One of the terms I have used and tried to make popular is soccerphobia, simply the fear of association football. However, the causes and manifestions of this fear are not so simple; they are manifold and complex.
Issues of class, religion, masculinity, sexuality, identity and culture are all involved.
One of the avenues I have thought about taking is the connection between Irish nationalism and sections of Australian identity. We can see parallels between the ways in which Gaelic games and Australian Rules argue for their cultural centrality and superiority over 'foreign games' like soccer and rugby. But it would probably be a mistake to assume a causal link between the two.
A few IYKYH episodes ago we saw an argument from a Catholic paper in Adelaide that soccer wasn't really an Irish game and the Irish team was Irish in name only.
What interests me primarily is the fact that the Irish rejection of British games is widely reported in Australia, especially during the 1930s. I guess it's newsworthy when the GAA is annoyed by De Valera meeting members of the Jugoslav soccer team in 1937, but why is it considered so interesting as to be published in dozens of newspapers around Australia?
The following is a 1906 assertion of the Irish rejection of foreign games reported in a Catholic newspaper in Melbourne. It's worth remembering that during this time Australian rules is beginning to get its own nationalist propaganda in order.
Advocate (Melbourne), Saturday 6 January 1906, page 14
Great Caman Parade in Donegal.
LETTER FROM PATRICK O'DONNELL, " Bishop of Raphoe "
Speakers delivered stirring addresses on National duty. The resolutions, adopted with enthusiasm, were:— "Resolved—That as men we shall have done with drink and dissension, as men we shall reject the games of our oppressor, as men we shall not serve our oppressor, as men we shall not bend our will to our oppressor, as men we shall break the rule of our oppressor."
"And that as Irishmen we shall play Irish games, as Irishmen we shall dance Irish dances, as Irishmen we shall cherish Irish customs, as Irishmen we shall buy Irish goods as, Irishmen we shall learn the Irish language, as Irishmen we shall, by noble example, compel respect for Ireland; as Irishmen we shall think for Ireland, work for Ireland; as Irishmen our aim shall ever be a free Ireland."
In 1910, the Melbourne University sport union, using the rhetoric of 'foreign game' refused to allow the Rugby team into the blue system.
However. It's important to remember that this is not a universal opinion. Some athletic bodies were still keen to play international games. Another Catholic paper reported in 1924 on
Southern Cross (Adelaide), Thursday 24 April 1924, page 2
Irish News by Mail.
BAN ON "FOREIGN" GAMES.
Various athletic associations all over Ireland have passed resolutions to delete Rules 9 and 10 from the official guide of the G.A.A., which put a ban on Rugby and Soccer in the athletic arena. On February 15 the University College Hurling and Football Club (Dublin), by a yote of 37 to 9, decided against the ban, although its continuance was vigorously upheld by the president, the Rev. Dr. T. J. Corcoran, S.J., who seemed to regard the ban as "a fundamental principle of nationhood."
Nonetheless the anti-English position is largely adopted around Ireland as the foreign games start to falter and Gaelic games rise to prominence. In a review of Michael Collins' biography we are reminded that the influential revolutionary saw sport as a vehicle of politics and ideology.
Argus, Saturday 10 September 1927, page 7
MICHAEL COLLINS.
AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY.
"Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, " by Piaras Beaslai (Pierce Beasley ) (London: Harrap; Melbourne: Spencer), is written by one who was a major-general in the Sinn Fein army, an intimate friend of Collins and his senior in the inner councils of the most extreme section of the party. Michael Collins was the eighth and youngest child of a farmer of West Cork, evidently a man of unusual education and intellectual vitality. At the age of 4 1 /2 years, Collins imbibed from his first schoolmaster, a Fenian named Lyons, his hatred of England as the oppressor. Later he became intensely enthusiastic for a Gaelic Ireland, though he could not speak Irish. In boyhood we find him thundering against the clergy for their opposition to physical force, writing a paper to prove that the Great Famine was caused by the English, and as a young clerk in London splitting a league of Irish athletic clubs to uphold the rule expelling all who played the "soccer" of the alien.
In 1925, we are reminded by the Melbourne Weekly times
Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 25 April 1925, page 10
SPORTING
Frank Dempsey, the Victorian jockey, who has been so successful since his arrival in England, is suffering from influenza, and is confined to his bed at the Royal Station Hotel at York. He contracted the complaint while staying at Catterick Bridge for the races. The Gaelic Athletic Association of Dublin has decided by an overwhelming majority to retain the rules suspending from membership any athlete playing, or encouraging the playing of hockey, cricket, rugby and soccer, and participating in dances or entertainments under the patronage of British soldiers, sailors and police. Members of the association who patronise "foreign" games will be suspended for three months every time they watch them.
1931: Irish parliament passed a motion that gave other sports the same tax free status as Gaelic and perhaps this helps things shift. But what we see in the Australian papers is a substantial focus on this period.
Now we get into shenanigans
Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, Friday 16 June 1933, page 13
Irish Football.
ANIMUS AGAINST RUGBY. Dance Band Waylaid. -
A night of adventure awaited a dance band from Cork which went, to play at a Rugby football dance in County Kerry says the Cork correspondent of the London 'Times'.)
COUNTY KERRY has been a great centre for Gaelic football and until recently Rugby had not been played there. However, in the past few years Rugby has made great strides, and among Ihe followers of the Gaelic code it is known as a for eign game, and no player of Gaelic is allowed to play it or even look at it. In order to encourage the game in Kerry, two Rugby sides were arranged, one repesenting Leinster and the other representing Minister, and played a game in Tralee. Some of the most prominent internationals in Ire land look part. After the match a dance was arranged. Pat Crowley's band from Cork was to have played. When the band was six or seven miles from Tralee in their taxicab a man stood out on the road and beck-oned for a lift. The driver was going to pass on. but the man look up a position so that the car had to stop or run him down. When the car slowed down he produced a revolver, and a number of men who were concealed in the ditch rushed out and surrounded the car. Some of them got in and ordered the driver to drive back towards Cork.
When they reached Farranfore, seven miles back, they made the captive musicians get out and march into a farm-house. There they were told that no harm would come to them, but they would not be allowed to play at the dance that night. They were also informed that their car and instru ments would be returned to them after a few hours, and the men drove away in the car with the instruments. In vain the band waited for their return, and when morning broke they decided to set out on foot for Tralee. They arrived in the town after their long walk of nearly 11 miles and re ported their case to the Civic Guards. A search was made and the car was found hidden in a shrubbery outside the town, but no arrests have been made. The men who carried out the raid were unsuccessful in their efforts to stop the dance, for after waiting in vain for the dance band to turn up some of the people present formed a band of their own with borrowed in struments.
Western Star and Roma Advertiser, Saturday 25 November 1933, page 3
SPORTING.
Because Rugby football is regarded as a foreign game in the West of Ireland, players arriving at their first Rugby match at Kilrush, County Clare, found the ground covered with broken glass and the goal posts cut to pieces. The players cleared the ground and erected new posts, and the game proceeded.
[also reported in Cairns and around country queensland. Also Perth and Adelaide]
Australasian (Melbourne), Saturday 3 April 1937, page 10
FROM OVERSEAS
SOCCER "A FOREIGN GAME" IN IRELAND.
The Gaelic Football Board entered strong protests when Mr. deValera received representatives of the Jugoslav football team, on the ground, that soccer is a "foreign game," which, Mr. de Valera has always stated, should be boycotted.
De Valera was a prominent potician who particpated in the Easter Rising but was saved from execution by his American birthright. He became both head of government and head of state in turn. As is implied, his position shifts from hard liner to liberalisation
Advocate (Melbourne), Wednesday 16 October 1946, page 27
DUBLIN, October 3.
From Our Dublin Correspondent
MR. DE VALERA SMILES Some of our ultra-enthusiastic Gaels regard Soccer, Rugby, Cricket, and Hockey as "foreign games" and preach that no patriot should recognise them. But President O'Kelly went to this "foreign" football match and shook hands with both teams. And Mr. de Valera received the English team at the Dail and was photographed cracking a joke with one of the players. Mr. deValera usually looks very serious in his photographs, but in this one he is obviously laughing uproariously. Both national anthems were played at the match, and both the Union Jack and the Tricolour were flown. It is hard to see how any game which brings nations together in friendly rivalry can be described as "foreign," but some of our more bigoted Gaels still believe that in playing English games we are being false to our best traditions. But the bulk of our people think that the ban on so-called "foreign" games—most of which are now international—is a foolish and petty anachronism, and it is fairly clear now that President O'Kelly and Mr. de Valera think with them. The joke that made Mr. de Valera laugh, however, is still a diplomatic secret.
But still we have the hangover. Here is an objection to the broadcast of the FA cup in Ireland which receives a similar echo of complaint in Australia in the 1960s
Mercury, Wednesday 17 March 1954, page 12
Object To Soccer Broadcast
Australian Associated Press
DUBLIN, Tues. - A St. Patrick's Day broadcast to irishmen overseas has been cancelled because partisans of two rugged Irish sports -Gaelic football and hurling - have protested at the inclusion of a commentary on the "alien and imperialist" game of association football.
Radio Eireann's plan to include the soccer commentary was denounced by the president of the Gaelic Athletic. Association (Mr. M. V. O'Donoghue) as an insult to the nation and "a cunning attempt to give an imperialist game a national complexion."
Radio Eireann planned to switch to a short description of a soccer match during the interval in a commentary on a hurling cup final at Croke Park,
Dublin.
Two questions:
- why so much press interest in Irish intolerance of foreign or international sport?
- does this coverage do ideological work in Australia?
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