The demise of the Australian sporting empire
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By For & Against, 8 Sep 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- Ashes, Australia, Australian sport, Cricket, hockey, Motorsport, netball, rugby, Rugby League, swimming
And so did the great sporting empire of Australia, forged in the white heat of battle, driven by an unstinting passion and adored by a green and gold clad people, crumble into the dust. The dust of a south London pitch.
They used to say that the sun never set on the Australian sporting empire. That no matter where you were in the world there would be an Australian winning something, somewhere, not far away. Ransacking other national teams, crushing brave but futile individual resistance that would on occasions rise up against the oppression, railing hopelessly against the interminable dominance.
Natives of other lands were subjugated, or, if deemed worthy, bestowed with the highest honour to be afforded an outsider, an honour sought throughout the known world: citizenship.
In time, the pattern of conquer and plunder became familiar and warm and the people were merry. For certain, there were far-off lands that remained untamed, but surely for they were barren places, of no worth to a mighty empire. For if they were, Australia would surely have conquered them!
Sometimes, the most unlikely or unexpected heroes would return in triumph, having been sent to certain defeat, or their endeavours of such little import that they went unheralded. In the occasional event of serendipity being visited upon these great warriors, and thus the empire, the true worth of these lands was quickly made apparent to all and previously unrecognised significance was bestowed upon the conquering of these lands, lands of erstwhile inconsequence. Lest only until the land could no longer be defended, whence it reverted to its now deserved lowly status.
No records remain of the warriors that faltered in their brave and glorious pursuit of such conquest.
Over time, the great lands of cricket and rugby – including the crucial tribal province of rugby league – and swimming and netball and many others had been colonised. There were also many successful incursions into other mighty lands such as tennis, motor racing, hockey and surfing, to name but a few.
Even the far-off land of football, for many years the source of diplomatic tension and of begrudging recognition, finally became a land the green and gold clad peoples demanded a serious attack on. And so it was, with the Lowy clan leading the charge.
So too, traditional domains of foreign powers, such as darts, skating and skiing, also came under periodic attack with wildly celebrated success.
And so it was. And so it continued. And the people, with many heroes, saw that it was good. But as any student of sports history through the ages knows, all empires can only enjoy the bright bathing sunshine of rule for so long.
And so enter the fallibility of power. The previously ambitious, having come to power and enjoyed that exalted position for a great period of time, soon falls into the lamentable state of expectation, arrogance and then hubris. And the hitherto successful struggles with neighbouring powers, or the erstwhile benefactor maternal power or even the great ally patron, quickly recede into the comforting memory of the people.
But it is no longer the reportage of victory that graces the pages, merely defeat. And the despised powers of the High Veldt, and the Long White Cloud, and the even longer Grey Cloud, once dismissed as pretenders, exert their ever-greater authority upon the sporting-political landscape, surely and inexorably rising against the once mighty empire. An empire now crushed and trodden upon, a relic of a forgotten world.
Hear For & Against’s take on the decline of Australian sport here. A sorry tale indeed.
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Viscount Crouchback said | September 8th 2009 @ 8:50am | Report comment
There’s an obvious solution, old fruit. Australia’s supposed sporting dominance was built on success in sports that few other nations played or cared about, so just scale down even farther – rugby league (with its brutal international competition of two English counties and parts of Auckland) is probably still good for a bit of bragging, but cricket and rugby union perhaps ought to be replaced by AFL and crocodile hunting.
And whatever you do, don’t continue down this soccer road. It really is taking hubris to its limits, and a world of pain awaits.
True Tah said | September 8th 2009 @ 8:56am | Report comment
Viscount
last time we played your lot in futbol, we gave them a right hiding on your home turf.
It was a good warmup for our annual clash with the almighty All Whites actually. Might do us the world of good to play them again before our next Asian Cup campaign.
Brett McKay said | September 8th 2009 @ 9:04am | Report comment
On the contrary Viscount, dear chap, Australia’s sporting dominance was built on picking which ever sports England was tackling at the time, and just doing it better….
You tried to send out your petty thieves and women of ill repute, and to spite the motherland, they sired a progeny of champion flyhalves, serve-and-volleyers, and leg-spinners. And Steven Bradbury just for an after dinner trick
Harry said | September 8th 2009 @ 9:05am | Report comment
Three reasons for the undouted dimming of Australia’s interantional sporting standing in the seond half of this decade:
1. As soon as we started to do OK at soccer (lets face it fellow union, league and cricket lovers, clearly the number one sport in the world) then our prowess and standing at other sports went into decline, as resources, energy and passion were committed to the truly world game. Although the 06 soccer world cup was exciting for all Australians, I do remember thinking that the number one national side was now soccer, and for the forseeable future, we will be right in the middle of the pack. Frankly for me, its hard to get excited about the Socceroos – a collection of 3 or 4 premier league players supported by journeymen from the lower leagues of Europe. But I accept they are now our number one national side.
2. The rise of Aussie Rules as a truly national code and its recruiting tentacles reaching nationwide – I do firmly believe that out lifestyle and facilities does create (on a per capita basis) more outstanding athletes than most other populations. But the bulk of them are sucked into Rules in the southern and western states and increasingly in NSW and Qld. It was a real eye-opener when a kid from Nudgee who played in the Australian schools rugby unon side last year signed direct to Aussie Rules.
3. We’ve had it good for too long – it is true that in recent years many people expect international success to just happen and (particuarly some sections of the media) have become boastful and arrogant. eg. I still cringe when I think of the way several journalists made absolute fools of us all at the 07RWC by denigrating the English before the match. I am old enough to remember Australian rugby pre the 84 grand slam tour, Australian cricket in the 80′s and the 1976 Olympics (gold medals = 0). What these truly tough times did do was give some unity, determination and hunger for success – and made the following triumphs even sweeter. We need to get that attitude back.
Chris said | September 8th 2009 @ 9:21pm | Report comment
It would be interesting to determine if the expansion of AFL has actually been to the detriment of our international success, it certainly sucks up a lot of our top atheletes. Whether this is a good thing or bad is determined by your stance with the football codes, but if we like AFL we should’t cry foul when we bomb out at the Olympics.
Pippinu said | September 8th 2009 @ 9:32pm | Report comment
The very first time I heard this theory about aussie rules sucking up all the best athletes and stopping them from pursuing more meaningful activities (tennis, hockey, basketball, baseball, European Handball, darts, athletics, korfball, etc), I was 14 years old and it was 1976.
I was catching a train from Waverley to the city, having just sat through god awful conditions in witnessing Footscray defeat Fitzroy 4:10:34 to 3:15: 33, on the last kick of the day.
Me and my mate were sitting opposite a bloke who was actually from Sydney. He the proceeded to tell us how much better rugby was than aussie rules, and that it was a national disgrace that so many athletes around Australia took to aussie rules (presumably instead of rugby).
Me and my mate didn’t really have much too say, and to be honest, this bloke was boring us to tears.
But then a drunk bloke a few seats back started to shout out to the whole carriage about the Fuhrer.
Bloody Hell!! What a day out at the footy!! Win by one point with the last kick of the day, scoring only 4 goals, a bloke from Sydney is talking about rugby and some drunkard with a thick accent is talking about the Fuhrer.
Sheez – get me back to Footscray quicksmart!!
AndyRoo said | September 8th 2009 @ 9:42pm | Report comment
AFL does finish with kids at 18. By then you should know if your going to make it by how high you are drafted and with only 16 clubs that puts a limit on the damage.
18 is too late for something like futbal but for a lot of sports a kid that probably played 2 sports until he was 16 and then had a year or two where he just played footy in a pretty serious environment (state league or national u18s) is still a fine prospect if he doesn’t make it. That experience having a crack at trying to make the AFL probably makes or brakes them mentally and likely means there better for the experience.
onside said | September 8th 2009 @ 10:50am | Report comment
I see a way forward now cane toad racing is a demonstration sport at the London Olympics
AndyRoo said | September 8th 2009 @ 10:58am | Report comment
Harry
I think Futbal was very lucky to get away with Josh Kennedy. He is from Victoria and had a basketball background at there a lot of AFL players who also played basketball as a teenager.
Thankfully he is not the Western Bulldogs ruckman and is instead using his massive height to score goals or win possesion and get us qualified for the World Cup.
Redb said | September 8th 2009 @ 11:02am | Report comment
Josh Kennedy is from Albury/Wodonga played all his junior soccer in the Riverina. Coached in the early days by a bloke called Steve Hayes.
AndyRoo said | September 8th 2009 @ 11:08am | Report comment
Well that is close enough as it’s an area where Aussie Rules is vibrant. II think we were lucky he wasn’t swayed because no doubt that kind of Athlete tall but skillful is wanted by AFL, Rugby and Futbal. Probably in that order.
If I can claim he is from NSW all the better as it’s very akward having the 2 most obious 2014 players (Kennedy and Macdonald) not be from the “heartland” of Futbal.
Greg Russell said | September 8th 2009 @ 11:24am | Report comment
Harry is on the money, especially with point 2: we all know how successful AFL recruiting programs are, and there is evidence that they are even starting to diminish Australian cricketing stocks. Personally I regard AFL as the (attractive) shark that is devouring many other Australian sports.
I would change Harry’s point 3 more to the angle that the rest of the world is catching up. After 1976 Australia just implemented East German methods in a quasi-capitalist framework. High quality coaches, good facilities, full-time scholarships for promising teenagers, and so on: the recipe is not rocket science.
Having said the above, in general terms this article is bollocks, as is easily exemplified:
“They used to say that the sun never set on the Australian sporting empire. That no matter where you were in the world there would be an Australian winning something, somewhere, not far away.”
On the very weekend that Australia was losing the Ashes at The Oval (and the Bledisloe Cup in Sydney), Steve Hooker and Dani Samuels were winning gold medals in Berlin. In other words, the above statement remains as true as ever.
It’s just that there is not as much success as in recent years. Maybe talk of a decline – but let’s be honest, it could not have got any better, at least not without resorting to wide-scale use of drugs. However there is a difference between a decline and a demise.
Incidentally, at the risk of sounding racist (which I am not), probably a fourth point should be added to Harry’s 3. It is that something like 18% of Australian’s population is Asian, but nothing like 18% of professional Australian sportspeople are Asian.
AndyRoo said | September 8th 2009 @ 11:42am | Report comment
I think the 4 spot should instead be more about the general decline in participation. There seems much more focus on the elite now rather than just participating.
I know from my childhood that the % of asian kids that were good at sport didn’t seem any different from us honkys but not all of them were really into Cricket or the rugby codes areas of traditional Australian dominence and Futbal selections were a different animal back then (based more on ethnicity and size then they are now)
Michael C said | September 8th 2009 @ 1:21pm | Report comment
There is needed a variety of role models – - within the Muslim community for example, you will often see specific focus on (obviously El Masri in Sydney) players who have made it or even are on the cusp (Houli at Essendon and young Majak Daw in the TAC U18s). I don’t know so much about other sports in that respect, is that Kofi Danning in the HAL, a recent arrival from Ghana – - at any rate, he’ll be an important role model.
Alas, it looked like Cricket was getting an important role model with Richard Chee Quee that time (did I butcher the spelling??)….
…anyway, the key for all sports is to have positive multi cultural programs (not just superficial) – with so much of our population growth via immigration over the years.
Oh, yeah, that and some targetted wooing of athletes from overseas to become citizens of Australia and compete under our flag so we can claim even more world champions…CAAAARRNN Tatiana Borodulina in the speed skating.