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The Last Post sounded up and down the country yesterday as Australians remembered those soldiers who never returned from battle. The question is, should it have sounded at a football game?
Tuning into Channel Nine’s somewhat bombastic coverage of St George Illawarra’s battle with the resurgent Sydney Roosters, you could have been forgiven for thinking that Anzac Day was the most significant holiday on the Australian calendar.
A packed house at Allianz Stadium, a solemn military commemoration before the game and Gus Gould waxing lyrical on TV about the importance of the occasion suggests that for many it may well be – though that hasn’t always been the case.
By focusing some of their attention on the Roosters’ imposing Kiwi enforcer Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, the Nine network at least acknowledged the role played by New Zealand during that doomed campaign at Gallipoli.
Their presence is sometimes forgotten by those looking to turn Anzac Day into an increasingly one-sided day of Australian remembrance.
That’s not all that surprising given that the nationwide commemoration of the day is only a relatively recent phenomenon, as younger generations eager to cloak themselves in nationalistic rites of remembrance fuel the imaginations of a dwindling band of veterans prone to nostalgia.
Prior to the late 1980s or so, no one outside the Returned Services League much cared for Anzac Day, and as the grandson of a veteran myself, I can attest there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the glorification of war where I grew up.
That’s not necessarily to say there is today – though the gap between remembrance and the air-brushing of history is undoubtedly a complex and uneasy one.
For all the pomp and ceremony of yesterday’s showdown between the Dragons and Roosters, it’s easy to forget that this ‘annual’ clash has only been played since 2002 and by my count has only been televised by Channel Nine on three separate occasions.
Perhaps that’s why they played a bit loose with their history during the broadcast, as champion halfback turned laconic sideline commentator Andrew Johns almost choked on his words in his attempt to describe the larger-than-usual attendance.
Describing what was close to a ground record attendance, it seemed obvious that ‘Joey’ knew that the largest crowd to ever turn out at the venue was for the Socceroos’ legendary World Cup qualifier against Argentina in 1993 – but the former Newcastle Knights playmaker stopped just short of admitting it.
It seems old habits die hard in the land of rugby league, but the question at hand is whether football should jump on the Anzac Day bandwagon and play a fixture of its own?
There was at one stage furtive talk of an annual clash against Turkey, though that seemed more a political pipe dream than the type of fixture that could actually be coordinated on a regular basis.
Perhaps it would be easier to just schedule a match against New Zealand, though that would hardly seem to reflect the spirit of the day.
Or maybe football – global game that it is – simply doesn’t need to reflect on a senseless battle fought on behalf of an Empire so derelict in its duties, it sent thousands of its loyal subjects off to a gory death for want of some decent maps and a compass.
Dr Ian Syson, a senior lecturer at Victoria University, has written extensively on the nexus between football and Anzac Day and his painstaking research makes for an illuminating read.
On a personal level, I don’t feel that there’s any particular need for football to instigate some sort of annual ANZAC clash, be it in the club or international arena.
Is that the common consensus, though? Would an Anzac Day football fixture make sense, or is it something the round-ball game can do without?