People used to think Grant Hansen was crazy when he explained his television blueprint for the Marngrook Footy Show, the community radio cult favourite that turned into one of TV’s minor phenomenons. “They said I’d never have a TV show,” Hansen says. “But for some reason I just kept going and I had a sense that one day it would happen.” On Thursday this week, NITV’s star attraction celebrates its 10th anniversary on Australian TV screens.
For a decade prior to Marngrook’s small screen debut in 2007, Hansen worked for free on the radio version, slowly but surely convincing doubters that there would always be a place for a fun, family-friendly footy panel show that called upon a previously untapped cast of Indigenous talent. The 52-year-old host surprises even himself when he notes he’s now spent the best part of half his lifetime realising his vision.
“It’s an incredible feat in today’s TV industry to last that long,” Hansen says. “And the thing about the show is it’s only getting bigger. It feels like there’s definitely another 10 years in us.”
Marngrook’s success, its creator theorises, can partly be attributed to its insistence on being a football show whose hosts actually talk footy. In an AFL TV environment dominated by an overfamiliar, monocultural cast of ex-players, with an over-reliance on gossip and tenuous marginalia, the average Marngrook viewer enjoys the novelty of feeling included and being talked to, not barked at.
“It’s a show that really speaks to the fans,” Hansen says. “These days we’ve reached a saturation point of so-called experts – and everyone is an expert. I think people actually just want to hear football talk that talks directly to the fans. We go back to the basics of who is in, who is out, who is going to win and why, and have a bit of fun.”
Inclusion is one thing to say, but another to do. Hansen says that from day one he viewed it as central to the success of the show that it was welcoming to everyone – not just Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, but women and children. “Kids can watch it too,” he says. “There is no coarse language or any send-ups of people. It’s not derogatory towards anyone. It’s inclusive. I think all of those elements do make it attractive for a family program. The show has a lot of respect that goes right through the program, particularly with our guests – black, white or green.”
Because it hasn’t jumped up and down about its casting, and barely advertises itself, Marngrook is rarely given much credit for its stance since day one of putting female contributors like Leila Gurruwiwi and Shelley Ware (Emily Fien and Kylie Farmer contributed in the show’s early years) front and centre – long before the commercial networks followed suit.
“When we started the TV show I said, ‘Women are at least 50% of the membership [of football clubs] and I don’t want just one woman on the show, which is tokenistic’,” Hansen says. “I wanted at least two women on the show. We were at the forefront of promoting women in the AFL, and Indigenous women at that.”
Marngrook is footy fun with a serious side in other respects too, having given a clearer and more nuanced voice to Indigenous Australian footballers, while catering to a significant, previously neglected cohort of Indigenous fans of the game. Hansen says that by stealth, the show has punched above its weight.
“I think Marngrook has been one of the major reconciliation vehicles in Australia,” he says. “Non-Indigenous people who come and sit in our audience have often never met an Indigenous person, let alone sat beside one. It’s a real cultural experience.
“At the start people are often nervous about sitting next to a black man or a black woman, and by the end of the show they’re laughing and shaking hands and patting each other on the back. I really feel that Marngrook has been a real force at the forefront of reconciliation. It’s brought people together through the love of football.”
The show also has no trouble securing return visits from its guests. Key to that convivial atmosphere is Hansen’s long-time co-host Gilbert McAdam, with whom he hit it off when the pair were introduced by mutual friend Mandawuy Yunupingu at a Yothu Yindi concert in the 1990s. “Gilly brings something special to the show, just the way he is. I’m the straight man and he’s the clown. You need that dynamic in TV. People ask me if it’s scripted, but you can’t script Gilbert. We just have fun.”
The 1989 Magarey medallist didn’t always share Hansen’s optimism during Marngrook’s early days on TV. “When the show first started we had a three-year contract and I thought it’d only go for three years,” McAdam says. “Grant wanted me to be his co-host and I just thought it was a throwaway line. To be going 10 years, and still going strong, it’s a good story isn’t it?
“The most special thing about our show is that we’re an Indigenous mob. That’s unique, and you don’t see it in the mainstream. It’s a very professional show that can match anything on any station I reckon.”
McAdam says he learned from his AFL playing days at St Kilda and Brisbane that representation is a key component of progress for his people. “I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve done it through footy, and probably influenced younger Indigenous kids to become AFL players, and now through Marngrook I might influence someone to be a TV host. That’s the way I look at it. It’s not just about me. I’m flying the flag.”
Since day one, both ratings and anecdotal evidence have backed up Hansen’s theories about Marngrook’s broad appeal and diverse fan base (“Government-funded National Indigenous Television’s Marngrook Footy Show can take my taxes for as long as it likes,” wrote Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Blair in the show’s second year). In any case, cold numbers don’t quite capture the essence of Mangrook’s audience. For one thing, their ratings don’t include Darwin, Alice Springs, and Tasmania, nor remote and rural areas. “There is a big Indigenous population and we’re very popular in those areas,” Hansen says.
Looking ahead at a drastically changing TV landscape, the Marngrook crew remain positive they can continue to steadily attract new fans. “It’s a footy show, it just so happens that it’s predominately Indigenous people on the panel,” Hansen says. “Whether you’re black, white or green shouldn’t determine whether you watch the show.”
Marngrook’s anniversary special this week will reunite Hansen, McAdam and Gurruwiwi with their original co-hosts Ronnie Burns and Derek Kickett, plus the show’s first ever guest, Nathan Lovett-Murray. “Having the old crew back together will be great,” Hansen says. “We’ll go through some of the highlights and look at some of the daggy early shows, the funny haircuts we had. It’ll be nostalgic and like always, we’ll have a bit of a laugh.”
Marngrook Footy Show’s 10th anniversary special airs at 7:30pm AEST on NITV
