Shane Edwards

North Adelaide Dreaming

22/04/2015 By Andy 7 Comments

#10 for the Tiges, Titch, Shedda, Shane Edwards, photo by Dugald Jellie

Arms outstretched; the ball falls downwards; hovering in space before being struck with the right foot. So many photos of Shane Edwards evoke the ideal image of the footballer as athlete. Weight shifting, ball tucked under an arm or grasped tightly between two hands, waist high before making the kick. Edwards body is twisting; his eyes looking in the opposite direction to which he seems to be moving. His elbows pointing outwards as he looks up field. Don’t call it just a sport, this is a corporeal art. His masterstroke is that of taking the ball at pace, reading it off a pack and those quick steps which make an empty space for him. A goal or two a match, always necessary. His absence always felt.

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Shane Edwards says in a video on the Richmond Football Club website, regarding his experience with the Indigenous All-Stars:

“Drummo has come up. Which has been real important. He is not much of a talker. He is more of a listener. Which has helped make me a bit more of a talker. I was always worried that I didn’t know enough to have an opinion on things.

Learning about who I [am] has had a direct influence on how I play football. Knowing more about myself means that I can be more of myself on the field. It is hard to explain, but … it means, I’ll be the best me out there [on the field] – [it means] I’m not trying to emulate other players. I’ve learned to speak when I should. Give my share when I should. I’m not going to learn more, if I don’t express things. I always have people telling me how old I am, [as] I have been in the system for, going on, nine years. So, hopefully I have learned enough to know a few things.

Arrernte Country, Elizabeth (home of Central Districts, club of Greg Edwards), Prospect Oval (North Adelaide), Punt Road

Telling some mates about where I was going, they said how much fun I would have. But, when I got there, it was this dark, historical place, where some horrific things happened. I was really embarrassed that I didn’t know more. It was such a massive event in my history.

[The week with the Indigenous All Stars] was really fun; it was a really great experience. I have wanted to do it for a long time. It was an honor to be on the field with the other players. Like Shauny Bourgoyne. I was really impressed with Jack Martin.

[…] I was really proud to have the jumper on. My family would be proud of me, all my friends. And all my teammates [from Richmond] would be proud of me. They sent me a lot of text messages before the game. Having the game at the end of the week was a bit of a bonus. The week was a lot more about learning about [our] culture. I formed a closer relationship with every guy there.”

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The field of Prospect Oval, North Adelaide, is empty. It’s past 6pm and the sun is burning. Night seems a long way off. A lone runner jogs past. The streets are quiet. There is no movement in the air; Adelaide in early January. Overhead some birds tweet joyfully, moving on somewhere else. The field, empty as it is, is in perfect nick. The wings, the Robran end and the Farmer end have become a part of an outfield across which a leather sphere is belted to the boundary. Here is a public facility; a field on which the traces of past legends remain. A green expanse torn by studded boots. The field is an empty vessel upon which mortals pass and in which fans pour their dreams and imaginations, rendering those mortals into legends.

My father tells me, pontificating, ‘that man, Barrie Robran, he was the best. Simply, the best. Gary Ablett Jr has nothing on him.’ I scoff, believing that in his memory Mr. Robran has become somewhat better than he really was. But, I’m uneducated, I never saw Mr. Robran play and the YouTube clips can’t do him justice. My father gets angry at my incredulity. I’ve never seen him get angry in a conversation about a footballer. Never. I seem to have touched a nerve. For him, sport, footy so easily becomes ‘a waste of time’. And then it comes out: ‘those dirty Victorians rubbed him out in a State of Origin game and he was never the same.’ My father, who has lived and made his home in Melbourne for 40 plus years reveals himself to still feel South Australian, moreover, a North Adelaidian. ‘Leigh Matthews did a job on him.’ And, ‘he, Robran, was an absolute gentleman; he played in the true spirit of the game’. Robran turned down many invitations to play in Victoria: he only wanted to play for North Adelaide.

The view from the Robran End, January 2015

I don’t want to argue with my father about Robran’s skill as a player; I never saw him play. And I don’t particularly care; I believe in my father’s imagination. The memories that the ground has evoked are real. I tell him that I believe that Barrie Robran was no doubt a cut above the rest. This is Robran’s beauty. A few weeks later, I meet up with Ned Wilson, a friend from the olden days and he tells me, plainly ‘my dad [Ray Wilson, 1971 Hawthorn Premiership player], says the same’. Perhaps Robran’s greatest legacy is the manner in which he played the game and the respect he earned from other players, and of course, supporters.

Every wing needs its trees

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Again, I want to write about Shane Edwards. Partly because he can stake a claim to being one of the game’s least intrusive figures. He is softly spoken and shy by all reports. His style of play is that of the consistent and skilful. Edwards has a light frame and a calm demeanour: probably outdated statistics have him at 180cm and 71 kilograms. No wonder he was a keen basketball player. His celebrations are never over the top and he appears well-liked by his team-mates. Edwards pops up in the background of the videos the Club puts up regarding the lives of some the Club’s bigger name players. Edwards, still looking young and playing youthfully, has become a senior member of the Club. He is a regular and doesn’t have to fight for his spot in the team. Some time ago, a journalistic mistake was made and it was said that there Troy Taylor was Richmond’s only Indigenous player. The mistake was quickly corrected; Edwards asserted his identity. Caroline Wilson not only apologised to Edwards but also included this apology in her article on Edwards, “Living the Dream” (The Age 19th May, 2012).

Shane Edwards wore the White-V of North Adelaide for 10 games; his father though, played for Central District, but is currently CEO of North Adelaide. Shane’s younger brother, Kym, currently plays for North Adelaide. Who was the scout who saw him at Prospect Oval? What were the impressions made? Punt Road Oval, next to the frequently clogged north-south artery of inner-eastern Melbourne, lacks the old-style grace of a suburban Adelaide oval – with its trees providing shade on the eastern wing. Edwards brings a part of it though, through his polite manner and use of such terms as ‘the pill’ for the ball. Adelaide has its own footy landscape and terminology: the point posts are red and a banana is a checkside.

During the off-season between 2014-15 Edwards was a part of the Indigenous All-Stars team. The Richmond Football Club, whether or not it has x number of Aboriginal players on its list, makes a significant contribution to supporting Melbourne’s and Victoria’s Aboriginal community through its Korin Gamadji Institute. Richard Tambling, now working for the AFL in Central Australia, was a part of the process in landing this facility at the Club, that was eventually opened by the very honourable, very respectful Julia Gillard, Western Bulldogs supporter and former Prime Minister. The KGI offers numerous programs for Aboriginal youth. That it is linked with the Club perhaps makes it both appealing and legitimate for those who are targeted for its programs. Of course, one of Richmond’s most notable former players, Maurice Rioli, needs no introduction. The esteem in which he is held was evident in the moving statements upon his untimely death. The beauty of his skill as a player lives on in the memories of fans, regardless of team; his contribution to his communities continually appreciated and remarked upon.

Edwards Jumpers

The AFL is very pro-active in promoting its openness, inclusivity and stance of anti-racism. Mr.Demetriou unequivocally condemned Matt Rendell’s comments that Aboriginal players might need one white parent in order to be drafted by an AFL club. Demetriou denied that any kind of context could make the comments legitimate. I see the AFL’s pro-active stance towards combating racism, sexism and prejudice in its many forms, as part of a recognition that it failed not only generations of Aboriginal players, but, also that it grossly mishandled the Long-Monkhorst case of 1993. The AFL makes strong overtures at being welcoming to Aboriginal players. The Clubs, for all their efforts too, can’t deny that they’re in ‘the business of winning’ and that selection for the main team is extremely competitive. Players who don’t conform and reach the required standards won’t be selected just because it is a nice story to have them in the team. Richmond has had some notable cases where Aboriginal players haven’t been able to make a career at the Club: Troy Taylor, Relton Roberts, Jarrad Oakly-Nicholls, Richard Tambling. Every year, plenty of players fall by the wayside, and as Robbie Burns has pointed out on the Marngrook Footy Show, ‘it is not just Aboriginal players, it’s many from the country’.

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Visiting Prospect Oval in North Adelaide created a new conversation between my father and I. He found a moment to passionately his state his personal experience of watching the game. His father, Bon, my grandfather, had played in the reserves for North Adelaide, and later on, when dad was a boy, they would go to games together. He pointed to the spot on the terrace where they would most often stand to watch games. They would park their car at my father’s grandparents house, have lunch and go to the game. He told me they would invariably walk home complaining about the umpiring. During my teenage years though, he no longer seemed to be into footy, or at least watching it live. Art, was his thing and so it was a surprise to see him claim Prospect Oval as a central part of his childhood memory. I think of him taking my brother and I to games as boys, more out of our demands than for his own wishes. But, perhaps he enjoyed the footy more than he let on.

Shane Edwards – of Arunta and German descent, son of Greg – footballer and Tara – basketball player, and brother of Kym, North Adelaide player – plays the game with skill, balance and poise. Like the imposing Ivan Maric, he speaks softly and only occasionally to the press. He is not given to overstatement, boasting or showboating. But, as with other players likes a goal as much as the next. Footy facilitates a path into the nation’s history; one that involves tragedy, movement and reconciliation. Perhaps it was Edward’s move to Richmond which opened the opportunity for coming to terms with his background. He is proud. Regardless of games played, goals scored, finals won, he will leave a legacy with the Club. The Edwards name will belong to both North Adelaide and Richmond.

Trevor Fuller, engineer and art gallery director, remembers

*Thanks to Swish Schwerdt for pointing out that the Central Districts jumper was different to the one I included above. It was more like this:

This video here shows Greg Edwards playing against the Tigers (of Glenelg). Stephen Kernahan is playing for Glenelg and John Platten is playing for Central Districts. Centrals win by a lazy 100+ points. Bruce McAvaney is the host of The Big Replay.

**My father emailed to say, “I always enjoyed that as an opportunity to be with you both [my brother and I at the footy] and to be able to communicate something around the game; have that fun kicking the ball on the oval afterwards in that cacophony of kids, dads and balls in the fading light and for you to get among the footballers in the club room after and garner a few autographs and have a few words with some stars and favourites.” And, on his taste for footy/sport: “I do marvel at the talent of the sportsmen. I don’t like the aggressive macho overhyped stuff that goes with the mercenary media.”

***Aunty Kip: “Robran was that good. He was like a ballet dancer, with his graceful, humongous leaps to mark the ball. And painfully shy, as well.” I’m into the ballet analogy. Perhaps footy is some kind of ‘heavyweight ballet’.

****Aunty Kip, remembers her experience of watching Barry Robran, Rodney Robran, Neil Sachse and Dennis Sachse, through this video of the 1973 Glenelg v North grand final. She says, “I was there”.

*****Shane Edwards sent a message to say that he very much appreciated the article. This kind of acknowledgement was very generous of him. It also suggests to me that professional footballers might want more out of their careers than just a good salary and adulation.

Looking for Witchety Grubs

12/06/2014 By Andy 1 Comment

Midway through the first quarter of the 1993 grand final between Essendon and Carlton, Michael Long received a handball from Sean Denham and then ran on the southern side of the centre square of the MCG. His light frame moved across the ground, as if his feet were barely touching the ground. His face showed his effort, his focus, his concentration. He was still far from the goals – perhaps 70 meters – but, I imagine, he was already visualising the ball going through them. He bounced and he weaved. And then, having kicked the ball along a low trajectory, Stephen Silvagni made a beautiful lunging dive and touched the ball, perhaps before or perhaps after it crossed the line. The goal umpire, caught up in the beauty of Long’s run, had no hesitation in calling it a goal. Silvagni, resplendent in his long sleeves on the beautiful spring day, hunched over in despair at the futility of his efforts. Probably he was unhappy at the role he had to play in this drama. But without the opposition, Long couldn’t have created his masterpiece. Silvagni, unlike so many players, didn’t remonstrate with the umpire, didn’t whinge or complain, he accepted that the umpire had considered it to be a goal.

The Michael Long

Long’s goal was one of the great moments for the Essendon Football Club that day. It was an anticlimactic game for Carlton fans who saw their team wilt under the pressure and exuberance of the young Essendon team. At the end of the day’s play, Long was interviewed and asked about his running goal – the goal that audaciously stated it would be Essendon’s day. Long, later in the game, had also laid on the ground for a few moments – seemingly taking a rest. His pose seemed more that of the beach than of the footy field. Lying outstretched he rested on his elbows. The interviewer – who had called him a ‘boy’ at the moment of his goal (‘look at this boy go’) – asked him what he was doing. Long replied, ‘looking for witchety grubs’. And thus, in his nonplussed and ironic manner, Long had simultaneously appropriated and countered the stereotyping of aboriginal footballers. So common is it for aboriginal footballers to be described as showing their ‘magic’: as if it is a natural, inherent ability, requiring no training. But, methinks it also relates to the phrase ‘black magic’ (re: heathen, unchristian, uncivilised) . So common is it for players of aboriginal background to be grouped together – i.e. the three amigos of Carlton – Eddie Betts (now at Adelaide), Chris Yarren and Jeff Gartlett. Paul Roos, venerable coach of Melbourne, premiership coach of Sydney, doubted the tank of aboriginal footballers. This is the man throughout much of his career has coached Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin: both players of 300 games.

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Jimmy Nelson is having an exhibition at the Volkenkunde Museum in Leiden. The museum modestly states that it is the oldest ethnographic museum in the world, having been founded in 1837. Such a museum doesn’t come into being without the aid of a broad colonial network: and indeed, the collection of artefacts from Indonesia are dense and rich. Elsewhere in Leiden, is the collection of the KITLV library with some hundreds of thousands of artefacts, books, documents, manuscripts. There is also the Siebold House with its collection of Japanese maps, objects, paintings. But it is not cool to be colonial or neo-colonial and these museums are, in one way or another, attempting some kinds of re-consideration of their role in this little town with its big university and research community. Leiden changes reluctantly. It sits apart from the hedonism of Amsterdam, the administration of The Hague and the stylish modernism of Rotterdam and its Rotterdammers.

The unbright side of Leiden

Indonesiana is common throughout Leiden. On the shelves of people’s homes that front on to the footpaths, one sees the typical tourist artefacts brought from Yogyakarta or Bali: small metal models of Dutch bicycles – sepeda onthel in Indonesian – figurines of Javanese or Balinese dancers. Many use batik cloth to cover the dinner tables. Some of the more fashionable have more contemporary products from Indonesia: fashionably designed batik, or panniers on their bicycles made from Indonesian soap packaging. There are numerous apparently-Indonesian restaurants in Leiden, evoking ‘Indonesia’ or, rather, the Dutch East Indies, in one way or another. If ‘Indonesia’ becomes a part of a general conversation, it is often referred to as being visited as part of a semi-historical holiday. People visit the cities and seek out the homes of where their parents or grandparents lived. One friend tells me, ‘my father was one of the stupid guys who tried to maintain Dutch power in Indonesia at the end of the 1940s’. Often one hears the casual laments about the ‘stupidity’ or failure of the Indonesian nation. Some speak nostalgically saying how much they would have liked to have been a part of the colonial enterprise, imagining how well they would have done. Yes, with no sense of irony or self-critique.

There are three main sections to the Indonesia room at the Volkenkunde. This collection holds something of a pride-of-place: for, visitors must pass through it before arriving at the often rather elaborate and intensely curated temporary exhibitions. The main part of the collection consists of the typical anthropological artefacts: statues, clothes, models, jewellery, weapons, maps and explanations. There are massive Hindu sculptures stolen from East Java. Along the main wall is a huge projection of recent footage collected by the KITLV as part of their Recording the Future project. These are scenes of everyday life and contrast with the formality, fragility and singularity of the objects that are presented behind the glass cases. The footage shows people cooking, people on their way to the mosque, people at play. Behind this wall, and in the room’s smallest section, is a space used for temporary photographic exhibitions. On this occasion, there is a series of photographs by Annemarie Ruys. Her photographs are of young and rich career-women: they are shown in the context of their homes, at their friends houses or with their boyfriends or, with their fully-groomed pet dogs.

It’s all about me

Jimmy Nelson (b.1967) is an English photographer based in The Netherlands. His exhibition is titled ‘Hail the People’ and is curated in collaboration with his own production team based around his Before They company. ‘Before They’ is a shortening of ‘Before They Pass Away’, which is the title that appears on the website, on the Facebook page and throughout the exhibition. The purpose of the exhibition, and Nelson’s photographic career, is to capture images of peoples whose traditions are under threat – from ‘change’, from ‘modernity’, from ‘the outside world’, from ‘others’. So, most commonly, Nelson’s photography takes place in far-away settings – those places that are difficult to reach by plane, boat, train. Places that have little infrastructure. Nelson too is part of the exhibition: he himself is photographed photographing his subjects. We see him and his photographed subjects in wild ranges of mountains, great expanses of ice and snow.

Nelson’s photographs continue the practice of colonial photography in an uncritical manner. He is educated, articulate and smartly dressed and fluent in English and Dutch at least. He is privileged to be able to travel where he wants to for the purpose of his career and work. My discomfort with the exhibition is based on the degree to which he has sought to make himself central to the exhibition. The exhibition’s discourse is framed around his heroic acts of capturing something ‘pure’ before it becomes besmirched by change, modernisation (money) and the ‘outside world’. What is missing from Nelson’s awareness and his exhibition, is any attempt to articulate how these people are already engaging with the forces of modernity with the otherliness of others. Nelson, simplifies these people and their context, reducing them to exotic caricatures. Too slick, too articulate by half.

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Before the playing of the first so-called ‘Dreamtime at the G’ game some ten years ago, a columnist stated that Richmond had no player of aboriginal descent in the team. Perhaps Shane Edwards wasn’t black enough. Perhaps Shane Edwards hadn’t been spectacular enough as a player. Perhaps Shane Edwards was too workmanlike and regular. Edwards is a consistent and good player. His qualities as a player probably didn’t remind the commentators – those masters of formulaic phrases – enough of the stereotype of an ‘aboriginal’ footballer and thus Edwards was shorn of his identity. No one cared to inquire; the story had been written. And after the journalist(s) had realised their mistake, Edwards has now become a poster boy for the Dreamtime at the G game. The Herald Sun showed a portrait of Edwards dressed up in his Richmond uniform and covered in a cloak of animal skin. He’s handsome and stares down the lowly positioned camera. In an interview a couple of years ago regarding the game, he stated that many players coming from aboriginal communities find it difficult to settle into Melbourne. ‘I found it difficult enough and I came from Adelaide’. Probably that’s not what the journalists wanted to hear. His was a transition from one urban centre to another and thus didn’t match with the idea of the poor, ill-equipped, lonely aboriginal footballer who comes from the middle of nowhere to make it big in the city.

Shane “Titch” Edwards, aka Shedda

The AFL likes to regard itself as being at the forefront of reconciliation and other supposedly progressive social issues. Players such as Long and Goodes have made bold stands against the everyday racism within the AFL. The AFL forgets that it forbade Long to speak at the supposedly reconciliatory press conference between himself and Damien Monkhorst. Probably, the AFL needs to beat its chest so loud and strong about its ‘progressive stance’ towards combating racism because it has harboured so much racism in the past: ‘what happens on the field, stays on the field’, ‘harden up’, ‘look at that boy go’, ‘the three amigos’ etcetera. I like the demeanour and manner of Shane Edwards – he’s quietly spoken, gentle and plays by the rules. But next time someone asks him to put on some animal fur coat for the sake of a footy game, he should tell them to get stuffed.