When the women’s AFL competition roared to life in front of packed houses two Fridays ago, an outcome which appeared likely was that a number of fiercely-held opinions would be aired, and that perhaps a decent number of them would come from the less enlightened sections of society. The time since has proved the first half of that hypothesis correct but shown the second pessimistic. If anything, the reverse has been true.
The weekend just gone was instructive. Here is a surreal Friday night football-watching experience for you: had you been taking in the AFLW clash between the Western Bulldogs and Adelaide, you might also have been flicking through your various news feeds and encountered the following three fascinating stories.
Story one: Bulldogs men’s team premiership skipper Easton Wood tweeted his dissatisfaction at the overbearing amount of gambling advertising during football games. Story two: the Age published Sam Lane’s story about Collingwood’s Penny Cula-Reid and Melbourne’s Mia-Rae Clifford, who publicly announced themselves as the first openly gay AFL player couple. Story three: Ross Lyon said he felt there were racial undertones to the constant criticisms of Fremantle midfielder Harley Bennell’s injuries.
We came for the football, we have stayed for the political statements.
All three are markedly different statements of myriad implications, but the common thread is that they all involved the expression of a sincere belief or the sharing of a story which would likely draw scrutiny. All three also came as women take centre stage in the AFL world. The level of significance assigned to their precise timing is up to the individual to decide, but to me it seems significant; Australian rules football is currently going through its greatest and most overdue philosophical upheaval this century. You could also call these things sheer coincidence if you like.
Gambling advertising is out of control and I think it needs to change - let me know if you agree pic.twitter.com/zPTrC7OnFG
— Easton Wood (@easton_wood) February 10, 2017
I’m not qualified to comment on the deeper significance to the LGBTQI community of Cula-Reid and Clifford’s story – better outlined in these pages today by Kate O’Halloran – but I will say this: at present, regrettably, it isn’t something which could have happened first at the top level of men’s AFL. What it comes to mean for the men’s game will be revealed eventually by the other non-heterosexual footballers who have long faced the strong and oppressive cultural forces which make silence their safest option.
With his opposition to rampant gambling advertising, many have argued already that Easton Wood is saddled to a pretty high horse, being a player whose club derives significant financial benefits from pokies revenue. To me, that actually ensures his comments carry more weight, coming as they do with a specific and obvious set of potential costs and difficulties for Wood himself. Such a stance also carries greater likelihood of shaming his superiors into change. It would have been a hypocritical statement from a chief financial officer; from a half-back flanker it’s not.
And how drastically and pleasantly at odds this complaint sits with the prevailing gripe of other men’s players now; that they’re not being paid enough. Very few “yes men” have a lasting impact on the culture. At the very least, Wood is his own man and knows his own mind. I also find it impossible to believe that a player so heavily involved with the Bulldogs’ women’s team and the promotion of their league – as Wood is – has not been imbued with a greater sense of justice, or perhaps just given greater license to confidently express his opinions.
Ross Lyon’s salvo was far more complicated and the most easily cross-examined, but truly startling and quite admirable nonetheless. Perhaps Harley Bennell isn’t the hill to die on when one talks of the recreational habits of footballers, but Lyon’s tone of exasperation and his raking into the mix of his own long-held reputation as a tough boss indicated it was a subject he had stewed on for a long time. It can’t be dismissed as a mere random drive-by, or a badly mis-timed excuse.
To assess what Lyon was really getting at, it pays to consider his precise wording. “I heard speculation on radio questioning the injury, that no player had ever suffered a calf injury like Harley had,” he said. “It’s my experience that a white footballer has a calf injury and it’s a calf injury and a black footballer has a calf injury and it’s a drug problem.”
And then: “The country itself has ongoing challenges with how we celebrate Australia and recognising our Indigenous population and where it sits in history. I’m not political at all, but racism is an ongoing challenge, worldwide racism is ongoing challenge, isn’t it? So it’s topical.”
The key words there are “my experience”. Ross Lyon was not just talking about Bennell, he was talking about his decades of exposure to the clear racial insensitivity which often underlies the discussion of Indigenous footballers. Much of that discussion is so heavily encoded in seemingly innocuous football language (“magic”, “mercurial”, “unpredictable”) as to provide plausible deniability to those who practice it.
That Lyon felt compelled to offer a disclaimer (“I’m not political at all”) whilst offering such an obvious political gambit is telling of the culture in which he makes such a statement. A common complaint from journalists with respect to Lyon is that he’s rude and sometimes outright hostile to their lines of questioning. Challengers of the game’s orthodoxy are rarely uncomplicated figures.
No doubt Lyon will face a gleeful hammering from the same old people who always avoid discussions of race via technicalities like Bennell’s prior behaviour, but the Fremantle coach’s central point remains: Indigenous Australian footballers are treated and discussed differently than white ones. Lyon might have picked the wrong time, and certainly chose the wrong player, but when would be the right time, exactly?
A commonality in all of this is the altered atmosphere of AFL football since the inception of AFLW. Both Wood and Lyon’s clubs have women’s teams. Cula-Reid and Clifford are among the new league’s trailblazers. Wood in particular has been an asset to the game in the last fortnight. If the sight of women like Cula-Reid and Clifford playing football inspires young girls to play the game, surely the image of men’s premiership captains training with them and cheering them on plants seeds in the minds of young boys.
The AFL have received a soft run this summer, primarily because the mere existence of the women’s league qualifies as a quantum leap for the game. But difficult conversations like the ones had on Friday might soon become the norm, and identities with something to say might be inspired by what’s happening around them. Those who are up to snuff will reveal themselves, as will those who continue to insist that sport and politics should never intersect. The game is overripe for such tension.
Muhammad Ali’s death last year was many things. Perhaps the most bracing was the reminder it provided of the gradual and almost complete suppression of political input from athletes since the great boxer’s heyday, and our own cowardly, apathetic preference that they simply “stick to sport”.
There is a theory that women’s sport will truly know it has arrived when it is dissected and discussed in the very same manner as men’s games. Increasingly I doubt this. The markedly different and often thrilling aesthetic of AFLW is one thing. The courage and integrity of those who are inspired to speak up for what they feel is right is another. It shows that football in the age of women might have an entirely new way, and that it might be a far better one than we’ve known.
