Indigenous heroes

He’s a credit to his race, the human race

– Sport journalist Jimmy Cannon describing former heavyweight champion Joe Louis, an African American

 

Jim and Phil Krakouer were the first Aboriginals I ever paid attention to on the football field.  Too young for Sid Jackson, Graham Farmer and Barry Cable, the Krakouer brothers became my first real introduction to Australia’s natural heritage. 

There were no aboriginals at Oak Park Primary School and none I ever saw living in Oak Park or the surrounding suburbs.  The school syllabus contained passing mention about Australia’s natural custodians, lip service.  We learnt more about Captain Cook, an Englishman, than our native culture.

In the eighties, the VFL conducted a night series during the season, the Escort Cup, named after a car.  Games were played at VFL Park in front of sparse, frozen crowds.  A round robin tournament, Victorian clubs played each other and those from interstate.  The games, at times, were mismatches and previews for players who had signed with Victorian clubs.

The competition became a rehearsal for talent that belonged across borders, those who would soon migrate.  The Krakouer brothers played for Clermont.  Their rehearsal wasn’t great.  The first time I watch Phil kicked for goal, probably his first kick in Victoria, the ball slewed out of bounds on the full.  He looked confused.  Jim looked small and out of depth.

This was my first memory of Jim and Phil Krakouer, the first Aboriginals I ever watched play football.  It was 1981.  They’d signed with North Melbourne and there didn’t seem to be much to get excited about.

Less than a year later, Richmond hosted North Melbourne in the opening round at the MCG.  Jim and Phil made their VFL debut on the same weekend as the MCG’s electronic scoreboard offered live television and replays.  Both sides had missed the finals in 1981, North for the first time in eight years, Richmond as the reigning premier.

It was a beautiful autumn day.  North Melbourne led by 21 points at three quarter time and crashed in the last quarter, the Tigers kicking eight goals to two and winning by three goals. 

Despite the loss, Jim kicked four goals from 17 possessions.  Phil picked up 21 possessions and kicked a goal.  North’s Malcolm Blight kicked seven goals and should’ve finished with ten.

The Krakouer brothers were good, making an immediate impact in an era when there was much pressure on the interstate recruits.  A lot of men crossed borders and went home without success.  The VFL was the strongest football competition in Australia.  The Krakouer’s needed every ounce of talent and grim dedication they could muster, because society was markedly different two decades ago.

In the opening round, 1982, another Aboriginal, Maurice Rioli, made his midfield debut for Richmond, kicking three goals from 21 disposals.  Rioli and the Krakouer brothers were the first Aboriginals I had ever seen, in the flesh.  I was eleven years old.

There were few indigenous players in the VFL in 1982, which made the Krakouer’s splendid talent remarkable, as though they were connected by ethereal spirit.  Their inherent ability to find one another in space near goals wasn’t uncanny, it was instinct and it spooked opposition clubs and supporters.

Jim was a rover.  He stood narrow, a slender 170 centimetres.  But his brilliance exuded toughness, in and under, roving off the pack.  Skilful on both sides, one of Jim’s best goals came against Hawthorn in 1985, a left foot snap from 35 out after snatching the ball from a marking contest without breaking stride.

Phil was taller, an awkward specialist forward.  A left footer, Phil placed the ball on his left foot.  His brilliance was achieved near goal, on a flank or in a pocket.  At 178 centimetres tall, Phil required a quick defender who could also spoil.  Round ten 1986, he kicked eight goals against Essendon at the MCG.  One was a classic.  Gathering the ball near the boundary, he evaded Gary Foulds and spun around two other Essendon players.

A foot inside the boundary line, on the wrong side for a left footer and forty meters out, Phil found the goals.

The goal umpire smiled beautifully as he offered two fingers.

People went to the football to watch the Krakouer brothers play.  Racism was trendy in the eighties.  The worst form of wit, opposition supporters watching on offered their version of superior humour based on skin.  It was relentless and unrepentant. 

One hopes crowd abuse was worse than on-field sledging.  Without doubt Jim and Phil were subjected to verbal abuse, taking hits to the body and the mind.  Round 22, 1986, the game against Essendon turned nasty.  North champ Ross Glendinning knocked out Bill Duckworth with a hip and shoulder.  North, who couldn’t make the finals, seemed determined to make sure Essendon would limp into September.

With Duckworth prone on grass, a melee developed.  Later in the spiteful match, Jim slammed a left hook into Mark Harvey’s jaw.  The umpire, just inches away, was blindsided.  Though he didn’t see the punch, it was heard.  Jim was reported, given two weeks off at the start of 1987.  Almost 25-years later I still wonder what Harvey said to deserve a punch in the mouth.

The Krakouer brothers were temperamental.  Jim was outed for six weeks for kicking Ray Giles of Melbourne.  The goal umpire who laid the report allegedly told Jim he’d been waiting to get him.  Phil was rubbed out too, for striking.  He belted Tim Watson one year, getting a three week suspension.  He was more careful though, less volatile.

In 1985 Oak Park football club took their juniors to Arden Street to watch North Melbourne train, talk to the players and eat pies.  Jim didn’t train with the main group, instead running laps with Kevin Bryant, both men carrying niggles.  An Oak Park junior, a kid from the under 12s, paused as he munched a pie at the fence and called out as the duo jogged past.

‘Krakouer you black c**t.’

Kevin Bryant almost leapt the fence as Krakouer ran on impassively.  Being used to racism surely couldn’t have quelled the anger that he’d been racially vilified by a kid.  He must’ve known there were few places to learn racism, in the home or at school, and as long as he was being sledged, society would still remain segregated and narrow-minded.

Jason Harrington, brother to former North Melbourne player Tim Harrington, growled at the kid and his father.  Jason showed guts against ugliness, forcing them from the fence.  ‘I can’t believe you said that,’ Harrington said.  ‘You’re so lucky.’

Oak Park officials were never told.  North Melbourne made no protest.  Krakouer and Bryant probably didn’t tell anyone.  This was the eighties, and it was just a kid making a flippant remark in front of his father, who didn’t offer sanction.

Obviously they didn’t support North Melbourne.

That incident expressed the attitude the Krakouer’s played against, without help from their league.  Not once did the Krakouer’s cry racism.  They stuck together as their Aboriginality was exploited positively and negatively.  In 1987 the VFL took out a full page add in the Herald Sun begging fans to observe Black Magic when North Melbourne played Geelong at the MCG.

North Melbourne was thrashed by 97 points.  Perhaps the magic worked.

The VFL moved on relentless, to the AFL, to racial vilification laws and self-imposed penalties.  Nicky Winmar, in his most famous moment as a footballer, proudly lifted his jumper and pointed to his skin.  Collingwood’s supporters, enraged, shunted abuse at the outrage.  They knew Winmar was black, they’d been mentioning it all day and still he had the gall to remind them.

Winmar took the passive approach to highlighting racism.  The Krakouer brother used their fists.  When Collingwood’s Damien Monkhurst reminded Essendon’s Michael Long what colour he was, it started a brawl.  The fallout resulted in the AFL adopting the Racial and Religious Vilification Policy in 1995.  If not for Monkhurst and Long, that policy might’ve taken another decade before it was introduced.

The environment is better now, on both sides of the fence Aboriginal footballers are rightly fêted, not for being black, but for their abilities.  They weave an athlete’s magic more powerful than we imagine.

Jim and Phil wore royal blue and white in a colourful stoush, against other teams, racism and attitude.

I’ve heard racial vilification plenty of times, at the football, while playing football, on the street and in the workplace.  It amazes me how people who follow football can call an opposition player a black expletive, while applauding the Aboriginals who play for their team.  The contradiction is astounding, and it proves racial vilification, in most circumstances, is the fall-back option, the most basic of insults because their small minds can’t manifest their anger into less offensive words.

Some of the best footballers I’ve seen play are Aboriginals.  Some are Italian, Greek, Caucasian, it doesn’t matter.  They’re footballers, members of society, no better or worse, according to skin colour.

Round nine is dedicated to the AFL’s indigenous heroes.  Take a look at the Indigenous Team of the Century, and remember what a privilege it is to have watched them play.

Indigenous Team of the Century (Australian rules football)
B:	Chris Johnson (Fitzroy, Brisbane)	Darryl White (Brisbane)	Bill Dempsey (West Perth)
HB:	Gavin Wanganeen (Essendon, Port Adelaide)	Adam Goodes (Sydney)	Norm McDonald (Essendon)
C:	Peter Matera (South Fremantle, West Coast)	Maurice Rioli (South Fremantle, Richmond)	Michael Long (Essendon)
HF:	Nicky Winmar (South Fremantle, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs)	Stephen Michael (South Fremantle)	Syd Jackson (East Perth), (Carlton)
F:	Chris Lewis (Claremont, West Coast)	Michael O’Loughlin (Sydney)	Jim Krakouer (Claremont, North Melbourne, St Kilda)
Foll:	Graham Farmer (Captain) (East Perth, Geelong)	Andrew McLeod (Adelaide)	Barry Cable (Perth, East Perth, North Melbourne)
Int:	Michael McLean (Footscray, Brisbane)	Byron Pickett (North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Melbourne)	Michael Graham (Sturt)
	David Kantilla (South Adelaide)	Ted Kilmurray (East Perth)	Peter Burgoyne (Port Adelaide)

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