SPORTS POLITICS

‘PRECIOUS,’ BOOFHEADS AND REAL RACISTS 

Adam Goodes is a goose and some of his overheated supporters are even worse.

According to journalist Ruby Hamad, the Goodes on-field dance of defiance was an exhilarating act in protest against ‘relentless racism.’ Oh, please, give us a rest from the race polemics.

‘Precious’ (Goodes) is disliked because he appears to many ordinary Australians, as one AFL supporter described, “as someone with a permanent chip on his shoulder and a carrot up his arse.”

Well, the description is as colourful as Goodes is precious. In the long run it does not really matter whether you see Goodes as a defiant warrior or a candidate for the John Cleese Ministry of Silly Walks award.

But to compound the madness the NSW Legislative Council passed a motion of censure on Collingwood Football Club president, Eddie McGuire, for his rather moderate criticism of ‘Precious.’

McGuire, commentating, said at half time: “we haven’t seen that before and frankly I don’t think we want to see it again.” This was a measured opinion that people could either agree with or disagree, without rancour.

Perhaps it was appropriate that a Greens MLC, introduced the ‘boofhead’ motion into the plush red Upper House chamber of the NSW Parliament.

Yes, the word ‘boofhead’ was deemed parliamentary in describing McGuire which clearly shows the level to which the NSW Parliament has descended, namely into the gutter, a place where the Greens normally reside.

The parliamentary motion read:

 That this House condemns Eddie MacGuire (sic), the President of the Collingwood Football Club for: a) His comments that ‘‘this is a made up dance, this is not something that has been going for years,’’ and

b) for being a continual boofhead.

Well, the Greens ‘boofhead’ who moved it, Jeremy Buckingham MLC, despite claiming to be a Collingwood supporter, cannot even get the spelling of his club president correct. As for being a ‘continual boofhead’ the Greens should know as they have had long experience of being just that in various parliaments.

‘Eddie Everything,’ as McGuire is known, was perfectly correct in stating that the ‘Goodes jig’ was a made up dance with no long tradition. You do not need to be a member of God’s elect (Hawthorn FC and West Perth FC) to appreciate that fact!

Australians instinctively dislike people pushing their own barrow, or who they perceive as having a ‘chip on the shoulder.’ Goodes did himself great harm when he made another ‘song and dance,’ over some 13 year old female Collingwood supporter who called him an ‘ape.’

Goodes on that occasion, in 2013, actually stopped the game and pointed the girl out, to security. Was that really necessary? Goodes is a grown man, he should be ignoring comments from juveniles, in the crowd.

He has further alienated people by calling Australia Day, ‘Invasion Day.’ That is why he was poorly regarded as Australian of the Year, last year. He was seen by many as a 'politically correct' choice.

However, make no mistake, racism in sport has been real in the past and continues today.

Take Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer and Bill Dempsey, two of the all time greats of Football.

Farmer played for East Perth, Geelong and West Perth-a premiership player at all three clubs. In his last four years as captain-coach of the Cardinals (1968-71) he took West Perth to premierships in both his second and final year.

Dempsey played all of his football at West Perth and was a three time premiership player in his 343 games in the cardinal red and blue colours.

Those two fine Aboriginal footballers were truly subjected to vicious racist taunts, and sledging, yet never ‘batted an eyelid.’ One of the worst perpetrators was Jack Clarke, of East Fremantle, who in later life sought Farmer out and apologised for his offensive language, when they were on-field opponents.

Because they ignored the contemptible attacks on them both Farmer and Dempsey are still held in great esteem- and it is why Goodes, because he is seen as a petulant moaner with a chip on his shoulder, will never be similarly regarded.

Ironically, racism is colour blind and impacts on blacks and whites.

The great South African Springbok sides (Proteas, today) of 1963-70 are a case in point.

In that era only whites could be considered for selection in the national side. However, by the time the Apartheid Policy of the South African Government pushed the cricket side into isolation for a generation, in 1970, they were clearly the best side in the world.

This writer was a schoolboy when ‘Captain Decent,’ Trevor Goddard, brought his young side across the Indian Ocean in the summer of 1963-4. (Goddard was all class and would later became a personal friend).

In that distant Australian summer the Springboks shared the series with Australia 1-1 with three draws. The South Africans generally had the best of the drawn matches.

In 1966-7, at home, the ‘Boks won the series 3-1-1, the first time they had beaten Australia in a series.

In 1970 the ‘Boks smashed Australia 4-0 in a four test series, and this writer was in the RSA for the first three Tests.

Trevor Goddard, then 39, had his last hurrah in the Third Test at Wanderers,  and the great all rounder took his third wicket of the innings with what was the last ball of the Third Test –having Alan Connolly caught in the deep by Barry Richards.

In the second Test at Durban I have never forgotten Graeme Pollock (274) and Barry Richards (140) simply destroying Australia. After Bradman these two were surely the best Test batsmen, in a side that had many other greats: Barlow, Bacher (capt), Irvine, Peter Pollock, Gamsy, Lance, Lindsay, Proctor, Traicos.

It was the best Test side this writer has seen but international politics saw them, subsequently excluded, until 1992.

What made South Africa an international pariah, in the first place, was its apartheid policies and celebrated sporting cases such as cricketer, Basil D’Oliveria.

Dolly, as the talented all-rounder was known, was a Cape Coloured who had to migrate to England to pursue his career as a professional cricketer. D’Oliveria was picked to represent England, against South Africa, in 1968. However, the Vorster Government (1966-78) played into the hands of its critics by denying Dolly entry to return to the country of his birth.

The snowball effect then saw an intensive trade, sport, and disinvestment boycotts against the RSA.

With the accession of the reformist president, FW de Klerk (President 1989-94), South Africa re-surfaced in international competition and in May 1994 Nelson Mandela became the first black president of the Rainbow Nation, serving for five years.

Mandela, loved cricket, and his first question to a former Australian PM, Malcolm Fraser, during the latter’s visit to see him when he was in Pollsmoor Prison (1986), was , “ is Don Bradman still alive?”

Fraser assured him, the world’s greatest political prisoner, that the world’s greatest ever batsman was indeed still alive. Later Fraser presented Mandela with a bat signed by The Don. It read: “To Nelson Mandela in recognition of a great unfinished innings.”

 Bradman (1908-2001) lived to see his words fulfilled with Mandela, after release, serving a full five years as RSA president (1994-99).

 However, the super former SA cricket stars became reviled by the new black Cricket establishment and it is worth looking at how they have been treated in post-Apartheid South Africa.

The 1970 side is not only regarded as the best South African side ever but also close to one of the all time great Test sides.

You would expect such players to still be honoured mightily. The reverse was the case, particularly from 2000, when the new chief of Cricket South Africa, Gerald Majola, was the chief tormentor of them.

Ultimately Majola was sacked by Cricket South Africa (19 October 2012) for failing to disclose unpaid bonuses, misuse of a travel allowance and lying. He was to SA Cricket what Robespierre was to the French Revolution. His reign saw strife, fear, loathing and division. His own detestation of the pre-1971 players simply stemmed from the fact they were white. Their 'crime' was simply that they had the unfortunate experience to play during the long reign of the white Nationalist Government (1948-94).

It was a classic case of reverse racism.

Majola made sure that former white players were snubbed in many ways including:

*ensuring privileges to ex-players and their wives were removed or reduced

* snubbing of white ex- players who offered their expertise as coaches

* purging of honour boards and old photos of white cricket sides before 1992 

* players from that era also had their numbers taken away and CSA basically started from one in 1992, despite SA being a foundation nation of Test Cricket, first playing Test cricket against England in 1888 and Australia, 1902

* waging an unsuccessful two year campaign to have South African Test matches expunged from the record books, pre-1992, but instead he was sent packing by Lord’s

*when legend Graeme Pollock remonstrated with him about unfairness Majola, dismissed him in front of some old members with the words: “you guys had your day now get lost”

* Majola followed that up by another classless act of renaming South Africa’s national schools’ cricket week after his brother, claiming he may had played for SA but for his colour

* bought in racial quotas, favouring blacks, but used weasel words like ‘targets’ to describe them.

Incredibly Barry Richards had, at that stage, never been invited to a South African cricket function by the new regime; neither he or Graeme Pollock have been honoured by having grandstands named after them, (as in the Lillee-Marsh stand, or the John Inverarity Stand at the WACA); Basil D’Oliveria has been similarly snubbed because, despite being a Cape Coloured, he refused to toe the line of the ruling ANC government, post 1994.

Incidentally, this writer has had some experience of the ‘whiting-out’ of history in Africa. In April 1986 I paid a visit to the Zimbabwe Parliament. On the front door, doing guard duty, was a white BSAP policemen. I asked him whether he was ‘a dinosaur’ and he laughed, asking me my business at the House. After telling him,  “I want to compare an African zoo with an Australian one,” he duly offered to escort me around the Parliament. It was six years after Mugabe had taken over and it was interesting to see that all the portrait paintings, on the walls, were of ZANU ‘comrades.’

When I asked what had become of the previous portraits of Rhodesian (white) prime ministers he led me up to the attic! There they were, Huggins, Whitehead, Todd, Field, Smith, Welensky et al, all gathering dust.

Thus it can be seen that racism is a two edged sword and Adam Goodes’ complaints are really rather precious, and insignificant, by comparison to some others.

Reference: The Silencing of South Africa’s Greatest Cricket Side, RW Johnson, Standpoint Magazine, 2012