FOOTY FINALS

THEME

AMANDA SMITH: On the eve of the football grand finals - Aussie Rules and Rugby League - tall tales and true from the past and the present, from fans and players.

MUSIC

BRIAN SIERAKOWSKI: This was an occasion where it was so emotive. Women who'd watched and waited for sixty or seventy years to see their famous St. Kilda side win a flag just wept. And I'll never ever forget going into the change rooms and seeing the crowd just watching us drink out of the cup with the champagne and they just cried openly. They just wanted to touch us as if we were gods.

AMANDA SMITH: That's Brian Sierakowski, who played in the St. Kilda Football Club's only winning grand final back in 1966. And who tomorrow will be in the stands watching his son play for the same club in this year's AFL Grand Final. And we'll hear more from Brian, and son David, later in the program. Hi, I'm Amanda Smith, and also on The Sports Factor today, we'll be talking about what the word "community" means in modern-day rugby league and Australian football.

Before that, though, to Adelaide: where excitement about the Adelaide Crows playing in their first AFL Grand Final has pushed all before it, including the forthcoming State Election. While Federal politics is running hot at the moment with travel allowance scandals, in South Australia politics is not the issue, it's football. Greg Kelton is the political editor of the Adelaide Advertiser.

GREG KELTON: Well it's pushed the State election campaign right off the front pages to the back pages of our newspaper, and every other newspaper and every television and radio bulletin in the state.

AMANDA SMITH: Who stands to benefit from the election playing second fiddle to the footy: the Government or the Opposition?

GREG KELTON: Well I tend to think it would be the Government. Governments go into campaigns not wanting to make a mistake: the old adage is that governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them. Now John Olsen does not want to lose this election because he wants a personal mandate. So he is desperate not to make any mistakes or give the Opposition anything that they can hang an issue on. So with the Crows dominating the media, he's got really nothing to worry about. In fact, as I said the other day in a column that I wrote for The Advertiser, the election campaign has virtually been cut back to two weeks.

AMANDA SMITH: So, you mean that's the very first week of the campaign, and the final week of the campaign?

GREG KELTON: That's right. Yeah those two weeks. Because you got the week leading up to the Grand Final. And if the Crows should win, you've got the week after the Grand Final for the euphoria to set in in South Australia, and that will keep going.

AMANDA SMITH: So is it in the Government's mind when they call the election that maybe the AFL finals would work in their favour?

GREG KELTON: I'm sure it was. Sport is part of the Australian psyche, and AFL football finals are the most popular sporting events in Australia I think, without a doubt. And if you can have a campaign where football finals dominate most of the campaign, people are going to feel good, they're going to be thinking about everything apart from politics. So they're not going to worry about issues such as debt, taxes and that sort of thing. All they're worried about is whether or not their team is going to win.

AMANDA SMITH: Yes, so the theory is when that everyone's in a good mood, then they're more inclined to return the Government than to vote in the Opposition?

GREG KELTON: I think that's a fair assumption. As I say, governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them. So the Government would be banking on the fact that everybody's in a good mood. The Government hasn't done anything wrong, so people will vote for us. So, you know, 'come on the Crows' is what the Premier is saying.

AMANDA SMITH: Is this similar to the way John Bannon and the Labour Party won two South Australian elections in the wake of the Formula One Grand Prix in Adelaide, back in the 1980s, in terms that feel-good factor?

GREG KELTON: Oh look obviously the feel-good factor means a lot. It certainly helped Bannon in his election campaigns. As I say it takes people's minds off the problems that the State might have, and you know South Australia has had a lot of problems over the years. They keep talking about us as a rust-belt state. And there is this sort of inferiority complex: that Jeff Kennett's trying to take us over, and wants South Australia to be a branch office of Victoria. But if something like this happens where the Crows come up and, God forbid, win the Grand Final and beat the Saints, anything could happen. I mean the euphoria would be just amazing for a week and John Olsen wouldn't have to do anything.

AMANDA SMITH: But also, symbolically, as South Australia beating the Vics at something? In terms of what you're saying about the South Australian inferiority complex, will that make a big difference?

GREG KELTON: There are a lot of people who want to get back at Jeff Kennett for pinching the Grand Prix. And bringing the Premiership Cup to South Australia would be wonderful. The only thing that South Australia would really like more, would be if they were beating Hawthorn in the Grand Final.

AMANDA SMITH: Being Jeff Kennett's team?

GREG KELTON: Yes.

AMANDA SMITH: Well I did notice that this week Premier Olsen announced building a rail link to Football Park as part of the Government's transport plan. Smart politics?

GREG KELTON: Well it is. But he seems to have pinched it from the Democrats, because the day before they'd announced it. So, perhaps he's pinched it from them. Certainly that sort of thing, you know, bread and circuses, are the things that elections are made of. And the Opposition has promised a new grandstand for Football Park. So there's money, and votes I should say, in football.

AMANDA SMITH: Greg Kelton, political editor for the Adelaide Advertiser.

Well, South Australians got their last look for the year at the Adelaide Crows on their home ground at training on Wednesday night this week. And believe me this was a big event in itself:

SFX

LITTLE GIRL: We're the pride of South Australia We're the mighty Adelaide Crows

CROWD: Adelaide! Adelaide! Adelaide!

AMANDA SMITH: I'm at Football Park in Adelaide, and the Crows are about to come on the ground for their training session. And there's plenty of their faithful fans here to watch. How many people do you reckon are here?

MAN: At a guess probably five or six thousand, I'd say.

AMANDA SMITH: Are you good at guessing crowds?

MAN: Probably about seven or eight thousand I'd imagine.

WOMAN: A good ten, fifteen thousand.

AMANDA SMITH: So now you're a Crow supporter?

WOMAN: Oh yes. Definitely.

AMANDA SMITH: Before the Crows came into the AFL were you a football supporter?

WOMAN: I didn't know one person from another.

AMANDA SMITH: So how did you become such a keen football, and Crows, supporter?

WOMAN: Oh, I think I just caught the bug.

AMANDA SMITH: Are Port Power fans getting behind the Crows this week?

MAN: Not at all, not the ones I know.

MAN: Oh, we've got one sitting in front of us.

AMANDA SMITH: OK, OK, so you're normally a Port supporter?

WOMAN: I've always been a Port Adelaide supporter. Lived in Port all my life. Believed in them. But I just enjoy football, we're all there for them. And, well, just look at the crowd tonight, it just proves we're behind them.

AMANDA SMITH: Tell me about what the feeling's been like being in Adelaide the last couple of days?

WOMAN: Oooh, it seems that everybody's on a real high and I think they've forgotten there's an election coming up.

AMANDA SMITH: Yes, well the word is that the current Government is advantaged by all this. What do you reckon?

WOMAN: I think they've done a smart thing. Especially if we go top, because no one will give a ....

MAN: I think the feeling's just starting to build up now, really. The game last week: I think it took people a little while to realise that they'd actually made it. It was such a good game. And now people are starting to realise they're there, and they've got a good chance.

WOMAN: Oh I don't think Adelaide's ever known this before. I think it's something's never happened before.

WOMAN: It's pretty good. I work over at West Lakes Mall, so it's good. You get all the different shops putting up different Crows banners and things like that, which is great. It's just a great feeling. Especially coming here tonight, it's been the best thing.

AMANDA SMITH: Is there a sense do you think that it's South Australia beating the Vics?

MAN: Oh yes, there's always a lot of that, there's always a lot of that. And course now there's the added incentive of keeping our head above the Port Power. That's another huge incentive for the Crows supporters.

CROWD: (whistles, cheers) Soak it up, boys. Soak it up!

AMANDA SMITH: And would you care to make a wild and crazy prediction about the Grand Final result?

WOMAN: Yes. The Crows by about five points.

AMANDA SMITH: Five points. Now what do you base that on?

WOMAN: It's just my intuition.

WOMAN: Adelaide Crows by a street.

MAN: I think it'll be close. I reckon the Crows have got enough heart to get up. I'd say under three goals.

MAN: Definitely under three goals, I'd say under a goal.

WOMAN: Yeah, well I think now the fans are starting to realise that we are in the Grand Final. And we're going to bring it home from those Vics.

CROWD: Adelaide! Adelaide! Adelaide!

AMANDA SMITH: The pride of South Australia. And I'm sure that Adelaide must have sold out of blue, red and yellow crepe paper by now, judging by the amount that's regaling just about every building and person in the city!

This is the Sports Factor on Radio National. I'm Amanda Smith.

Now, in recent years there's been a lot of changes wrought on both Australian football and rugby league. The expansion of the major leagues beyond the old suburban clubs of Melbourne and Sydney, as well as the Rugby League/Super League split. So how has this affected the notion of "community" around both these codes? After all, every time there's a potential merger, relocation or closure of any of the old clubs, the rallying cry is always to save the club, "for its community". Murray Phillips is a sports historian who special interest is rugby league. Dave Nadel is another sports historian, with the Australian Football League his focus. So what does "community" mean in contemporary football?

DAVE NADEL: When you look at "community", it's one of those words that means so many different things to so many different people. There was an American sociologist in the fifties who counted ninety-six different meanings of the word "community". I myself tend to go along a bit with Benedict Anderson's argument on "imagined communities". Which he applies to nations, but it still works when you look at football communities as well. And that's that a community picks a myth by which it identifies itself. And so a disparate group of people can see themselves as a community, or a nation, for example. Some of the nations, that we think of as long established nations, weren't seen as nations. And similarly, when we get to the football clubs.

For example, that Collingwood likes to believe itself as sort of tough, working class. On the other hand Carlton sees itself as elite, professional. Despite the fact that there's a huge working class support for Carlton in Brunswick and Coburg, which is its hinterland. Carlton nevertheless - if you think of Carlton, you think of George Harris and John Elliott, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Menzies. So, in that sense, each club builds up a myth that suits it and creates its community.

AMANDA SMITH: Murray does that apply to rugby league teams: those kind of myths of imagined communities?

MURRAY PHILLIPS: They do certainly. And I think if you look at the football communities that surround all the major teams, they have in a sense created a myth, and developed an imagined community around that. So if you look for example at Canberra, there are whole hosts of community identity that's developed around that club that reflect issues, whether they be myth or reality, about Canberra. Similarly with Brisbane. You can look at Brisbane - the way the Broncos have developed - and relate that to community identity. And similarly of course with Newcastle, the team that's made its first Grand Final, appearing on the weekend. The identity related to that team is closely linked to Newcastle identity.

AMANDA SMITH: Well it seems to me that despite the notion of community often being linked to history, to tradition, and to imaginings, that football communities can quite easily change and reform. Murray, for example, the Brisbane Broncos who won the Super League Grand Final last weekend, how might the community around that team be defined?

MURRAY PHILLIPS: That's a really interesting construct, the Brisbane community. Because you have to overlay that with its traditional rivalry with New South Wales - the Queensland/New South Wales rivalry. And in the football context, it's built on a history of Sydney being the dominant power broker, with the powerful clubs, the wealthy clubs. Who for decades purchased the best players and coaches from Brisbane. And then in the old competition, the interstate rivalry was intense. But if you were a Queenslander playing in Sydney, you actually had to play for New South Wales in the interstate competition prior to State of Origin. So what you had was Queensland players, playing for New South Wales, belting Queensland. So on that backdrop of fifty or sixty years of being smashed by a New South Wales team, you have a dominant team now who's giving it back to Sydney and New South Wales. So when Wayne Bennet gloats in victory over the Sharks on the weekend, his words were, "and I hope Queensland's proud". And that's what its all about: an imagined community developed along historical, mythological and nostalgic lines.

AMANDA SMITH: Dave, would you see that applying to, say, the Adelaide Crows or the West Coast Eagles in the AFL?

DAVE NADEL: Absolutely. And in fact if you look at the original Eagles club song and the current Crows club song, which is, "we are the pride of South Australia", the grievance is actually written into the songs. It's very much part of the myth. Because everything that Murray described about the relationship between Queensland and New South Wales applies to the three southern states and Victoria. This, you know, big daddy Victoria, pushing them around, stealing their players, rewriting the rules regularly to the benefit of the Victorian teams. So it's built on a sense of grievance. And some of those grievances are imagined and some of those grievance are real and form a part of the imagining.

AMANDA SMITH: The Adelaide press is certainly full of all that this week. Here's a quote from the Advertiser that says, "the Crows have shown us, as individuals and as a community, we should not be intimidated by the reputations of other states".

DAVE NADEL: You can almost see the chip on the shoulder as you read that, can't you?

AMANDA SMITH: Well Dave, how do you see that sub-set of spectators, the "theatre-goers", who've perhaps emerged in more recent years? Those people who don't have a particular club allegiance, but who go along to a big game for the spectacle of the occasion. How does the rise of that non- aligned spectator affect a notion of community around football?

DAVE NADEL: I suppose, ultimately, it's threatening for a notion of community. But I think it's also threatening for the future of football. Because in the final analysis football is not the same as going to see a Shakespearian play or a grand opera. It really does base itself on tribal allegiances. And the problem of the spectators...I mean we are actually seeing the problem of theatre-goers in Melbourne this weekend. Because all sorts of long term St. Kilda and Adelaide fans, who've gone to all the home and away games and sweated blood and put in money to the clubs, now they can't get finals tickets. Because the AFL and the MCC have arranged the MCG to the benefit of theatre-goers. So the theatre-goers will sit in their corporate boxes, or on their AFL or MCC member's passes. But, in fact, what gives the game its passion, what gives the game its powers, are your died-in-the-wool tribal supporters.

I can see the value of theatre-goers. I can see the attraction of theatre-goers to the AFL planners, because they tend to have more money and the game has a money problem. But in the final analysis you can't build this sort of competition. That part is not unique to Australia. I think that if you have a good look at British soccer or American baseball, you'll find that it's the tribal fans, even in those competitions, rather than the theatre-goers that make the competition work.

AMANDA SMITH: Murray, is the theatre-goer a phenomenon in rugby league?

MURRAY PHILLIPS: It certainly is. And if you look at the way the game is structured now it is deliberately attempting to get people to come to the game, not only to watch the spectacle in terms of the players, but in terms of the entertainment pre-game, post-game and even while the game is on. So for example, you go to Canberra Raiders. There's a pre-game show or pre-game entertainment. You watch the game, and at half time there's entertainment. And following the game there's often music accompanying the game. If you go to the Brisbane Broncos for example, they'll put on a live band afterward to keep the patrons there. Now if you go back to the Canberra Raiders at Bruce, it's almost like you've got sideshow alley at the back of the stadium, where there are now a whole lot of rides for kids. And there is fairy floss, and you could almost put yourself in the Exhibition Grounds in Brisbane, or somewhere else, if you weren't aware that you were at a football ground.

So, the way rugby league is positioning itself - and its got a lot to do with Super League/ARL spilt - is they're trying to get everybody there. Whether they are passionate football followers, or if they're there to ride on the merry-go-round, or to eat fairy floss. So in a sense, that combination with the entertainment prior and post game, means that we have an American-style razzmatazz competition that people come and watch quite regularly.

AMANDA SMITH: Sports historians, Murray Phillips and Dave Nadel.

And as Dave mentioned, there's been a lot of anger and despair this week from the huge numbers of Saints and Crows supporters - true believers all - who haven't been able to get tickets to the AFL Grand Final. But here's a story that's truly heart-breaking.

Thirty-one years ago, Peter Flemming, a teenager living in the Wimmera in Victoria, gave up his Grand Final ticket and so missed seeing his team St. Kilda win their only flag. Bill Haskin was the person who got Peter's ticket. And here's the story of how it happened:

BILL HASKIN: I came to Australia for a year as a high school exchange student on the AFS exchange program. And little did I know that they were going to put me in a town called Minyip, Victoria, which is a very small country town in the Wimmera. And I arrived and met the Flemming family, who I'd only received a few photographs and letters from prior to that. And we jumped in the car and drove off to Minyip. So I had quite a shock on arriving in Australia.

AMANDA SMITH: So Peter, did Bill have any choice about becoming an Aussie Rules supporter, and a St. Kilda supporter in particular, given he was biletted with your family for that year?

PETER FLEMMING: No, he certainly didn't have any choice about becoming a St. Kilda supporter, because the whole family barracks for St. Kilda. And he took to Aussie Rules fairly well, actually. He ended up playing a few games with the, I think it was the Minyip Reserves, is that right Bill?

BILL HASKIN: A couple with Minyip Reserves, but a couple with Sheep Hills as well.

PETER FLEMMING: His tackling was a bit unorthodox, but it was very effective.

AMANDA SMITH: Alright, but the crux of this story is, Bill, how did you, a Yankee high school exchange student living in Minyip in the Wimmera, get to go to that 1966 Grand Final?

BILL HASKIN: Well, the Flemming's were very keen to get tickets to go to the Grand Final, and they had to purchase a final series. I think in those years you got two tickets for the final series. And come Grand Final day there was a big decision to be made, because there weren't enough tickets for the family. And I was chosen, because I would not have a chance to see another Grand Final. I was given one of the tickets to go and Peter missed out.

AMANDA SMITH: Peter, did you give up your ticket willingly or did others in the family have to pursued you?

PETER FLEMMING: I can't really remember but I don't think it would have been willingly. At the time I was fairly confident of seeing St. Kilda in another Grand Final not long after. My mother told me - this is what I keep reminding her, of her famous last words - "you'll get plenty of chances to see St. Kilda playing Grand Finals in the future".

AMANDA SMITH: Yes well your mother must have lived to regret those words, or I'm sure you haven't let her forget them over the years?

PETER FLEMMING: No I certainly haven't.

AMANDA SMITH: Bill was there any arrangement or deal with Peter, for him giving up his precious Grand Final ticket?

BILL HASKIN: There was no agreement at the time. But when I returned to Australia in 1972, I realised that Peter had not been to a Grand Final and had not see St. Kilda in a Grand Final. So I took it upon myself to tell him that I would get him a ticket if St. Kilda did ever reach a Grand Final again, and be able to repay him for 1966.

AMANDA SMITH: So Bill have you honoured that deal? Have you got a ticket for Peter for tomorrow?

BILL HASKIN: No, I don't. I've been trying all week, with as many connections as I can make here in Sydney, because I've lost touch a few years ago with the AFL because I moved to Sydney and I'm no longer a member of any of the clubs.

AMANDA SMITH: OK, so do you want to make a plea on air for someone in the AFL hierarchy or someone with a spare ticket - should such a thing exist in the universe - to make an honest man of you?

BILL HASKIN: Yes, well it will be very nice if we could get a ticket for Peter to go to the Grand Final. I've been dreading this occurrence for 30 years even though I really did want St. Kilda to get there, because I knew how difficult it was. And it even caught me by surprise, I think, when St. Kilda did make it, just how difficult it would be to pick up a ticket.

AMANDA SMITH: Peter, what about 1971? St. Kilda played in the Grand Final that year - they didn't win - but you didn't get to that Grand Final?

PETER FLEMMING: No, unfortunately - well not unfortunately - but I was getting married in two weeks time after the Grand Final. An dmy mates decided that particular Saturday would be the best day to give me a bucks turn. So unfortunately I missed out, although I did listen to as much as I could on the radio, but I wasn't able to go.

AMANDA SMITH: Well perhaps just as well you didn't go. Mind you if it was your bucks turn you were probably barely conscious that you're team were beaten anyway?

PETER FLEMMING: Well I knew they'd lost. That was the worst part about it, so I wasn't drunk enough not to register that.

AMANDA SMITH: Bill, given that that Peter's mum's prediction that he'd have plenty of chances to see St. Kilda playing other Grand Finals didn't turn out to be all that accurate, has your comprehension of the magnitude of Peter's sacrifice for you grown as the years have gone by?

BILL HASKIN: Yes it has. I think each two or three years, whenever St. Kilda have gotten close to reaching the finals, it's always come back to me that I'm going to have to produce one day. And realising how difficult it was, I probably should have started my quest a bit earlier, and even gambled a bit on someone producing a ticket for me.

AMANDA SMITH: Bill Haskin, trying to repay his 31 year old debt to Peter Flemming, so far without much luck.

On Radio National, this is the Sports Factor. I'm Amanda Smith.

Now, one of the nice traditions that's upheld in the Australian Football League is the "father-son rule" - where if you're a potential ALF player, and your father played 50 or more senior games with a club, then you can play for his old club rather than take pot luck in the draft. Right now, the father-son rule has taken on an extra significant for David Sierakowski, playing for St. Kilda as his father did before him:

DAVID SIERAKOWSKI: It's just such an emotional time for me at the moment, 'cause just knowing that dad was out there 31 years ago. And I'm going to be gracing the same oval that he was. And hopefully we can have the same conclusion. But maybe a few more points in our favour.

AMANDA SMITH: David's dad, Brian Sierakowski, is now a lawyer based in Perth and a director of the West Coast Eagles Football Club. But this week, Brian's back in Melbourne, excited all over again for the St. Kilda footy club, and for his son:

BRIAN SIERAKOWSKI: Apart from being exciting - I think it's exciting for any parent to have a son play football, and for a son indeed to play in a Grand Final. But of course this has particular significance both to myself and I think, to David, because it's something he's always wanted to emulate. And here we are 31 years after the event in which I played, my son is now having the privilege of representing the St. Kilda Football Club.

AMANDA SMITH: When you're watching David play in the red, black and white, do you see anything of yourself in him?

BRIAN SIERAKOWSKI: Oh sure, there's no doubt Amanda you want to live - relive - your experiences through your son. The big problem I think is not encroaching on that, and letting him express his own and achieve his own achievements. But there's no doubt that when you're sitting there watching, you're very analytical. And you tend to want to see your son do certain things, and play football in certain ways. We often discuss various aspects of football. And I hope that the comments I make sometimes can circumvent a lot of things which he wouldn't necessarily have to go through.

AMANDA SMITH: Did he grown up with stories of his dad playing in that legendary Grand Final?

BRIAN SIERAKOWSKI: I think over the years, the 30 years that St. Kilda hasn't won a Premiership, there's been a lot said about that famous team. We've tended to be, or continued to be, the hallowed heroes of St. Kilda over 30 years. Which is probably unfortunate but it's the fact, and here we are today 31 years on and we're still probably the 20 most famous players of the St. Kilda Football Club. Now that has been reminded and replayed to David many many times, not necessarily by myself, but by the press and by TV coverage et cetera, et cetera. And that's been a part of his life in growing up, knowing the fact that the very team that he wanted to play with - he's always wanted to achieve that - and he's been conscious of it. So no doubt it's been there in the back of his mind. And that's really what makes this day, if we win, so exciting for the both of us.

AMANDA SMITH: That '66 grand final was incredibly close for the whole four quarters. What are your recollections, your particular recollections, of the day?

BRIAN SIERAKOWSKI: I will never every forget the elation of 100,000 people standing and singing in unison the club song, 'Oh When The Saints Come Marching In'. And just to run around the ground holding up the cup listening to this echo from a stadium the size of the MCG was just awesome. It, you know you've heard the saying that it makes the hairs on your back stand up? Well this was an occasion where it was so emotive. Women who'd watched and seen and waited for sixty, seventy years to see their famous St. Kilda side win a flag just wept. And I'll never, ever forget going into the change rooms and seeing the crowd of women, particularly - and that was the thing that struck me most and they were elderly women to me at that age - who were just watching us drink out of the cup with the champagne. And they just cried openly, they just wanted to touch us as if we were gods. We were actually stark naked. I mean it's not as if there was anything rude about the scene, but they were so obsessed with the occasion and the joy of it: to see these twenty people having won the flag for the first time. They weren't pushed out of the room because of the emotion of the day.

AMANDA SMITH: Now obviously St. Kilda fans have a huge investment in this Grand Final, as they did back in 1966. The excitment has been mounting for weeks. Have you been able to offer any advice to David about both dealing with the pressure, and enjoying the moment?

BRIAN SIERAKOWSKI: We touch base just about every day and we just have a quick little conversation. We talk a little bit on tactics and I make my comments. And at the end of it he says, "Ah shut up, Dad, I'm sick of hearing that", and we get on about our business.

AMANDA SMITH: Brian Sierakowski, who's son David follows in his footsteps tomorrow, when he runs out onto the MCG for St. Kilda and the AFL Grand Final.

And that's The Sports Factor for this week. Whether you're supporting Adelaide or St. Kilda, Manly or Newcastle this weekend, or if you're an innocent bystander, enjoy the good times!

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The Sports Factor can be heard on Radio National, 8.30am Fridays (Repeated Friday evenings at 8.00pm).