The violence that dare not speak its name

This post was brought to my attention 30 January 2016. It probably makes a more effective argument than the whole of the article below it. A professional emergency worker, who really doesn't like soccer, tells his truth about the relative behaviours of football crowds. And while I'm sure he has missed some unsavoury incidents at the soccer, his experience accords with mine.

Violence in Australian Rules Football Crowds

3rd Update May 2015. Previously updated May 2014

I thought I'd done with this. I thought that the media had got over its obsession with sokkah violence now that the ethnics had been evicted from the game. But after the A League Grand Final and the attempt by media to exaggerate if not invent violence I might be back on the horse. The thing that swayed me ultimately was the unreported (by the media) violence at the MCG yesterday during the game between Collingwood and Richmond while an almost wholly peaceful AAMI stadium was celebrating Victory's dominance over Sydney. 

Channel 7 in particular was seeking evidence of soccer violence by putting feelers out in twitter before moving on to questions about an under-age suburban game. Pathetic.

'Soccer hooligans' on the march to 2015 A League Grand Final, with helpful notes from 442

 

A cold night at the footy?

Adelaide fan helped out of Adelaide Oval by cheerful officers
after spilling red cordial on himself early in season 2015

 ____________________________

We are led to believe that violence in Australian rules crowds is unusual and random. Violent incidents are not seen to represent a significant or consistent pattern of behaviour. When they do occur they are interpreted as sitting outside the normal behaviour of spectators. In recent times there have been some incidents that have come to the notice of the media, often via their capture on mobile phones. Even allowing for the rise in their reporting, these examples seem to me to be exceptional. Yet the media perhaps goes one further and suggests that these incidents are so exceptional that they might as well have not happened. They are certainly not remembered as the basis of a pattern of behaviour cited the next time such violence might occur. Indeed, sometimes the violence is likened to what is supposed to happen at other sports.

Violent behaviour has occurred consistently for well over 100 years in Australian rules football crowds at the elite levels and below. From revolvers being fired by policemen frightened of unruly crowds to bashings on a collective or individual scale, footy crowd violence is infrequent but not as rare as some would have it.

In 1924 a frightened policeman was moved to fire his revolver in order to disperse a crowd at a Port Melbourne VFA game when a portion of the crowd had attacked him.

June 1924. While not typical, this is not a unique event.

And shortly after the Second World War spectator violence became a common theme in Melbourne newspapers. In 1946 the Argus reported a particularly nasty moment at Port Melbourne when a crowd incensed by the umpires needed to be broken up with the use of batons.

This phenomenon was reported around Australia. The Northern Miner, a newspaper that served the north Queensland mining town of Charters Towers, reported a rising tide of crowd violence in Melbourne in 1948.

Football Violence

Brawls in Melbourne

MELBOURNE, May 15.

Three brawls occurred during a football match between Port Melbourne and Williamstown at Port Melbourne today. Foot and mounted police escorted the umpire from the ground after the match. Two of the brawls. were between players, and one between spectators.

Just before the interval rough play developed into a free-for-all, involving nearly half the players. Trainers and a boundary umpire broke it up, while the remaining players continued the game. Another ugly scene followed a collision between two players. An umpire intervened.At the same time, some of the spectators began to fight They were quelled by police. Other examples of violence at Melbourne football in the past month have been:  

On April 17, detectives were bashed by a mob of 200 outside South Melbourne Cricket Ground. 

On April 24, police with batons, and a mounted constable, had to intervene to break up a brawl which developed in the outer ground during the last minutes of the Carlton-Fitzroy Victorian Football League game.  

On May 1. after Preston had beaten Prahran at the Australian Rules Association match at Prahran, police with batons had to protect Umpire J. Egan from 300 angry Prahran barrackers.

Oh for youtube in the 1920s and 1940s! Indeed, the youtube era has allowed us to see some fairly ugly moments up close. The brawl below is from a pre-season cup game at Docklands in 2009.

To be fair the police in this clip seem utterly incompetent, understaffed and unable to nip the escalating brawl in the bud.

This one from 2011 is more contained, being between two Hawthorn fans at Subiaco.

Ian Warren suggested nearly 20 years ago in 'Violence in Sport - The Australian context' that violence was a constant in Australian rules crowds even id the determinants of that violence changed over time.

In the first half of the Twentieth century it was often connected with fans taking umbrage at perceived player violence against other players.

Participant violence in Australian Rules persisted, but declined dramatically during this period [1940-1982]. In the years during and after the War several games were characterised by recurring violence among players which led to minor intrusions onto the arena by spectators.

Warren argued that there are historical phases of violence in footy crowds which map onto social developments. Since 1940 the tendency to mass violence has been effectively mitigated:

an increased and more systematic police presence at football venues meant that the nature of crowd disorder was mainly confined to minor incidents amongst the crowd itself.

The majority of on field instances were sporadic in nature and occurred with far less frequency than in previous times. Data collection is incomplete for this period, but it appears that of the 12,000 VFL and VFA games played during this time, only 10 were characterised by major participant and spectator disorder. Most of these occurred in a series of violent matches in 1945, where the VFL final series in particular saw a number of deliberate assaults being committed by players which "disgusted" members of the crowd (Argus, 1 October 1945).

Since the end of the war, isolated examples aside, footy violence has lost its sense of mass and/or collective disorder. Policing and crowd control methods as well as new social attitudes have tended to eliminate the possibility of older form of collective violent action. When violence does occur. the periodic, observed brutality has been of the short, sharp and isolated kind in the main - though when the lights went off at VFL Park in the mid-1990s the spectre of mass, anarchic disorder seemed clearly to be haunting the culture.

Interestingly, the commentators (the usual suspects) seem perhaps a little pleased that the punters could behave in such an anarchic manner. Perhaps this pleasure over a bit of large scale disobedience is a nostalgic hankering for the golden days of large scale brawls and riots at the footy.

Yet footy fans don't need the cover of darkness to reveal their nastier elements. Only a few years earlier, poor police preparation had been a significant factor in a particularly violent encounter between Collingwood and Essendon during which at least 20 "mini-brawls" erupted around the ground. A police spokesman referred to earlier violent games during the season but suggested that this was by far the worst.

Police 'not Ready For Footy Brawls'
Sue Hewitt
26 July 1992
Sunday Age

POLICE yesterday admitted they were unprepared for the brawls at Friday night's Collingwood-Essendon game that led to 180 people being evicted from the MCG and 11 arrests.

The police field commander, Senior Sergeant John Fraser, said yesterday that it was the worst violence he had seen at a match this year. He said he would be seeking to double police strength at MCG matches and would discuss with his superiors further restrictions on alcohol sold at the ground.

Fighting inside the ground started at 6.30 when four to five people brawled behind the eastern goals. Four police were injured. Police reported several other incidents, including a fight in the Keith Miller bar in the Great Southern Stand where, it was alleged, a broken glass was used.

More than 88,000 fans, the biggest crowd for a home-and-away game this season, watched Collingwood defeat Essendon by 22 points.

Senior Sergeant Fraser said there were times when he feared for the safety of the public and police. Twenty "mini-brawls'' erupted around the ground in areas normally trouble-free.

Seventy police were on duty to control a crowd that had been estimated would reach 70,000. They were unprepared for the 88,000 turnout, he said.

Senior Sergeant Fraser said there had been a few fights at the Collingwood-Carlton centennial match and at the first night game between North Melbourne and Carlton on 10 April, but Friday night's violence was worse.

The Opposition spokesman on police matters, Mr Pat McNamara, yesterday blamed a statewide police shortage for the problems.

The conclusion we can reach is that it is patently untrue that that Australian Rules Football is conducted in an atmosphere of universal, good-natured tolerance. Historically, footy crowds were as capable of unruliness, disruption and discontent as any other sports crowd.

The following examples are from recent crowd trouble in AFL, with one from South Australian local footy. When footy commentators reject the idea of violence at the footy they are in effect ignoring the pattern and significance of such moments of thuggery. But the ultimate truth is I suspect that many don't really have any problem with what is happening because these examples are 'appropriate' expressions of limited and controllable passion.

1) The following image is of a man who was bashed in the lift at the St Kilda-Richmond match at Etihad stadium in June 2012. It's the kind of image that points to the existence of behaviour that many footy commentators refuse to acknowledge. The fact that it happened in a lift speaks unintentionally of the invisibility of footy violence.

2) The following image is of a Carlton supporter who was bashed by Collingwood supporters outside the MCG in April 2011. The victim had admonished a group of men who were abusing some older spectators and was "brutally attacked from behind leaving him with extensive injuries including a broken jaw, several smashed teeth and temporary blindness in his right eye."

3) At the Port Pirie A Grade Grand Final in September 2012, umpire Paul Fitzgerald was "bashed and seriously injured in front of thousands of spectators during an A-Grade grand final." This incident reached its conclusion when the perpetrator was jailed for 7 months.

4) Collingwood supporters are unfairly characterised by many as being 'feral' and unruly. This video footage is from a game at the MCG when some Collingwood supporters turned on each other suggests that occasionally that reputation may have been justly earned.

5) Demon's player Nathan Jones' father bashed outside the MCG in 2009. 

From Herald Sun

There are many other examples that could be cited: the 12-year-old boy who was grabbed by the throat and abused by a grown man at the MCG in 2012; the woman who was punched in the face at the same venue two months earlier for having the temerity to ask a some supporters to tone down their language; the abuse from the crowd at Subiaco that led Geelong's Brian Cook to appeal for crowd control measures to be introduced; the 2007 brawl in the members at the MCG two weeks after a more extensive one at the same place; the Port Power fan left in a coma after his team played Collingwood in 2004. Forgive me for seeing a pattern here, while there will be many who still don't see it. 

Yet none of that which goes before should take away from the fact that there are a hell of a lot of footy spectators who don't cause trouble, 10s of thousands in fact. And it would be a mistake to tar all footy supporters with the brush of their game's thuggish moments. Is it too much to ask that that kind of consideration be extended to other sports and activities?

Note before previous update: Two more examples of the thing that doesn't happen: violence between or by AFL supporters -- this time after Collingwood's visit to Adelaide in 2014 and after the 2014 Collingwood v Carlton game at the MCG. My previous update was in September 2013 after the Carlton v Richmond Final. Just found this on youtube from 1993. Adelaide v Carlton at Waverley.

Hollandia (Mt. Isa)

Many thanks to Adam Muyt who has sent me these reports from Dutch Australian Weekly (DAW) along with his translations.

1955

12 May 1955

In Mount Isa
In de mijnstad Mount Isa, 1500 mijl noordwestelijk van Brisbane, neemt ook dit jaar Hollandia weer deel aan de competitie.
Hoewel er slechts 4 clubs zijn, is soccer zeer populair.
Hollandia wist de eerste wedstrijd met 4-0 te winnen van het vorig jaar zo sterke St Helens.
In de voorhoede waren de oud-Alcmaria Victrix speler Kramer en de oud Be Quick man B. Willemse de grote stuwkrachten.
Secretaris van Hollandia is P.Westwerick, C/- BSD Mess, Mt. Isa.

In Mount Isa
In the mining town of Mount Isa, 1,500 miles north-west of Brisbane, Hollandia are again participating in the competition.
Although there are only four clubs, soccer is very popular.
Hollandia won the first game 4-0 against last year's strong side St Helens.
At the forefront, former Alcmaria Victrix player Kramer, and the old Be Quick man, B. Willemse, were the major driving forces.
Secretary of Hollandia is P. Westwerick, C / - BSD Mess, Mt. Isa.


5 June 1955
Hollandia wint cup
Door de kampion van het vorig jaar, het sterke, Panonia met 4-2 te slaan, heeft Hollandia de Little John Gray Cup gewonnen.
De zeer snelle rechtsbuiten G.Ruigrok maakte 2 doelpunten, de oud-Be Quick man B.Willemse en A. Verbakel ieder een.

Hollandia wins cup
By beating the champions of last year, the strong Panonia, Hollandia has won the Little John Gray Cup, 4-2.
The very fast right winger G.Ruigrok made two goals, the old Be Quick man, B.Willemse, and A. Verbakel, one each.


1 July 1955
G. Ruygrok beste speler
Volgens de plaatselijke pers was de Hollandia speler G.Ruygrok uit Mount Isa de beste speler van het in Townsville gehouden interstedelijke voetbal tournooi voor noordelijk Queensland.
Mount Isa eindigde op de derde plaats.
Terug in Mount Isa wisten de Hollandia spelers revanche te nemen op de Scotties en hen met 4-2 te slaan, na eerst met 1-0 achter gestaan te hebben.
G. Ruygrok maakte 2 van de doelpunten, terwijl Romeijn en Roosmalen voor de andere twee zorgden.

G. Ruigrok best player
According to the local press, Hollandia player, G. Ruigrok, was Mount Isa's best player in the northern Queensland intercity soccer tournament held in Townsville.
Mount Isa finished in third place.
Back in Mount Isa Hollandia players took revenge on the Scotties and beat them 4-2 after it was 1-0 when they first played.
G. Ruigrok made two of the goals, while Romeijn and Roosmalen accounted for the other two.


29 July 1955
Hollandia wint cup
Na een puntloos gelijkspel tegen Panonia heeft Hollandia in de laatse competitie wedstrijd het sterke St Helens weten te slaan en heeft hiermede de Castle Steward Cup veroverd voor het meeste aantal punten uit de laatste 6 wedstrijden.
J. Roosmalen wist voor de rust het enige doelpunt te maken.

Hollandia wins cup
After a scoreless tie against Pannonia, Hollandia made inroads against the strong St Helens in the last league match and has herewith won the Castle Steward Cup for the most points out of the last six matches.
J. Roosmalen did the rest to make the only goal.


16 Sept 1955
Hollandia eindigde op tweede plaats
Hollandia is dit jaar op de tweede plaats in de Mount Isa competitie geeindigd.
Hoewel de laatse competitie wedstrijd in een 4-1 overwinning voor Hollandia eindigde, verspeelde deze club zijn kansen door in de voorlaatste wedstrijd met 2-1 van kampion Panonia te verliezen.
Gezien de betrekkelijk geringe keus van spelers uit de kleine uit Nederland afkomstige gemeenschap van de mijnstad Mount Isa is deze tweede plaats ongetwijfeld eervol.
Hollandia is namelijk het enige team, dat geheel uit immigranten uit een enkel land samengesteld is.

Hollandia finished in second place
Hollandia has finished in second place in the Mount Isa competition just ended.
Although the last league match ended in a 4-1 victory for Hollandia, the club lost its chances by losing in the final match 2-1 to the champions Panonia.
Given the number of players from the small Netherlands community in the mining town of Mount Isa, this second place is undoubtedly honourable.
Hollandia is in fact the only team that is composed entirely of immigrants from a single country.

1956

20 April 1956

In Mount Isa
Ook dit jaar doet Hollandia weer mee aan de soccer competitie in de mijnstad Mount Isa in Queensland.
Zes clubs nemen dit maal aan de competitie deel.
Hollandia heeft dit jaar de beschikking over een nieuw en beter speelveld.

Mount Isa
Also this year Hollandia returns to the soccer league in the mining town of Mount Isa in Queensland.
Six clubs are in the competition this year.
Hollandia this year has access to a new and better playing field.

Note: no further reports for Hollandia appear in DAW for 1956. In light of above report, this is unusual, particularly as the paper provides good coverage of all Dutch soccer teams across Australia each week. However, Hollandia was playing in Mt Isa in 1954 and DAW made no mention of this. DAW coverage only began in 1955.

Perhaps Hollandia didn't end up taking the field in 1956?

The lies they tell for the VFL: or taking a proper gander at English soccer

This was originally written and published by Athas Zafiris on Shoot Farken as How Melbourne Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Soccer (well almost). Typically temperate and balanced, Athas's headline does not capture the angst and anger of the debate; hence my new headline.

Perhaps only in Melbourne does a brooding, hidebound and monolithic structure of feeling dominate, where other codes are sometimes humoured and usually dismissed as inferior. 

 – Ian Syson, 

Not many cities in the world can claim to have invented a football code, a code that becomes intrinsic to a city’s cultural and political life. This happened in Melbourne, and as a result, it has over the years manifested expressions of hubris, parochialism and protectionism.

Melbourne in the years after World War 2 was undergoing a massive transformation. It would result in the city becoming one of the most multicultural metropolises in the world. With mass migration came a wave of people who were brought up on another code of football, a British game that had been played on the green fields of Melbourne since the 1880s that went by the name of Soccer. New soccer teams were being formed by migrants and, on a local government level, a turf war was being waged to secure grounds.

To Melbourne’s establishment, this human wave represented a threat to not only Australian Rules football, but also, astonishingly, according to news reports from the time, to a way of life. Sublimating the “Red Menace” Cold War paranoia of the time for its own ends, the sporting public of Melbourne were constantly reminded of the “Soccer Menace” and its inherently inferior nature. And if that reminder was served to you by a highly esteemed member of the Melbourne football establishment, then all the better. He travelled overseas to watch the professional expression of the game, he pronounced judgement, he made up your mind.

In 1950s Melbourne, Frank “Checker” Hughes was a sporting icon. A war veteran and two-time premiership player with Richmond (1920-21), Hughes coached Richmond to a premiership in 1932 and then made the move to the Melbourne Football Club. At the time, they were known as not so formidable “Fuschias”.

“You are playing like a lot of flowers. Lift your heads and play like demons!” – “Checker” Hughes

The Melbourne Fuschias became the Melbourne Demons and Hughes coached them to four VFL premierships. He also coached Norm Smith and then mentored him when he became coach of Melbourne. Norm Smith became the most successful coach in VFL history with six premierships. Hughes helped turn Melbourne, the club of establishment, the original Australian Rules football club, the only club that called the MCG home, into a powerhouse.

On September 27, 1952, Melbourne’s Sporting Globe led with the following headline.

“Checker” Hughes, former famous Victorian and Melbourne football coach, just back from a tour overseas, says: …SOCCER NO THREAT TO AUSSIE GAMEI came up with the following words to describe what you are about to read: inexpert, misleading, ignorant, disrespectful, graceless. Here it is in its entirety.
By “CHECKER” HUGHESAustralian football in Victoria has little to fear from the opposition of soccer. I am making that statement deliberately after having studied soccer in England, among the top line clubs. Soccer lacks what the Victorian fan demands.If the best roster match of the English programme were to be played on the MCG each Saturday it, would attract a crowd, from curiosity, the first day. After the novelty wore off it would be played to empty stands. Attendances would tumble to zero.Even the best soccer lacks the thrills of Australian football, and I take it the best soccer is played between the clubs in England. Soccer lacks the fullblooded excitement that Victorians have been educated to expect by their long association with the Australian code.There’s little of that fast-moving excitement as big men throw in their all to save a desperate position. It lacks the scintillating dashes, seen as a defence breaks free and tears down field, or a wingman tears away.The cleverness of the Australian footballer in disposing of the ball is not surpassed by anything soccer has to offer. The pace at which we handle the ball is amazing.I saw the best ball control soccer has to offer in the Cup semi-final last season. Again, this season, I took a second look. No—the Australian is cleverer and has been educated to expect something with more of the nerve tingle to it.As a coach I went to see the training methods of the teams in England. I had an open mind. I thought I might learn something. I arrived at the conclusion that the average soccer player in England is not physically fit by Australian standards.They practise for hours ball control and heading, dribbling and slamming at the net but it is done at no speed. In fact, a player would not run 100 yards flat-out in the whole of his training week. There was none of the hard stamina-building work the Australian footballer has to do.Maurie Fleming, Richmond secretary, and my son Frank, who had a game or two with Richmond, went with me to watch Arsenal train. Arsenal are a top-rating team. We all came away with the impression that not one player would stand up to a half of a League game in Melbourne.But what did impress me were the appointments at Arsenal headquarters. We can learn a lot about club rooms from these big English clubs. They have their own laundry and dining rooms for players. They all have duplicate sets of uniforms ready for a change at half-time.To see a game one has to pay 12/6 to the grandstand. But this guarantees a reserved seat. It’s yours for the afternoon. It costs a big English team some £40.000 for a season. The average team manager gets about £1300 a year. Some are more highly paid.

I was able to find two letters of response published in the Sporting Globe which endeavoured to set the record straight and highlight the wilful ignorance and delinquency of this coaching legend.

Soccer Fan of St.Kilda wrote,

Mr “Checker” Hughes’ report and impressions of soccer during his visit to England has been widely read and discussed by thousands of enthusiastic soccer fans throughout Victoria and I suggest that, as one born and reared in the Australian code, his mind might not have been so open as he states when he made remarks which, we believe, were not tactful.Surely Mr Hughes does not believe that millions of followers of the English code are all wrong in their adherence to that sport, and that practically every country that has adopted the game cannot see any merit in the game. Even those countries who for many years patronised bull fighting have adopted soccer as a national game.During recent months some football writers have sounded a note of warning that the code would encroach upon the Australian game, but football authorities just say “It can’t happen here.”

Mr. W. Mundie, of South Oakleigh wrote,

The article by “Checker” Hughes is remarkable, not so much for what it tells, but for the facts it fails to reveal. For instance. Mr Hughes states a Soccer player would not run 100 yards flat out in the whole of a training week, but he forgets to mention the fact that first-class Soccer clubs in England play over forty home and away games in a season, which means they often have two hard competition matches in one week.On top of this, teams play in hard knock-out cup competitions, and if they are good enough to reach the cup finals would play at least fifty hard competitive matches in a season. Compare this with the 18 home and away matches played by teams in the VFL and it can be easily seen which players, Aussie Rules or Soccer, require the harder training.The weekly attendance at Soccer games in Britain is proof of the code’s appeal to the sporting public, and the fact that between 30,000 and 40,000 Scots travel the hundreds of miles to Wembley to support their country against England in international competitions needs no further comment.

In the course of executing a propaganda offensive against an imminent threat, a prominent figure of the Melbourne football establishment scraped the bottom of barrel to reassure Melbourne’s hoi polloi of the superiority of the local game.

Frank “Checker” Hughes was not alone. He had powerful allies to fight this war. Not only from the Melbourne Football Club, but also from business and political circles.

One such figure to make his thoughts known was the legendary football administrator, Percy Page. As secretary of Melbourne FC he was instrumental in bringing Hughes across from Richmond and with him transformed a team of “lilywhites” into a team to be feared. He then became honorary secretary to the Australian National Football Council, an early forerunner to the AFL Commission.

Upon watching the 1954 FA Cup Final in England he reassuringly told the readers of the Sporting Globe.

On the field, soccer can teach Australian football nothing, but in administration we can learn ‘heaps’ and we’ve got to learn it.I left the Wembley Stadium after seeing the FA Cup Final between Preston North End and West Bromwich Albion satisfied that as a spectacle the game is dull and lifeless. The players with the sole exception of the full-back is more artist than athlete.

The Victorian government went in to bat to maintain the precious Australian Rules way of life and assuage concerns of the soccer takeover. In March 1954, the Labour Minister of Education, Ernie Shepherd, made an extraordinary appearance in the Sporting Globe with Albert Chadwick, President of Melbourne FC.

SOCCER was no menace to Australian Rules the State Minister of Education and leading football officials said this week. They stressed, however, the need for co-ordination in control of Australian football in Victoria. The Minister for Education, Mr. Erm Shepherd, said — “There are 300,000 scholars in Victorian Primary Schools. I’d say 98 per cent, of them are rabidly Australian Football minded. The boys play. The girls barrack.”Melbourne Football Club president, Mr. Bert Chadwick, said — “Soccer a menace — never in your life. Australian Football has it all over soccer or any other football game as a crowd pleaser. That’s where the final showdown comes — over the turnstiles. The game that has what the crowd loves, holds the crowd.Mr. Chadwick, who holds high executive position in the Melbourne business world, sees football through the eyes of executive efficiency. As a former Victorian captain he knows also the power behind a united team. “I do not want to belittle soccer. It’s a wonderful game, highly scientific and well organised. In fact, in some respects soccer can show us points in national organisation. But soccer just hasn’t got what it takes. It will get a tremendous boost from migration and I’m not unmindful that we are absorbing 30,000 annually in the metropolis. The day comes, however, when the migrant is absorbed into the community’s fashions. However, there is an immediate danger in the possibility of soccer outbidding our code for grounds.”

Albert Chadwick went on to become Chairman of the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria. In 1965 he became President of the Melbourne Cricket Club, a post he held until 1979. In 1974 he was knighted and became Sir Albert.

A powerful nexus of sporting, business and political interests getting together to fight a common enemy and preserve a way of life. Sixty years later it all looks like much ado about nothing. Civilization didn’t collapse. Times have changed. The utterances of “Checker” Hughes and Percy Page would be subject to ridicule if made by an AFL coach or executive today. But they haven’t disappeared altogether, even in this post-Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters era. Because Melbourne’s Australian Rules football exceptionalism is a hardy creature, and next to the cockroach, is the second most likely thing to survive a nuclear war.

“After the novelty wore off it would be played to empty stands. Attendances would tumble to zero.” –Frank “Checker” Hughes

Beach Collection

I don't usually write or discuss poetry on this blog, but here's something I'm pleased with that I wrote yesterday. The bulk of the poem is Kenneth Slessor's 'Beach Burial' (probably 80 per cent) but I have modified it to fit current circumstances. The original was about sailor deaths at the battle of El Alamein in ww2.

Beach Collection
(With apologies to Kenneth Slessor)

Softly and humbly to the Edge of Europe
The convoys of dead Syrians come;
At night they sway and wander in the waters far under,
But morning rolls them in the foam.

Beneath the sombre pathos of the rhetoric
Someone, it seems, has time for this,
To pluck them from the shallows and lie them on a blanket
To clean the sand from their nakedness; 

And each death certificate, the driven prerogative of bureaucratic finality,
Bears the last signature of men,
Written with such perplexity, with such bewildered pity,
The words choke as they begin – 

‘Unknown refugee’ – the ghostly pencil
Wavers and fades, the purple drips,
The cold of impending autumn has turned their inscriptions
As blue as drowned men’s lips, 

Dead refugees, gone in search of the same landfall,
Whether as Christians or Muslims,
Or, God forbid, atheists; the sand joins them together,
In a waiting room for some kind of heaven.

Putting AFL Cultural Diversity on the Table

Current AFL Players with a Multicultural Background

The table below is taken directly from the AFL's community website. It purports to show the diverse nature of AFL participation. I think it does just the opposite. Leaving aside the utter stupidity of creating two kinds of people: multicutural and (presumably) monocultural, the table indicates to me the paucity of diversity in AFL ranks. 

As a number of correspondents have noted, the table is poorly constructed -- and may even undersell AFL's diversity credentials by failing to pick up some relevant players.

Rather than 'multicultural' the AFL needs to use a different term to cover players whose ancestry is non-Anglo-Saxon, Anglo Celtic, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (NASACATSI). The difficulty of coming up with accurate terminology is discussed by the Multicultural NSW website.

It is worth noting that some players in the table below are either not NASACATSI or are borderline. 

• Those born in Australian with one parent born in Australia and the other in a commonwealth country or USA
• Those born in Australia with both parents born in an anglophone country 
• Those born overseas to Australian parents

These 47 players I have ruled out because it is just silly to include them. That leaves 47 on the list.

Other players are:

• Those born overseas to non-Australian anglophone parents
• Those born in Australia (or overseas when their parents were playing/working/coaching in the short term) with one parent born in Australia and the other in a non-anglophone country
• Those born in Australia with both parents born in a non-anglophone country 
• Some adult recruits from other sports (these are bolded in red)

These 38 players fall into a category of possibly-to-probably having NASACATSI elements to their background. I have left them as plain text.

The final grouping is those with clear NASACATSI heritage. These I have bolded in blue. These are 14 players out of a total player pool of 811.

Please feel free to challenge and correct any assumption I have made.

Responses 
Much maligned arwon @Arwon has made the point that I had mistakenly given Australian parents to some of the adult OS recruits. This either has been corrected or is in the process of being fixed. He also felt that this should represent its own category. 

		Country of Birth
Player Name		Born overseas	Country	Parent/s born overseas	Mother	Father
Adelaide
Brodie	Smith	No		Yes	England	Scotland
Nathan	Van Berlo	No		Yes	New Zealand	New Zealand
Brisbane
Mitchell	Golby	No		Yes		England
Pearce	Hanley	Yes	England	Yes	Wales	Ireland
Cian	Hanley	Yes	Ireland		Wales	Ireland
Ryan	Harwood	No		Yes	England
Ryan	Lester	No		Yes	England	South Africa
Matthew	Leuenberger	No		Yes		Switzerland
Jordan	Bourke	No		Yes	England
Dayne	Zorko	No		Yes		Yugoslavia
Carlton
Zach	Tuohy	Yes	Ireland	Yes	Ireland	Ireland
Sam	Docherty	No		Yes		Scotland
Ciaran	Byrne	Yes	Ireland	Yes	Ireland	Ireland
Ciaran	Sheehan	Yes	Ireland	Yes	Ireland	Ireland
Matthew	Dick	Yes	Scotland	Yes		Scotland
Collingwood
Tim	Broomhead	No		Yes		England
Mason	Cox	Yes	USA		USA	USA
Nathan	Freeman	No		Yes	Fiji	Fiji
Steele	Sidebottom	No		Yes	England
Marley	Williams	No		Yes		New Zealand
Essendon
David	Zaharakis	No		Yes		Greece
Mark	Baguley	No		Yes	England
James	Gwilt	No		Yes	PNG	Wales
Conor	McKenna	Yes	Ireland
Fremantle
Zachary	Clarke	No		Yes		USA
Sean	Hurley	Yes	Ireland		Ireland	Ireland
Garrick	Ibbotson	No		Yes	England
Chris	Mayne	No		Yes		England
Tendai	Mzungu	No		Yes		Zimbabwe
Alex	Silvagni	No		Yes	India
Hayden	Crozier	No		Yes		Sri Lanka
Anthony	Morabito	No		Yes	Italy
Geelong
Billie	Smedts	No		Yes	England	Holland
Jarrad	Jansen	Yes	NZ	Yes	NZ	NZ
Padraig	Lucey	Yes	Ireland		Ireland	Ireland
Gold Coast
Tom	Nicholls	No		Yes	Fiji
Danny	Stanley	No		Yes	England
Aaron	Hall	No		Yes	Fiji
Daniel	Gorringe	No		Yes	Yugoslavia	England
David	Swallow	No		Yes	Netherlands	England
Nick	Malceski	No		Yes		Macedonia
GWS Giants
Phil	Davis	No		Yes		England
Lachie	Whitfield	No		Yes		England
Rhys	Palmer	No		Yes		Scotland
Stephen	Coniglio	No		Yes	England
Hawthorn
Josh	Gibson	No		Yes		West Indies
David	Hale	No		Yes	Holland
Alex	Woodard	No		Yes	Phillipines
Sam	Mitchell	No		Yes		New Zealand
Paul	Puoplo	No		Yes		Italy
Liam	Shiels	No		Yes		Ireland
Shem-Kalvin	Tatupu	Yes	NZ	Yes	NZ	NZ
Kurt	Heatherly	Yes	NZ	Yes	NZ	NZ
Melbourne
Max	Gawn	No		Yes	New Zealand	New Zealand
Jack	Watts	No		Yes	England	England
Christian	Salem	No		Yes	Lebanon	Lebanon
Heritier (Harry)	O'Brien	Yes	Brazil	Yes	Brazil	Democratic Republic of Congo
Nth Melb
Majak	Daw	Yes	Sudan Khartoum	Yes	South Sudan	South Sudan
Michael	Firrito	No		Yes	Italy	Italy
Andrew	Swallow	No		Yes		England
Eric	Wallace	Yes	USA		USA	USA
Port Adelaide
Alipate	Carlile	Yes	Fiji	Yes	Fiji
Daniel	Flynn	Yes	Ireland	Yes	Ireland	Ireland
Cameron	O'Shea	No		Yes		Ireland
Jasper	Pittard	No		Yes	New Zealand
Paul	Stewart	No		Yes		Scotland
Mason	Shaw	No		Yes	England	Scotland
Oliver	Wines	No		Yes	PNG
Aaron	Young	No		Yes	England	Scotland
Richmond
Jake	Batchelor	No		Yes	Wales
Reece	Conca	No		Yes		Italy
Nick	Vlastuin	No		Yes		PNG
Matthew	McDonough	No		Yes	England
Bachar	Houli	No		Yes	Lebanon	Lebanon
Ivan	Maric	No		Yes	Croatia	Croatia
Shaun	Hampson	No		Yes		England
Matthew	Thomas	No		Yes	Seychelles
St Kilda
Farren	Ray	No		Yes	England
Nick	Riewoldt	No		Yes		Germany
Shane	Savage	Yes	NZ	Yes	Pakeha	Maori
Jason	Holmes	Yes	USA		USA	USA
Cameron	Shenton	No		Yes	England
Sydney
Heath	Grundy	No		Yes	New Zealand
Jarrad	McVeigh	No		Yes		England
Dane	Rampe	No		Yes		Germany
Brandon	Jack	Yes	England	No
Michael	Pyke	Yes	Canada	No	Canada	Canada
Aliir	Aliir	No		Yes	Sudan	Sudan
Zac	Jones	No		Yes	Ireland	Ireland
West Coast
Patrick	Brophy	Yes	Ireland
Jack	Darling	No		Yes		South Africa
Nicholas	Naitanui	No		Yes	Fiji	Fiji
Brant	Colledge	Yes	France	No
Western Bulldogs
Jason	Johannissen	Yes	South Africa	Yes	Zambia	South Africa
Alex	Greenwood	No		Yes	Phillipines
Lin	Jong	No		Yes	Taiwan	East Timor
Nathan	Hrovat	No		Yes		Croatia
Daniel	Pearce	Yes	New Zealand	Yes	Holland	New Zealand
Tom	Boyd	No		Yes	Denmark	Australian