Wallabies captain George Gregan (right) joins Prime Minister John Howard on his early morning walk in Canberra, Wednesday, Aug 16, 2006. The Wallabies will play the All Blacks in new Zealand on Saturday in the Tri – Nations Cup. AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The brutal execution of John Howard’s hope to be the Chief Commissioner for a new independent Rugby League Commission by the Labor Left hard man, the Federal MP Anthony Albanese, was totally predictable.
Rugby league, traditionally, has been the Labor Party in NSW and Queensland at play. There is no way the party is going to allow a doyen of the Liberal Party to play with its game.
Howard has been a long time St George supporter.
One of his last acts as Prime Minister was to give $10 million to the NRL to help build a new headquarters for the new commission. But these gestures are irrelevant in considering his right (or lack of any right) to a leadership role in rugby league.
The Rudd Government cancelled the Howard funding under the pretence of cost-cutting. But it found the money to grant nearly $100 million to football for a number of projects, including the bid to host a Football World Cup and money to support women’s football.
Presumably this was a Rudd concession to trying to win over the fabled ‘soccer mums’ voting bloc.
The new Sports Minister, Kate Ellis, an AFL tragic from Adelaide, famously did not know the difference between rugby league and rugby union. But this information gap was put right by Albanese when he revived the Howard offer, slightly topped up to $10.4 million, on the day before the NRL grand final.
A few days later, Albanese (according to an exclusive report by Phillip Coorey in The Sydney Morning Herald) rang the NRL chief executive David Gallop and shot down ‘the stupid idea’ of a former Liberal leader becoming a rugby league power broker.
Albanese was acting totally in the tradition of the Labor Party with this initiative.
As sports historians have documented, the rugby league code in Australia (and in England, too) is predominantly working class in composition and because of this constituency has close ties with the labor movement and the Labor Party.
In my history of the rugby union battles between Australia and New Zealand, The Gold and the Black there is a section of about the Great Split in the rugby code that puts some context on all of this:
“A week before the All Golds (a New Zealand rugby league side) started on their great adventure of a tour of the United Kingdom, on 8 August 1907, a fateful meeting took place at Bateman’s Hotel in George Street, Sydney, a popular drinking spot near the centre of the city.
“About 50 rugby players, some of them nervously looking around before entering the hotel’s door, met to discuss the possibility of starting a professional football league, a rugby league, with some older men of great charisma.
“The leading light at the meeting was James J Giltinan, a well-known cricket umpire and a persuasive personality. Backing him were the legendary cricketer Victor Trumper and a local politician, Henry Clement Hoyle, who was a strike agitator on the railways in the 1890, a Labor MP for the inner-Sydney electorate of Surrey Hills and later a State Minister …”
The Labor Party affiliation with rugby league was permanently forged a year later when the Sydney entrepreneur James Joynton Smith, a Labor-supported Lord Mayor of Sydney in 1917 and a long-time Labor member of the Legislative Council, financed four cross-code games of rugby league between the 1908 Wallabies (who then became league players) and the 1908 Kangaroos.
These four matches (with each side winning two matches) effectively ended the dominance of rugby union in Sydney and set in place the new sporting hegemony of rugby league.
The rugby league historian Sean Fagan argues that Smith’s motives were less about high-jacking rugby union for his own financial benefit and more about his lack of sympathy (as a strong Labor man) for the NSWRU’s refusal to provide better player benefits.
Players who were injured in a rough game that was called at the time ‘the undertaker’s friend’ were not given payments to make up for their loss of wages.
This was the same issue that provoked the rebellion of the northern unions in England in 1895 to form their rugby league.
Smith provided the large amount of incentive money demanded by the 14 rugby union rebels and the much smaller match payments to the rugby league players. He also insisted that the substantial profits generated by the matches go to South Sydney hospital.
As the owner of the excellent sporting magazine The Referee in the 1930s, Smith profited by the growth in popularity of rugby league in Sydney. He was president of NSW Rugby League from 1910 – 1928 and Patron from 1929 to his death in 1943.
Smith set the pattern of Labor Party benevolence towards rugby league that has persisted to this day. The $60 million Sydney Football Stadium was the Unsworth Government’s gift to the game, for instance.
Smith would have understood Albanese’s intervention against Howard, and would have applauded the continuation of the decades-old policy of dolloping out big grants of money to the game.
When he was Prime Minister, Howard was frequently seen jogging ostentatiously in a Wallaby jersey. How he believed the Labor Party would allow him to come across to the other code and play an administrative role in their games defies belief.
Howard needs to read some social history.
The Wallabies of 1908 had something to offer to the upstart rugby league code, namely their credibility. But Howard, as a former Liberal Party Prime Minister, is out of his league in even contemplating a major role in the Labor Party’s game.
Miguel Sanchez
Guest
Wonder who Spiro votes for? Only in New Zealand elections though...
Ben
Guest
Silly article Spiro - I think you should try and keep politics out of sport for fear of showing some political bias. Howard ran the 15th largest economy for 11 years and would be a great adminsitrator for any sport, particularly one which he is genuinley interested in. Albanese is a traditional ALP battler who is more interested in doing what is best for the ALP, NSW Right and his ALP donating mates......not Australia, NRL supporters or anyone else. Howard was often seen in a Wallaby jersey ? Hmmmm hard to wear a League one overseas when no-one knows the game, ditto for AFL. For whoever said Howard is a populist - Rudd/Swan State of Origin dressing room, Brisbane Lions AFL game. Anyway move back to sport mate, save me the political lesson - the original folks from the ALP who established Rugby League would not vote for them now anyway, definitely not for the Super Nerd from QLD.
fox
Guest
Lol!
Mike wc
Guest
Spiro, You miss the whole point on this disgrace - the fact that political interference means the NRL are doing what some jerk politician wants - not what is good for the game - it is a disgrace & heads should role. As to whether Howard is right for the job - couldn't care less - whats' wrong is the corrupt processes happening here. As a journalist you are weak for accepting this as reasonable behaviour - show some ticker & write about the disgrace it is. Albanese should be in jail if he is using his position for his own gains.
Michael of UK
Guest
Davies was working from an earlier quote. http://www.colonialrugby.com.au/hooligans-game.htm
Firestarter Bob
Guest
"like gaining acceptance in private schools, for example" Are you serious? You think it is rugby league's fault that the code hasn't been taken up private schools?
Cattledog
Guest
Hey Billo, there are some pretty sharp fellows at the heads of all football codes in Australia and that's probably one of the reasons JH has been approached, be it un-officially or not. Whilst we might consider many of them dumb, we are in the main not privy to the information from which many of the decisions we consider dumb are made. It happens constantly in business, whereby the workers may consider a decision dumb or not well thought through without being privy to all info. However, that's not to say there aren't some bad decisions made, regardless of available info. As for acceptance in private schools, RL is played in many of the catholic schools and some others. If you're meaning within the GPS system, IMO, that's still some time, if not generations away, although I note that many of the larger public high schools are introducing a term of RU as an extension to RL. Perhaps it may not be as far away as I think, however, it would be as an adjunct to rugby rather than a stand alone code. Anyway, wouldn't be surprised if 7's at the olympics isn't the start of melding the two games together!
Billo
Guest
Rugby league needs to do a lot of things to expand its constituency, like gaining acceptance in private schools, for example. Part of that would include not being so close to the Labor Party, which has tended to take the game for granted, and hasn't done much to protect it, as far as I can see. It would be good to see someone like John Howard involved in the new Commission, and, via that, in international rugby league. Whatever some posters might think of him, Howard raised Australia's profile in the world, not least with the United States. Rugby league should appoint him to be an international ambassador for the game. Fortunately, for those who like to look down on rugby league, the game's administrators are far too dumb to do anything like that.
Cattledog
Guest
LOL Thought the missus may have pulled the plug on the laptop! Must have a different photo...the bloke I see kept the economy boyant and didn't place us in crippling debt. Wait till we have to start paying THAT back!! Anyway, lets keep sex and politics out of it...well...politics anyway!
Parisien
Guest
Sorry Cattledog, I was just being tongue in cheek, and I didn't get to finish that last comment because I had some chores to do! On a more tragic note, take another look at the header photo and that goof wearing the Wallabies tracksuit (no, not the fella on the left, the one on the right).
Fly on the Wall
Guest
I think you'll find it was Jonathan Davies, dual international, who said: "Soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs, Rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen, and league is a thug's game played by beasts."
Cattledog
Guest
Not playing that game again Parisien...once a blog's enough! Anyway, theories and opinions are like arseholes...everybody has one!
Pete
Guest
League and Labor party in bed together... makes me think, how does AFL expect the Western Sydney team to be success when its being set up in both a Rugby League heartland and a Labor strong hold... don't think they'll let this one through... unless it boost the price of land in the area and the developers get excited... No wonder the AFL has a 25 year plan...
Parisien
Guest
Since when were Australian rugby men so hen-pecked? Is this a symptom of what is wrong with the Wallabies. "Couldn't do the extra skills training coach, I had too many household chores to finish." Now, I have this theory that
Pete
Guest
the internet... its the modern man's "shed"
The Link
Guest
I still think the Howard link was a bit of hype whipped up by Michael Searle to get attention to the broader idea of the independent commission.
Firestarter Bob
Guest
Spiro, If Labor and rugby league are one and the same perhaps you could explain the NSW state labor government and their attack on the income of Leagues Clubs and what that has done to rugby league at all levels of the game. Friends of rugby league? Perhaps they were, but not now. Labor used to be the working man's party.
jeznez
Guest
Sorry Cattledog, you are barking up the wrong tree. Pippinu is spot on. Soccer aka 'The Beautiful Game' (not my view but one of its nicknames) is the gentleman's game played by thugs. Thugby League is a thugs game played by thugs. 'The Running Game' (and how I miss those days after this 3N's) or 'The Game They Play in Heaven' is the thugs game played by gentlemen, because lets face it we all need to let our hair down and our knuckles drag from time to time.
LeftArmSpinner
Roar Guru
Spiro, what is happening with the Union equivalent of the Independent commission for the NRL, the breakaway of grade rugby from NSW rugby? is it going to happen and if so, when and what will be the benefits? this is the sleeping giant of aust sport, still be be awoken.
sheek
Guest
OME, Good to see you're in good company. More than once my beloved has threatened to remove the computer from the household, except that my daughter requires it for her schoolwork. Anyway, better go. She could be home any minute, & there were a few chores she expected me to do in the meantime!