Andy – Page 5

Chant Making

22/05/2014 By Andy 2 Comments

/1/

Waiting for 34 years

and surely some more

so few wins, so many tears

oh tigers, oh tigers

we need to quickly score

/2/

we used to be strong and bold

but now we’re bored and cold

cotchin, deledio, dusty

it’s up to you all

so play hard and get the bloody ball!

/3/

fiora or pavlich?

tambling or franklin?

it’s all our own fault

oh tigers, oh tigers

bring this shit to a halt!

/4/

the Royal, the London, the Corner

so many places in which to get pissed

and to forget about all the goals that we missed

the GB, the Cricketers Arms, the Mountain View

let’s make sure we’re drunk

another loss, it’s nothing new

/5/

he’s tall and he’s handsome

he comes from Kyabram

and he’s always on the go

he’s the one and only Brett

Del-e-di-ooh!

/6/

he’s big and he’s strong

he kicks the ball so damn long

oh dusty! dusty martin!

he’s got tatts on his neck and tatts on his arms

and his mate mr.conners didn’t set his alarm

we love you, we love you dusty

even when your form is rather rusty

oh dusty! dusty martin!

At the Melbourne Victory – Liverpool match at the MCG in July 2013, some 90,000 sang the classic ballad, You’ll Never Walk Alone. This has become the anthem that unites Liverpool fans throughout the world. It is sung when the team enters the playing field and during games in order to heighten the intensity, the drama and to further encourage the players.

You’ll Never Walk Alone is also the song that is played in the lead up to running marathons in The Netherlands. As I waited at the start line in the Rotterdam marathon, I felt an odd sense of convergence: on that day Liverpool would play Manchester City, the winner seemingly to be in the primary position to win the League title. I was one of 10,000 or so: in my starting block there were mostly men, upwards of 30, dressed in the bare essentials of running gear. I imagined the different crowds of (mainly) men at Liverpool football matches, with fans holding aloft the red scarves: chanting the song in a stoic and reverent manner.

In the week leading up to the game against Melbourne Victory, Liverpool had also been in Jakarta to play against a composite team, known as the Indonesian All Stars. That there were still two main leagues of soccer in Indonesia made it difficult to form a single national team that could best represent the best of Indonesian soccer. But, the crowd, on this day at least, was just like the Melbourne crowd: they were the to see Liverpool. And so, packed into the Gelora BungKarno stadium, some 90,000 sang You’ll Never Walk Alone with a passion and exuberance equal to that of Anfield or Melbourne. The match was as dull as it would be in Melbourne: but, all could state that they had seen the Liverpool play.

But, Liverpool’s victory against Manchester City turned out to be a false sign of the eventual winner of the EPL. A disappointing loss to Chelsea, a shocking draw with Crystal Palace and the title became City’s with ease. City won the title through being consistent and not slipping up along the way. Liverpool played the exciting football and captured a enraptured audience throughout the world. And soon after the title became City’s, subscribers of Instagram were uploading videos directly from Anfield with the hashtag #ynwa.
The 15 second clips of footage were showing the Liverpool fans defiantly singing, chanting You’ll Never Walk Alone at the game’s beginning and conclusion: as if singing along could claim the title that seemed to be within Liverpool’s grasp. Suarez, of 31 goals, left the field with his face covered beneath his shirt, guided by Kolo Toure. He wasn’t walking alone, but this was a disappointing moment. He had given so much joy, hope and pleasure to Liverpool fans throughout the season, he should have looked them in the eyes – each 44,000 of them – and thanked them for their unwavering support.

***

Pasoepati, the supporter group of Persis Solo in Indonesia’s second division – the curiously named Divisi Utama (Main League) – have several main chants which they also churn out during important moments in the football game, but, also during the quiet moments of play when nothing much is happening on the field. The anthem for Persis Solo is Satu Jiwa, or, ‘One Soul’, by a group called The Working Class Symphony who play a kind of folk punk. Like You’ll Never Walk Alone, Satu Jiwa, also implores steadfastness in the face of changing and difficult circumstances: “kita tetap satu, apapun yang terjadi”, that is, “we’ll stay together, whatever happens.” Satu Jiwa greets the players as they walk onto the field, just as You’ll Never Walk Alone greets the players at Anfield. These two songs weren’t written for the clubs, but, they have been appropriated into becoming their anthems.

The Pasoepati supporter group state that their aim is to provide a vibrant and lively atmosphere throughout the full 90minutes of each match. One of the chants that is sung is “Alap-Alap Samber Nyawa”, “alap-alap” indicating a sense of threatening, “Samber Nyawa” being the name of a famous prince from Solo and thus indicating their identity. But, the chant of “alap-alap samber nyawa” wouldn’t be sung if it weren’t for its combination of vowel sounds; it almost rhymes, it’s easy to chant. The subsequent lyrics don’t make much sense, too, but no matter: “fly us into the galaxy, you will surely shake the legend, [we are] Persis Surakarto (the old name for the city of Solo)”. And in between there is a big oooooohh—–wwooohhhhh. The chant is sung to the beating of drums. One doesn’t need to be able to sing; one only needs a gut full of energy and a heart full of passion for the team.

***

But a footy game is not a soccer match. Footy grounds differ from soccer stadiums. Footy crowds contrast with those of soccer. A footy game is much longer and the action is more easily dispersed across a bigger playing field. Arguably, one needs more concentration to watch a footy game than a soccer game. Or, perhaps, it is a different kind of attention that is required. Soccer crowds in England or Indonesia are overwhelmingly male, the footy crowds of Australia are much more diverse: a roughly equal number of men and women and of course many children in attendance. The unified macho chanting of You’ll Never Walk Alone, Satu Jiwa, or Alap-alap Samber Nyawa might be not so easily created at a Richmond home game. But, part of me thinks it is possible, to a degree.

Do we have songs to sing at games? Is there a pop ballad that we could appropriate as our own song? A song that we all know the lyrics to, that we can chant during a quarter to rouse our team? Can we write a 4 line chant in homage of our great coach, Tommy Hafey, in the manner that Liverpool fans have songs for their captain Steven Gerrard? Can we have another four line chant in ode to Matthew Richardson who gave us so much pleasure during the long years of hopelessness? (We don’t have success at the moment, but at least we have a degree of hope.) Me thinks we have it in us as a supporter group to come up with songs and chants which can show our passion for our team. Regardless of how our team performs off the field, us fans can devise ways of making the experience of watching the Tiges play more and more enjoyable. Players, coaches, administrators come and go. For 10, 20, 30,40, 50, 60 years – or longer – the fans stay loyal. The fans maketh the club.

Soundscapes of the Outer

08/05/2014 By Andy 3 Comments

Each stadium has its own architecture. The gently rising terraces of suburban football grounds or the steep stands of the MCG. Stadium architecture is a response to the size of the field upon which the game is played. Australian football developed in borderless paddocks: and the grounds we have now reflect the early expanses. I wonder: when did the grounds become oval, when was the scoring system developed, entrenched? Behind posts, apparently, were added to the goals in 1866. During the earliest games a round ball was used. A 100 minute time limit was enforced from 1869.The game was initially played by cricketers to stay fit in the off-season: and how quaint this now seems, given the extraordinary athleticism of so many footballers in comparison to relative slowness of cricketers (although that too is changing). And so footy made it onto the turf of the MCG in 1876 and that perhaps entrenched the ovalness of footy fields. But, I wonder if other shapes of fields remained in use. Although footy is ‘Australia’s game’ many of the cricket fraternity regard footy as a little too rough and its fans a little too uncouth. And this too is a generalised cliché: the sport doesn’t define the behaviour of player, supporters.

Footy ovals – even in the streamlined AFL – remain of varying shapes and sizes. Teams become more comfortable playing on their home ground. The Tiges look best when playing on the MCG and always look as if they’re playing away at the Dome even when it is a home game. The SCG is short and narrow. Geelong’s ground is long. Subiaco has ‘broad expanses’: and one can be reminded of the emptiness of the Australian landscape. The intense tackling of Sydney’s teams in the mid-2000s and Ross Lyon’s St.Kilda teams were honed at the smaller venues. The Tiges are proud of their ground which now has the dimensions of the Dome – at least they can become more familiar with their other home ground. The poor quality of the training ground was considered as one of the reasons for the long years of underperformance (not that they are necessarily over). Geelong famously plays through the corridor, probably in part because their home ground has shallow pockets.

The crowd of a footy game is easily distinguished from the crowd that watches a theatre performance. Indeed, those who a performance of the arts are classified as an audience. A crowd watches aggressively: interjecting, shouting, abusing, supporting. An audience watches (consumes) silently and in considered appreciation. This distinction is not necessarily stable or inherently true: there was a time when audiences too would interject, abuse or break out into cheering. Upon the premiere of Gustav Mahler’s fourth symphony, the audience (crowd?) demanded that it be played again – immediately. During performances of Wagner operas, the crowd (audience?) would demand that particular sections be sung again (immediately) such was their beauty. In an age when instant replays and DVDs of highlights weren’t available, there were other ways of re-experiencing what one imagined to be beautiful. And, of course, there is the famous incident of fights breaking out after the premier of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The so-called fine arts can also arouse hostile reactions. These were times, arguably, before such music became classified. Audiences didn’t go to performances of Mahler’s symphonies looking for a safe and comfortable night’s entertainment: they went looking for something new. And sometimes this new was shocking – and the audiences were unsure of whether or not they enjoyed it.

The footy crowd/audience differs not only from that of a theatre going audience/crowd but also that of other sporting crowds. The tennis crowd is admonished by the umpire who sits high upon a chair. The players can complain to the umpire regarding the crowd. Officials at golf tournaments hold up signs bestowing silence upon those watching. The players are expected and regard it as obligatory that they perform their sports in the mythical silence of a library. Silence is dignified: allowing for concentration. I think of religious sermons and the audience of the faithful watching on – few probably listening attentively – in earnest, showing off their piety. Many take the moment of silence as an opportunity to sleep; just as many do in a cinema. But, perhaps this act of falling asleep in the dark of a cinema is less voluntary; and perhaps an accidental and passive act of film criticism. The darkness of the cinema alerts one’s senses to sound; the acoustics of churches magnifies the slightest of sounds. To be noisy is to interfere with the concentration and pleasure of others, or to be irreverent and insulting of the preacher.

The silence expected at tennis matches and golf tournaments is also a result of the proximity of the audience to the players themselves. These are considered games that require a high degree of finely tuned concentration: logic, reason, scientific judgement. But the crowd of a boxing match (not ‘game’) is also close: so close that those in the first row may be struck with the boxer’s sweat. Boxing also requires an intensity of concentration and judgement surely equal to that of tennis or golf. Players of sport will talk about being ‘in the zone’ and not hearing the crowd. At other times they will speak of how the crowd’s noise, and the support of their team in particular, was instrumental in raising their performance. At boxing matches, crowds will cheer on the final frenetic moments of the last round: willing the boxers on to give their all. While fools in the audience (crowd?) of a tennis match will interject seeking to distract a player at the moment before he or she hits a shot. It is up to the players themselves to choose when they do or do not hear the crowd. In these cases, listening/hearing is not something passive and automatic. The incident in which Adam Goodes pointed to a member of the crowd for racially abusing him was a case in point: Goodes was hardly listening to everything the crowd was shouting. But, he heard the racist statements and couldn’t un-hear them and thus he acted in the manner he did.

The broad expanses of footy stadiums gives rise to a soundscape of diffused support and abuse. There is little collective singing, chanting. The slow ‘Col-ling-wood’ ‘Col-ling-wood’ or ‘Free-yo’- ‘Free-yo’ chants are rare exceptions and are only possible, or heard, at moments of great or impending victories. Most common are the individual shouts of the crowd whose voice probably reaches no further than a few rows in front of him or herself. Synchronised chanting, supporting takes the form of ‘Team name’ followed by clap-clap-clap. But this is tedious and hackneyed. Again, it only emerges during a team’s run-on, or emerging victory. The gestures of so-called cheer squads are exaggerated partly in order to make up for the easy manner in which their shouting dissolves into the empty space of the stadium. The fan who was pointed out by Goodes was shocked not only for having being put into sudden public attention but for the realisation that Goodes had heard what she had said. Her racist statement had been heard by the target; it hadn’t dissolved into the noise of a stadium.

Of Istanbul and Football Politics

29/04/2014 By Andy 1 Comment

“I hate Galatasaray. They are the worst team in the world,” Orhan remarks at his Camper shoe store on Istiklal Caddesi. A pedestrian walks past the shop wearing a Fenerbache shirt; he calls out to indicate their shared allegiance and she replies with a smile. Despite Orhan’s antagonism and smiling contempt for Galatasary, this is a day of unity between the fans of Istanbul’s three biggest teams. They are gathering to protest against a new system which requires personal information when buying tickets for football matches. A necessary means for maintaining security, the police will say, an incursion on the rights of citizens, fans and others will say. But, already, there is much tension between civilians and authorities; protests have been dispersed through violence; civilians have been killed. Tension is building.

It’s a Sunday morning on the Istiklal Caddesi. The street is already filled with shoppers, strollers, tourists, locals, buskers, activists, cleaners, workers. The street, formerly known as Grande Rue de Pera, and translated in English as Independence Avenue is in Istanbul’s district of Beyoglu, on the European side of the city. This is a plush walking, shopping street with many side streets, alleys and passagi (arcades) coming off it. The street is also home to the consulates of Sweden, Russia and The Netherlands. There are fine cafes in the side-streets, the well-stocked and carefully selected record store Lale Plak and also Salt (Beyoglu) – a three level contemporary art gallery. Istiklal may well be one way of measuring the moods of Istanbul.

Later in the day, I’m in the Adidas store on Istiklal and I’m looking for a Besiktas shirt. I’ve decided to adopt the team of a friend who lives in Leiden who I met through the running club. Besiktas are one of the big three clubs of Istanbul and are famous for their hardcore supporters known as Carsi (pronounced, roughly, Charshi). Throughout the city, one occasionally sees their tag: with the A written to indicate their anarchist ideology. Back at my hotel, Cesar – who sits at the front desk – says, “carsi her seye karsi” – which he translates as meaning “Carsi are against everything”. This is their own slogan and the group is known for their involvement in the protests against Erdogan of 2013 – in which members hijacked a bulldozer and chased the police. Although Cesar supports Galatasaray, he states his respect for Besiktas. He has less respect for Fenerbache which is embroiled in a match fixing scandal, but is on the brink of winning this years Turkish Super League championship.

Countless walks are no doubt needed to get to grip with Istiklal Caddesi’s intricacies, its moods and its rhythms. Sometimes pedestrians briefly jog as if in a hurry; teenagers laugh as they grasp their smart phones as if they are needed to maintain their balance. Some stop at the small stalls for simit or for sweets. Crowds gather to listen to the ensembles of buskers: some are playing varieties of traditional music, others are playing jazz, there are duos of guitars, too. In this city in which the craft of music is so respected and where musicians are revered, these acts of busking sound more like auditions for access to some of the nearby clubs and bars. These are necessary acts of spreading the word, being heard by possibly the right person. And thus, the buskers perform with their concentrated expressions; serious and proud of the music they’re delivering. The pedestrians who become their audience listen in respectful silence: applauding at the ends’ of songs. The crowds for these buskers swell and sometimes force pedestrians to almost walk in front of the occasionally passing antique trams that sometimes trundle slowly along Istiklal Caddesi.

Still at the Adidas shop, I get talking a little with the young assistant. His name is Cesar, and, as it turns out, he is a Fenerbache fan. I’m looking at the shirts of Besiktas and Fenerbahce which range from 75 to 115 Turkish lira. Since Fazil, back at the hotel, informed me of how Fenerbache robbed his team – Trabzonspor of the 2010-11 season championship, I’ve been reluctant to buy a Fenerbache souvenir. Nonetheless, their shirts are blue and yellow and I find the black and white of Galatasaray’s home shirt to be too similar to Collingwood of the Australian Football League – one of my home team’s main rivals. I ask Cesar of Fenerbache’s match fixing accusations after he tells me that it has been a difficult season and that Besiktas has been respectful of Fenerbache throughout the ongoing controversy and Trabzonspor’s application to UEFA to have the 2010-11 overturned. Cesar is ambivalent: he can’t deny the proof held against his team. He simply tells me that all of the clubs are doing it. It’s only a matter of degree.

Walking over from the Sultanahmet district shows offers a brief glimpse into some of the city’s moods and attributes. It is on this side of the Bosphorous that many of the so-called tourist attractions can be found: the Haghia Sophia (AD537), the Blue Mosque (AD 1616), the Topkapi Palace Museum, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Market, Armenian churches, Roman ruins – the list is seemingly endless for those who wish to see everything that is redolent of the city’s various transformations. In between the Haghia Sophia and Blue Mosque, cruises are offered for the Bosphorous – prices are in Euros, the boat is leaving immediately and yes, my friend, a special price just for you. The guides jump between languages, English mainly, but many others too: Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian. Tour groups, with their leaders proudly holding their flags or umbrellas erect to indicate their position, stride boldly towards the front of queues – their prioritised entrance already organised and paid for. It’s a mode of walking that ignores one’s surroundings.

And so I buy my Besiktas shirt – opting for their all black away shirt. It aint pretty, but, it speaks of a place. It’s a shirt that suggests something of a crossover between sporting and political culture. At least it makes a lie of the argument that ‘sport and politics shouldn’t be mixed’. The Besiktas shirt is one of many that in one way another is also suggestive of a rough set of beliefs and values. And thus, their supporters often wear them as markers of identity: not only to indicate their team, but, also to indicate their ideology. Their shirt quietly does their shouting for them. I’m talking with Cesar again and he indicates his disdain for Fenerbache: ah, their supporters are pale imitations of those of Besiktas. They copy whatever the Carsi do. Our conversation then turns to a point of mutual familiarity – the Australian soccer players to have played with Galatasaray – Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill. Kewell is remembered fondly, while Neill is remembered for being a mercenary. Despite his solid 2006 World Cup, Neill has fallen from affection with the generally forgiving fans of the Socceroos. We lament that a good defender has become known for his taste for cash rather than his goal stopping efforts.

Galata Bridge connects Eminonu with Karakoy and along this bridge is another network of communities of workers, fishermen and itinerant sellers. On the lower sections of the bridge are a string of fish restaurants, ranging from the simple to the luxurious: “Sembol Balik”, “Galata Balik” and others, all seeming similar and indistinguishable to the new and ignorant visitor who can largely only rely on the recommendations of guidebooks, or if lucky, a trusted friend or family member. But, otherwise, the passing tourist – temporary visitor with a limited investment? – is susceptible to the persuasions of the charismatic and assertive men who greet them and invite them just to take a look at the menu. The promoters of these restaurants affect their joking friendliness; the passing tourists attempt to politely reject their overtures, others are more forthright and show their annoyance. The promoters too speak their annoyance in Turkish as soon as the potential customer has departed one step further from their territory.

Fenerbache’s fate as champions of 2010-2011 is yet to be decided by FIFA and UEFA. No matter: champions to some cheats to others. “My team, my club, my identity: loyal I remain.” Corruption is a part of football just as politics is just as the ball is round. The protest that took place on the commercial and historical Istiklal Caddesi against the ticket purchasing procedures were disbanded in a heavy handed manner: protesters hid in the doorways. The tensions between fans and police are some of the few tensions within a context in which protests are becoming louder, bolder. The leftists along Istiklal are strident leading up to May Day and have already had one of their protests quashed for having encroached upon Taksim Square. Football is one means of getting to know the city and also offers an insight into the range of cultural, social, political conflicts currently unfolding. Football slowly opens up one of the many trajectories of Istanbul; a city made up of stories, swaying allegiances and thwarted or realised dreams, as much as it is of monuments, mosques, cathedrals and the remains of a Roman, Byzantanian past.

This Didn’t Need to Happen

16/04/2014 By Andy 1 Comment

Walter Benjamin begins his essay on his library with the beautiful two sentences, “I am unpacking my library. Yes I am.” I love these two sentences. I plagiarise them almost every time I begin to write. I say it as my prayer and as an attempt to focus my mind. For me, the primary function of appropriating Benjamin’s sentences is to realise the physicality of the act of writing, to be aware of the process and the stages involved – each act has its own consciousness. And so, “I am watching Richmond versus Collingwood. Yes I am.” Or, “I am watching Richmond versus Collingwood, yes I am.”

In between the first and the second sentence, I hear the reader doubting, “really? what for? nothing better to do?” The “Yes I am” being an affirmation and a statement of conviction, an awareness of one’s actions. It is a realisation of the separation and difference of what one is doing. Benjamin was unpacking his library having moved from one place to the next; a perennial exile whose fate would lead him to a brutal, poignant suicide in a beautiful, tranquil seaside town on the east coast of Spain. Benjamin was unpacking his books from boxes; not merely glancing across his beautiful collection, remembering the great writers he had read, their ideas, their style. This was a moment for the physicality and sensory nature of the book experience.

“I am watching Richmond versus Collingwood, yes I am” – for some reason I prefer to use a comma rather than a full stop. I prefer the sense of flowing; the sense of speaking rather than writing slowly. This sense of fluidity, of one sentence running into the next begs me to continue my thinking, to diminish the distance between what happens in the mind and what happens with one’s fingers and the keyboard. I remember Benjamin’s dense handwriting, rapid scratchings across the page. Writing is a performance: the fine metal and ink across a page – with its soft sound of scraping. The tak-tak-TAK-tak-TAK – and its variations from a typewriter. No wonder David Malouf produced a volume titled ‘Typewriter Music’.

The noise of the clanging typewriter keys banging against the paper on a typewriter has been diminished with the advent of computers and laptops. Each laptop keyboard probably has its own sound. The keys fall on cushioned pads; the sound only indicative of the vehemence with which the writer writes and asserts her thoughts. And then, touch screens render writing to a silent act. But, no, the user of touchscreens can turn on the sound so that she is aware that one is striking a key. And from the same device one can invoke the past through using an antiquated telephone ringtone.

“I am watching Richmond versus Collingwood, yes I am” and I am thinking I have already seen this before. This becomes evident from early on in the game: the Tiges appear listless, without energy, without a sense of attack. But I remember in even those previous losses, the team were into the game, playing like themselves, playing they could. And for all the pre-game hype, the excitement from the fans who have sensed the occasion, the players either remain indifferent or are unable to channel this energy. So much for the talk about loving playing in front of big crowds and for rewarding the fans. The players are wearing their usual uniforms: some in The Black and The White, others in The Yellow and The Black. I guess there are the same numbers of each, but those in The White and Black spread further, run faster, tackle more regularly. Those in the Yellow and Black, our mob, looking like their chasing after the script; they’re playing the necessary role of defeated and beaten player.

This is no thrashing but nor it need to be. The Collingwood don’t have much of a need to get out of second gear. The Richmond don’t get out of neutral. I am watching the game deep into the last quarter and I remain stupidly naive, optimistic and hopeful. Commetti says, “stupider things have happened [than the Tiges winning from here.” Macavaney says, “such as?” Commetti says, “I’m trying to think of something.” The game has drifted just like so many other nameless defeats. The game has turned into a pre-season game by the last quarter. The Tiges flatter themselves by scoring seven goals. But, there is no pressure and no urgency. The score that the Tiges should remember was the 3/4 time score. The Club’s website will fill up their quota with stories of ‘Lloyd lighting up the MCG’. No kidden the other players were that bad that a first game was the only shining light. But the fans come to the Game to watch a team not an individual.

“I’m watching Richmond versus Collingwood, yes I am” and I’m thinking of Kurt Vonnegut’s most famous maxim: so it goes. I want to turn it into a crude Okker-ism and make it “so it bloody-well goes”. The commentators again say “it’s been x-number of years since Richmond beat Collingwood…this is seven on the trot now blah blah blah”. I am remembering that whenever the hell it was I was in a bar on High Street Northcote watching Chris Young play his beautiful reeds with Mark Finsterer playing his lilting, malleable guitar. Two old friends playing in a small bar, to a few friends, family and wine drinkers. Chris was coming back from a depressive bout and I had missed his accomplished, mournful and rough clarinet playing – particularly that on the bass clarinet which would rent the air apart.

Mark, receiving a text message that Richmond had won, improvised upon The Yellow and Black Song and I thought, “so it bloody-well goes; of course we won” – despite our ignoring of the game and the team. And I bemoaned the team and the promoters: next time tell us beforehand that we’re not going to see this for another five years or however long. So it goes. The players aren’t being burnt to death in the bombing of Dresden and yet their faces hang so low one would think there is not another 18 rounds to play let alone another game in six days time. “There is always next week” is the rough approximation of “so it goes” into the dictionary of footy cliches.

“I’m watching Richmond versus Collingwood, yes I am” and I’m still thinking of Kurt Vonnegut. “Prepare for disappointment rather than satisfaction” – I paraphrase him. Yes, this is the reality. The reality that just goes on in such a manner. I see Damien Hardwick expressing too his pain and frustration at the losses. He too sounds like a fan. But he has already invoked history to repeat itself as in the manner of last season when the Tiges turned it around on a road trip against the West Coast Eagles. I’m not sure that history will repeat itself, just because it was politely asked to do so at a nice little press conference with lots of journalists. I’m preparing for disappointment and bracing myself for the pleasure of seeing the Tiges play well.

Come on Tiges.

Easily Avoided

15/04/2014 By Andy 2 Comments

During the Richmond-Collingwood game the Channel Seven cameras showed a frustrated Damien Hardwick. One of the commentators, said that the Tiges could well do with a player of his mold at that moment. The implication was that someone needed to stand up, ruffle a few Magpie feathers and get in the face of those who were getting in the face of Richmond’s captain and clean skin, Trent Cotchin. The problem with such a comment, however, is that the Tiges already apparently have a few players who were recruited to fit the Damien Hardwick style. Upon being interviewed by the Club’s website players such as Brandon Ellis and Steve Morris both invoked the hardness of the coach as an example to follow. It is not hard to imagine that Matthew Thomas and Matt Arnott were also awarded their places in the team based on their reputed hardness.

So, on the one hand we have Richmond and the captain himself mentioning the illegality of Macaffer’s tactics and at the same time wishing to have a player of Macaffer’s and Hardwick’s gall in testing the limits of fairness, sportsmanship and of course the so-called rules. This is, to a degree, hypocritical, but, it also sounds like the commentary coming from a team on the wrong side of the win/loss ledger. It also suggests the team were unable to be proactive in immediately responding to the hard-tag placed on Cotchin on the Friday night game. Collingwood played an easy game: they knew that if they nullified Cotchin they could win the game. Deledio wasn’t playing and they believed that Martin couldn’t win the game for the Tiges by himself. They were right. They backed their players; the primary condition of the win was set up through nullifying Cotchin. Collingwood too needed to win to maintain an equilibrium in their season and to delay a panic and forecasts about the season being over. Playing pretty can wait.

Richmond doesn’t need a team of violent players to assert their physical presence. Daniel Jackson has retired from the tribunal and doing so was part of him being Richmond’s most consistent player of 2013. Jake King has a big reputation and looks like an angry tough but his rudimentary football skills aren’t enough. Richmond doesn’t have a Scott Selwood or Luke Hodge who can be where the ball is, and through their balance, poise and positioning – born of fearlessness – can prevent players from occupying the necessary space to take possession of the football.These players are not violent and rarely get suspended. They simply know where to position themselves in order to make a decisive move.

In the game against Collingwood, I saw Richmond players attempting to ‘take the ball out of the air’ and spin out of a tackle. More often than not, they span into trouble or never took full possession of the ball as it was easily knocked out by a player in the Black and the White. Martin, whose body language comes the closest to that of Selwood or Hodge, was messy with his skills and perhaps over-rates his ability to break tackles whether it be with a straight arm or a puffed out chest. At the moment, few of the players are leading by example. Morris is desperate in his tackles and dives: but, often times these come after the fact or from being out of position in the first place. Thomas has shown his determination, but free-kicks amount against him.

During last year’s grand final, Fremantle’s Ryan Crowley held Hawthorn’s Sam Mitchell well. No Hawthorn players attempted to take out Crowley or got mixed up with him. The difference with the Macaffer-Cotchin match up of Friday night, was that Mitchell’s teammates held their positions and maintained their toughness. The Richmond players didn’t get in Macaffer’s face and didn’t assert their presence in the game. The players let the game happen; they let Collingwood determine the game’s fate, without adequate intervention, aggression or interest.

A long way behind.

Jakarta versus Footy

09/04/2014 By Andy 2 Comments

Durian juice

I wake up and turn on the footy. I know Deledio is not playing and this is odd. The young man had played a lot of games in a row; several seasons with barely an injury or dip in form. He is tall and slender: an athletic figure in the style of Chris Judd’s. Deledio has the swagger, self-confidence and looks of a great sportsman; yet, most of the time he has been very good and very consistent. For some this has not been enough. His absence from the team, however, perhaps will indicate his contribution sometimes missed by some critics.

I have slept through most of the first quarter, but, no matter. I see the Tiges are trailing and the Dogs are up and about. It’s too easy to blame it on the venue. The Richmond supporters are thin on the ground. The Docklands stadium is a couple of kilometres from the MCG, but far away in the Tiger’s fans imagination. The second quarter is a shambles and the goals fall in. The commentators are impressed with the pressure of the Dogs. Richmond fans see only a lack of interest from their team’s players. It seems like the days from not so long ago: the punishings from Collingwood, Sydney, Geelong, St.Kilda, Carlton, whoever. Chris Newman and Joel Bowden and others staring at each other as the ball sails, yet again, between the white poles. Today the half-time damage is hardly fatal: the ground is small, the surface is slick and the opposition are yet to have established their reputation.

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Nap time

The next morning I wake up and it is six o’clock on a Sunday in central Jakarta. I step out from the hotel and onto Jalan Cikini. It is raining heavily. I am here for a small literary festival and I am going for my run. This should be the day of my long run, but, I know my body hasn’t adjusted to the heat and humidity, so, I will run for an hour only. A sluggish and short run is better than no run. I tell myself that I need to do it to maintain my rhythm and to feel that I am in Jakarta despite the brevity of this visit. A run to feel a part of a place.

The rain is heavier than it looked from the window on the fourth floor. I have just become a part of the rain and it feels unrelenting and as if it is spread uniformly across the Jakartan cityscape. But this is Sunday morning, car free day and I will be going back the next day. I have no time to think about how to spend my time; I must consume the city rapidly before I go back to the Soekarno-Hatta airport and back to Schipol. This is a pleasure I tell myself and it is for myself. I have time to run, time to be with my sense of what Jakarta is and to see how it moves on a slow, rainy Sunday morning.

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In search of lost books

I run along the left side of the road. There is a pavement and it is a mixed bag of holes, missing bricks and rubbish bins. Occasionally, there are stretches of smooth, uninterrupted footpath. But the meters pass quickly, even on a slow run, and the road, even if it is slightly more dangerous in terms of passing cars, at least it offers a degree of consistency in terms of smoothness. The puddles, though disguise the holes and bumps in the road and I try to land at their edges.

I run past Bakoel Koffie cafe, Holland Bakery with its kitsch windmill, Vietopia Vietnamese restaurant and towards the Aryaduta Hotel standing behind the Tugu Tani. It was there that I watched Barak Obama’s mistake riddled inauguration from one of its floors. The man who had given countless unblinking speeches slipped up on a prescribed formality. This was a significant moment in history, the commentators repeated endlessly. ‘America’s first black president’. At the time, the Jakartan taxi drivers and many others spoke of their enthusiasm for Barak. He too knew Cikini, Menteng, after having lived and gone to school there as a child. When later gave a speech at the University of Indonesia, south of Jakarta, he said, to a rapturous applause, “pulang kampung nih”, “I’ve come home”.

I turn left and run past the former US embassy – looking like the leftovers of a military campaign – and towards Jalan Thamrin: the centre of Jakarta and the meeting point for many on car-free Sunday mornings. But, it is still early and the rain is putting off those who somewhat doubtful about whether to go out for their morning run, jog, bicycle ride, or to do their aerobics. I pass a couple of teenagers running in their basketball uniforms. There is a listlessness to their gait. I feel it too: the rain, the heat, the meals I’ve eaten which I wouldn’t have eaten were I at home. My eating patterns have been disturbed by the flights, the change in cooking oils. I have found some peanut butter and some thin, sugary bread as an attempt at my standard breakfast, but, it too proves slightly off what I was looking for.

Jl.Thamrin becomes Jl.Sudirman and Sudirman’s sculpture stands erect at the street’s starting point. A still, upright and authoritative body language. There is a rise in the road – it’s not a hill – but it’s a couple of hundred meters long and it goes upwards. I run past a stretch of five star hotels. There are runners in groups, wearing their club’s t-shirts, led by their coaches in their most-up-to-date gear. Cyclists too are in their essential lycra; chatting in Indonesian, English, Russian.

I return and run through the Monas park. Here, a different set of exercises are more common: those that are contained in squares, rectangles. Tai chi practitioners perform their slow movements with the gently undulating tunes of classical music. There are perhaps a dozen different groups: some with a few members, some with a couple of dozen. How things change: up until the late 1990s, public displays of Chinese culture were forbidden. The changes brought about by reformasi have made Chinese-ness increasingly consumable and comfortable for the Jakartan cityscape. Chinese New Year decorations adorn the malls, the Chinese New Year is celebrated as a national holiday. Others do line-dancing. There are small courts for football and basketball. Joggers do laps of the park on the brick paths which feel hard beneath one’s feet.

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The game ends and the Tiges are on 98 and the Dogs have the digits of one zero zero next to their name on the screen. Ah, that was frustrating, entertaining, disappointing. It was another footy game for the catalogue to be filed under ‘perhaps we really didn’t need to lose that one’, ‘lack of hunger in the first half cost us in the end’. The captain was brilliant all day and in the first half all others were hanging about somewhere in the background. The captain says a couple of days later that the team is yet to nut out how to stop other teams getting a run on. This kind of honesty is all a little unbecoming. “Well, nut it out would ya!” I feel like shouting at the screen.

This was a game of little sustenance to fans beyond the teams involved. The players played their roles – providing hope, frustration and pleasure in equal measure. The commentators got excited as usual. Another job that has trouble with honesty: so it is easy to say at the end of the Melbourne-GWS game: “well, that was a great game, it really opened up towards the end.” I found it to be a repeat but dressed-up performance of Glen Iris Gladiators under-12s versus Richmond Citizens circa 1988. Indeed, this game had no-Rioli moment of poise, balance, artistry: just Giansiracusa’s guile and Brandon Ellis’s rawness which led to the Tiges unnecessary defeat.

Brett Deledio is in a suit and hanging about the change rooms at half-time, looking out of place. Alex Rance is a guest in the commentary box – looking neat, handsome and smiling and staring straight into the camera – and he is sounding out of place. A 50meter goal from Deledio would have been welcome. Rance’s defending too, would have been welcome. But, they’re suited up, rather than bedecked in the Yellow and Black. That is the game, too. I turn it off knowing that I’ve seen a game: again I liked the new assertiveness of Griffiths, again I wondered if King’s reputation is doing all the talking rather than his playing. Brett, play next week, being in a suit during a Tige’s game, doesn’t become you.

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I leave Jakarta and come back to the brief anonymity of Schipol. The festival too, was like the football game and my run. Somewhere between being and becoming, frustration and realisation.

A civilised discussion between author and publisher

Footy from Leiden

04/04/2014 By Andy 3 Comments

Sander Zwarte – “I hate sport”

“Sport is a hobby”, my friend Sander tells me. He runs a book shop on the Hogewoerd in relatively central Leiden. I make fun of his cultural snobbery and he enjoys belittling my interest in running, football (soccer, Australian rules) or the fight games of boxing or muay thai. Sander is a trained concert pianist who then worked in taxation and who now sells second hand English books and second hand pianos. He’s dishevelled, eats the standard Dutch junk food of sausage rolls and fried potatoes. When I started visiting his bookshop, I often made small talk of the “have you read—-” or “do you recommend—-” kind. On all occasions he came up with blanks. I appreciated his honesty: he wasn’t doing this out of a pleasure for reading “I only read books about Bach”, he said.

This feels like the first day of the season: Richmond vs Carlton from the MCG. This is both a relief and a moment of expectation. The game against the Suns was almost a trial run, an extension of the pre-season competition. The annual defeat to the emerging Suns has been got out of the way. We now have 22 or so rounds to forget about it. The game was played before we were in the mood for footy, before we were willing to be too disappointed in losing. Perhaps it is made somewhat more palatable to happen so early in the season, rather than in the middle when it might disrupt a run of otherwise good form. And anyway, the Suns are ‘much improved’ and ‘will be hard to beat’ so the cliches go. Already, there has been a couple of articles saying that the Suns look up to the Tiges and the trajectory they’ve taken.

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Morning office

The plumber is coming between nine and ten a.m.. I left the apartment at 7:50 so that I could get to campus at 8am and do some work for a couple of hours. I am telling myself, as long as I work on three projects per day, I will stay on top of my schedule. I walk past the old court room and the courtyard where criminals used to be hung for a public performance. Leiden’s university is the oldest in The Netherlands and its law school is famous. I walk past the former house of a famous and infamous scholar of Islam – Snouck Hourgranje. An Islamologist and Acehnese specialist who played a key role in the Dutch defeat of the Acehnese resistance. As a Dutchman who has recently relocated to Jakarta told me, “he entered Islam to destroy Islam”. Scholarship is indeed problematic; research isn’t undertaken in some kind of vacuum.

I arrive at the campus dining room and turn on my computer: my worry is not that I have enough work to do. My worry is that I’m spreading myself too thin across a variety of projects. I’m moving from literature to Islam to sport. I feel this is both a luxury and a problem. Perhaps this is the fate of a freelance and rather unemployed academic, researcher, writer, translator. I am making my own work and investing in new projects which may lead me where the study of literature hasn’t. I have a new collection of short stories to translate. These are by an author whose work I have hardly read. But he is a part of the canon and this is an opportunity for me to get to know his writings. The project, I estimate, will take three months. I’ll write an essay and get a publication. Necessary steps. I have manuscript to finish. A book proposal is in the offing. Some of these projects will work out, perhaps others will lead nowhere.

My Dell laptop is the vehicle for streaming the live footy. This laptop has probably seen as much footy as it has work – literary studies, urban studies, Islamic studies. And now, so that I can reconcile my recreation with my professional interests, sports studies. The keyboard needs to be cleaned. When the sun shines in brightly, and it does, even here in The Netherlands, I see the grime of the screen. This Dell laptop has seen a few countries and quite a few cities. It has its idiosyncrasies: occasionally I can connect to one website, but not another. My technical knowledge doesn’t exist beyond re-starting the damn thing. Most of the time this works. I get my work done: this time it is a few more translated paragraphs of a short story by Budi Darma and some notes made on a book about football (sepakbola in Indonesia). A couple of hours later, I leave campus and start walking home, eating my apple, while others are arriving in a hurry on their bicycles (and eating their apples or sandwiches) to get to their lectures or attend meetings. Most are dressed smart casually; no suits. There are no traffic jams and the footpaths merge seamlessly into the roads. Who has right of way is a lot to do with body language and indifference.

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Early in the Season Full of Hope

I turn on the game as the teams break from their quarter time huddle. I see a comfortable margin for the Tiges. But, there’s three quarters to go; as usual the game could go in any direction. There is plenty of time for the game to turn and plenty of time for the Tiges to dish out a beating to the Blues. Indeed, it is too easy to get ahead of oneself while watching the game and start predicting and fearing what might happen. I’ll always remember those dying moments of Brisbane vs Geelong – perhaps June 2013. That was the sublime of footy. It was a moment of beauty for neutrals and Brisbane fans, a moment of horror for Geelong fans, players. The Lions – who ingloriously sacked their coach at the end of their season – moved the ball from the back-line to the half-forward line with a mixture of precision, improvisation and brilliance. And the irony was a Geelong supporting commentator was in the unfortunate position of cheering the ball home as it sailed through the goals. Brisbane had invented a new way to win. Geelong had invented a new way to lose. This time it wasn’t my club doing the ignominious losing.

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As a matter of course, it is all square in the last quarter. The plumber has been and gone. He trudged up the stairs and straight into the bathroom – not caring to inquire about how the Tiges were going. He left during half-time; job done and not interested in hanging about for the second half. I remember the corresponding game last year. I turned it off as I couldn’t stand the tension. It was a delayed telecast on Australia Network and I immediately went to my Dell to check the score on the Tiges’ website. How disappointing to see the Tiges had won: I was shown up as being of little faith. But, perhaps this was an act born of separation and of geographical distance. This year, I wouldn’t succumb: I’d see it to the end and hold my nerve. I wander about my living room – hanging up the washing, sweeping the floor, all the while Dennis and Bruce are getting excited – making dire predictions and inflating the heroics of each player (I prefer Gerard Whateley’s straight talking and slight down-playing amongst the general hubbub and hullabaloo).

Sport – for its many production of rules, it’s highly circumscribed tensions and oppositions – is inseparable from a sense of what could be and what might have been. I’m not at the game and watching it live on a Dell laptop won’t replace it at any moment. One watches at many levels: a fan of the game, a fan of a team, a fan of a player, a believer in the importance of understanding what makes the game of footy essential to an understanding of place and identity. Watching Australian football while in learned, scholarly Leiden, is an act of parochialism and nostalgia. It offers a mediated sense of following the trajectory of the Tiges and their own vulnerable, quixotic journey – one way or another – to a flag.

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Icecream season – father and son not on their way to the footy

The Tiges have won and once again I’m at Sander’s bookshop. This time I’m exchanging some of the earlier books I bought from his shop for new ones. We’ve established a rapport and he trusts me to return the books I have read. It’s his pianos that make most of the money for his shop – which he runs with the occasional assistance of his parents and a young, and similarly anti-sport, linguistics graduate. I tell him that he needs a sport section. He tells me that the people who visit his shop aren’t interested in sport. I tell him that he already has potentially dozens of books on sport on his shelves. I see Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, Don DeLillo’s Underworld, Allan Sillitoe’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter, Lionel Shriver’s Double Fault and Lynne Truss’s Get Her Off the Pitch! These are only the novels I see that are in one way another invoke sport or play. Without his knowing it, his bookshop slowly, but surely acts as a subtle vehicle for an understanding of sport beyond hobby.