Football for the true believers

At the start of the footy season 40 years ago, 1969, our family immigrated to Australia.

My father, Michael senior, arrived at Melbourne’s Station Pier with a pregnant wife, two pre-school children, and little money in his pocket. He stepped off the boat Thursday, found a job Friday, and was terrace side Saturday, watching VFL football, Geelong v Carlton.

He loved the game so much that he left his young family in their new country to fend for themselves and went back to the VFA on Sunday; Williamstown v Sunshine.

What is it about football that hooks people so immediately?

That first Friday Dad had made friends with some guys who kept calling him “mate”. Not yet used to the “Strine” dialect, he thought they were saying “Mike”. Dad was dumbfounded as to how so many people already knew his name. But these guys tried to convince him that Geelong was the right team to follow.

We had immigrated to Australia partly for political reasons. Dad was heavily involved in cricket and soccer administration in 1960s South Africa. South African society was then sadly divided by a colour barrier which was, of course, spreading its gloom over sport as much as anything else.

Standing on the wing at Kardinia Park, Dad was primed to yell encouragement for the Geelong Hoops. However, when the Carlton team ran out with a little number “5” whose skin was much darker than Dad’s, he knew he had found a team of fairness and equity. First year player, Syd Jackson, didn’t kick any goals but Jezza kicked five, and from that day our blood bled Navy Blue.

I have since returned to my native continent, Africa, working with an NGO as a linguist-translator among the 270 indigenous languages of Cameroon, which are being dragged willingly or otherwise into the modern era by opposing language heavyweights, English and French. In a land of such ethnic diversity, there is but one unifying factor - soccer!

In Cameroon soccer is King, Queen, as well as everything else except for maybe a few pawns. Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’o is already a demi-god, surpassing the divinity of an Ablett or a Jesaulenko in their playing days.

The name Eto’o may not be familiar in Australia, yet Aussies once cheered for him passionately. At the Sydney 2000 sporting extravaganza, 98,000 people in the Cathy Freeman Olympic Stadium were itching for an underdog to adopt. And here was one wearing a splash of green and gold and losing 2-0 to Spain at half time in the gold medal match. A then boyish Samuel Eto’o scored the equaliser and then nailed a penalty in the shoot-out. Sporting minnows, Cameroon, had claimed gold, and the Aussies, realising the weight of the moment, fully knowing how hard success comes in the world game, wept tears of joy.

So how do you convince anyone over here that there is a game, from the world’s southern antipodes, that most people in the world have never heard of, that is the true measure of sporting excellence, using mere words.

But this I attempted at our 2009 linguistic conference. As an icebreaker divergence, each attendee was given three minutes microphone time to speak of their premier interest away from work. So in the presence of Cameroonians and expatriate Americans and Europeans, I gave what follows as my argument as to what is the world’s greatest game.

“In the southern parts of the Great South Land of Australia, exists a game which transcends all others which presume to use the name football. It is not rugby, nor is it gridiron. It is far removed from soccer. Though arising from the same primordial sporting soup as these games, it shares no genetic link.

“To the uninitiated it is known as Australian Rules football. Some English scoffers deride it as ‘No Rules’ football, rightfully bestowing on it its primal qualities, paramount in the pantheon of games. For its origin reaches far back into the antiquities, even touching memories of the Dreamtime.

“Other advents in football were stillborn. In the 14th century Mob football was banned in London by edict of King Edward II. Fifteenth century Calcio, a 27-a-side game sponsored by the nobility of Florence, today only exists as an amusement in Italian festivals.

“Sixteenth century proponents of Sunday observances in Ireland tried but fortunately failed to stop the development of Gaelic football.

“Now the authentic game was ready to emerge at the confluence of these streams. Settlers from the British Isles, brought up on the traditions of cricket and Irish games, caid and hurling, came to find gold in the Victorian goldfields. They noticed the playful pastimes of the nimble footed hunters amongst local aboriginal tribes. God had allowed the royal bloodlines to touch. New life had evolved; a game which now enthrals while encapsulating the Australian spirit.

“The Melbourne Football Club was established and the rules first codified in 1859.

“Its playing field is larger than all other codes, mirroring Australia’s vast and empty terrain.

“The oval shaped ball alludes to the Australian sense of chance and opportunity, which dictates that the ball will eventually bounce your way.

“Loose interpretations governing the umpire’s whistle keep the ball moving fluidly. Such freedom of mobility satisfies the yearning of the Australian people. Once a colony fettered by convict chains, now its own island nation; a free land with no borders. Here there exists no off-side rule.

“Football encompasses the finest in human endeavour: the courage and sacrifice required of a body contact sport; the endurance of a marathon runner; the speed and agility to move the ball as swiftly as the wind; the camaraderie which willingly obeys team tactics and master strategies devised by a chess literate coach, released by bursts of individual heroism.

“Accompanied by slick and refined skills, surpassed only by concert trained musicians, some say footballers ought to be watched while listening to classical music.

“Recalling time’s first moment, when the fabric of the cosmos was stretched, wormholes momentarily appear in the playing field where gravity is reversed and once mortals ascend on angels’ paths.

“This is football as it was in the beginning. So shall it always be.

“Our indigenous game unfortunately has not laid claim to foreign shores. But I have now come to understand the unanswerable question, the vacant or quizzical expression which arises on the face of any Cameroonian when asked, ‘Do you think that your mother tongue language will ever die?’ This is no more as ridiculous a question as putting to an Australian such as me, ‘Why don’t you encourage your son to play soccer?’

“We don’t know what language will be spoken in heaven but we know what game will be played.”
 
Michael Viljoen senior, is reputed to have broken some kind of record by playing 36 seasons of cricket without missing a game, 18 in South Africa and 18 in Australia. He has been present at all of the last 25 AFL Grand Finals.