Life on the West Island - Getting their own back

The first 20 years of my West Island life were spent in rural South Australia, where I was born, raised and schooled in a small country town. Every winter, girls and women played basketball (now known as netball), while men and boys played football. To us, there was only one type of footy, the game later called Australian Rules. We knew little about any other version of winter ball sports, although it was rumoured that a couple of toffee-nosed private colleges in the city indulged in a violent activity known as rugby union, which could not be regarded as football because the ball was seldom kicked and was often covered by a stack of muddy bodies in something known as a “scrum.”

Every night after school we practised our footy skills until darkness fell, trying to perfect our kicking, tackling, marking and goal shooting abilities. Everyone also vigorously supported a team in the city-based South Australian National Football League (SANFL), which comprised eight suburban teams which all played their games at the same time on a Saturday afternoon, with the minor exceptions of special matches on Anzac Day and Queen’s birthday holidays.

In those years, shops closed at lunchtime on Saturdays and there was no retail trading on Sundays. Our local footy games were played only on Saturday afternoons at the same time as the league games in Adelaide, two of which were broadcast on Adelaide radio stations, sandwiched between calls of the city horse races.

We knew that footy was played across the country in our state as well as in Western Australia, Tasmania and Victoria. The Sandgropers and Croweaters each had eight teams and Victoria ten. The Apple Islanders had three regional leagues, with intense rivalries between them. In each state, there were hundreds of teams in country towns, playing home and away games in front of highly partisan crowds, often on muddy ovals with centre square quagmires where cricket was played in summer. Patrons could usually drive in and park their cars around the perimeter of the ground, sounding their horns to celebrate goals. The local bakery often had a young vendor going from car to car, selling pies and pasties from a wooden tray covered in a tea towel to keep in a little heat.

But footy in both the city and country was essentially an amateur sport, although many suburban coaches were paid and some country teams had captain/coaches, who received small sums or free accommodation. Most of these were former city players in the twilight of their careers who were enticed to improve the fierce competitions between country teams in regions such as ours.

But the game was changing, as metropolitan matches attracted large partisan crowds and started to garner significant revenues. And the intense interstate rivalries were tested in annual carnivals between teams of the best players from each state. Although the Big V could draw from a much larger pool of footballers, it was relatively common for the more passionate teams from smaller states to triumph in these carnivals. However, as the VFL became richer and professionalism permeated the game, cashed-up Melbourne teams began to entice elite interstate footballers to their sides with lucrative offers of contracts and subsidised housing.

This development effectively ended the competitiveness of smaller states, as their better players would then don the Big V jumper and help the hated Vics to win every carnival by dominating those states in which they were born. Agitation for state of origin rules was effectively stymied by the rich and powerful Melbourne clubs, which feared injury to their star players.

Little did we know that in the Premier and Sunshine states, similar resentments had grown up in a mysterious code that they called footy, which a few of us knew as rugby league. Queenslanders developed a deep resentment against wealthy Sydney clubs stealing their best league stars and weakening their competitions.

In time, both Aussie Rules and rugby league competitions became immensely rich from media and gambling revenue and began to establish national competitions. AFL transplanted struggling Melbourne teams to Sydney and Brisbane, while rugby league established teams in Caberra and regional Queensland. The NRL still struggles to gain ground in southern states, but it has instead built a very successful regional rivalry in its heavily promoted State of Origin series between the Cockroaches and Maroons.

Despite these developments, New South Wales commonly regards itself as the home of rugby league and Victorians passionately claim to be the birthplace and spiritual residence of Aussie Rues. This leads to deep expectations that a Sydney team will always triumph in the NRL and a Melbourne side will inevitably be crowned AFL premiers. This is exemplified in the sacred traditions that the NRL Grand Final is always played in Sydney, and that the MCG is contracted to hold the AFL Grand Final until well into the 2050s.

But highly professional and successful interstate teams are now putting the received truths of their big state rivals to the sword. This year is a striking example of how the smaller states are triumphing against the footy behemoths.

Not only has Queensland come from behind to seize the NRL State of Origin crown (once again), but the final eight contained four non-NSW teams and, to the horror of Sydneysiders, two interstate sides - Melbourne and Brisbane - fought out the Grand Final.

And in the AFL, things are perhaps even more distressing to Melburnians. This year, only two of the top eight sides came from the Victorian capital, with neither making it to the Grand Final. And for the second successive year, the premiership cup has gone north to Brisbane.

In both codes, residents of the smaller states are no doubt rubbing their hands together in satisfaction for getting their own back against the arrogance of their bigger cousins who for many years stole the jewels from their local footy leagues.