The demise of the Australian sporting empire

 
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By For & Against, 8 Sep 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru

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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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