Sport',

Research

Quarterly for Exercise and Sport,

1986,

Vol 57,

No 2, pp

101-116,

at p 112.

Stanley Eitzen and George H

Sage,

'Racism in Sport', in

Sociology

of American Sport

(Dubuque: Wm

Brown, 1978), pp

240-243.

Mavis Thorpe Clark,

Pastor Doug

(Melbourne:

Lansdown, 1972

edition), p 51.

Charles

Perkins,

A Bastard Like Me

(Sydney:

Ure

Smith,

1975). p 41.

The quotes following are from chapters 4, 5, 7,

pp 39-73.

Interview,

March 1987.

Comment to me by Keith Gilmour, March 1987.

Raymond

Evans,

Kay Saunders and Kathryn Cronin,

Exclusion,

Exploitation

and Extermination: Race Relations in

Colonial

Queensland

(Sydney: Australia and New Zealand Book Co, 1975).

p 77.

ibid,

p 78.

Genevieve

Clare Blades,

Australian Aborigines, Cricket

and

Pedestrianism: Culture and Conflict, 1880-1910,

Bachelor of

Human Movement Studies (Honours), University of

Queensland,

1985.

The material in this chapter is drawn from her thesis,

unless other sources are indicated.

Referee,

6 May 1903

Percy Mason,

Professional Athletics in Australia

(Adelaide:

Rigby,

1985),

pp 75-79. The material in this paragraph is

taken from Mason.

Referee,

2 June 1887.

op cit,

Pastor Doug,

pp 62-67.

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