In search of the real indigenous game

 
The Crowd Roar Guru

By Mick from Giralang, 16 Oct 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru

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There comes a time when the broad brush of life paints a truth that cannot be denied. For a father and son, that occurred at an AFL match.

Sydney born and bred, both of the rough western suburbs, they had ventured into alien territory, sullen and confused at the injustice of the Superleague war that had ruined their beloved game of rugby league.

More than a game.

The son was the third generation to have striven, shed blood, rejoiced and despaired over the simple folly of trying to place a pigskin across an opponent’s line. And in that sometimes brutal process, he learned more of himself: some of it good, much of it sobering.

He was not to know it then, but he would beget a new generation that would follow in his footsteps. It is a story that mirrors the experience of countless Australians.

But on this day, the pair made up the numbers on an unfamiliar, windswept hill.

They tried to set compass bearings among strange colours, meaningless placards, inexplicable chants. The match began, the cheers went up.

They were initially captivated.

There was a lot of running, the ball spilled everywhere, the long kicking drew a whistle of appreciation from the old man. There was plenty of scoring. A bit like basketball. They waited for a soaring catch like the song promised.

And then one – the father or the son, it is forgotten now – glanced at the clock.

Want a beer?
Yeah, I’ll get it. Stay here, you don’t want to miss anything.

It had cost a bit to get in..

They sipped bravely on their grog trying hard to maintain interest as an icy breeze played about exposed ears and noses.

That was a nice bit of skill, that bloke that punched the ball to his mate.
Yep.
They kick pretty good don’t they.
Yep.

An uncomfortable pause.

Had enough?
Yep.

They’d only made it to half time. In fact, it was their second game of AFL. They’d lasted to three quarter time at their first.

It was a dud game, they thought, you get that in all sports. They’d give it another go.

With sadness, they trudged from the ground a second time. They exchanged looks with mystified AFL expats. Football followers all, separated by an unbridgeable chasm.

The father and son had tried hard to understand the game from the south. But to the men of the west, it might as well have come from Mars.

You see it wasn’t the game’s fault.

It was The Indigenous Game, wasn’t it? The pair felt inadequate because they could not embrace The Australian Game, as they were told they should.

But battle cries learned in backyards and in playgrounds were absent. Loyalties driven home at the dinner table were banished. Old enmities that were never forgotten, let alone forgiven, fell on barren ground.

The thin threads that bridge generation gaps fluttered in the breeze. Sights, sounds and smells that are forever bound up in that mysterious process of memory had no place. Irrational, blind passions handed down through the generations like a valuable heirloom counted for nought.

Above all, the blood and thunder were missing.

What is the indigenous game?

It certainly should not be a label to be bandied about thoughtlessly in a propaganda war.

Indigenous is where the heart is. And as a father and son headed home that day, they came to realise what belonged and what did not. What was native and what was not.

A lesson they would not forget again.

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