by H. G. Nelson
[Very modest applause, given that the team come from New Zealand.]
Can’t hear you!
[Pause, hoping something might happen.]
Are there any Roosters fans here?
[Louder applause.]
I love my footy.
Just waiting for the power!
A few drum fills but no rocking, no punking, no gobbing because there was no power. With Billy out in the middle dying, it dawned on the Stadium Australia stage management that someone had forgotten to run a power lead out to the stage.
Cut to the commentators who contributed to proceedings with the immortal observation: ‘Billy Idol not having the best of nights on Grand Final night’.
By now, the crew upstairs were used to coping with disaster. After all, they had seen a fiasco or two. They once battled on bravely when the video-taping skydiver collided with the roof of the grandstand in an epic jump miscalculation.
But remember stadium management on Grand Final day has so many things to think about. Something is bound to go wrong. The rugby league public are very forgiving. They have come to see the big dance and could not give a stuff about an unpowered entertainer prancing about almost three kilometres away. Billy’s cough and spit on the day was far more memorable because it contributed nothing except embarrassment.
The most recent calamity was in 2014 when the entertainment committee let Slash from the Guns N’ Roses commune loose for a mid-pitch noodle on the Gibson Les Paul Standard. It was 2014, the year of the Rabbit. It was Slash in his hat with the Les, two Marshall stacks and a lot of other musical equipment that no one was playing. The crowd assumed the band was still loading up on the bus. But suddenly Slash was out there and hard at it.
How could Slash make such a racket by himself? The instruments were being played by unseen hands.
Everyone, including Slash, was relieved when the backing tape agony ground to a halt. The stadium applause for the television coverage was curiously produced by no one in the seats clapping. For those watching at home it was another league pre-match miracle.
The best, included for balance: well, there’s Cold Chisel’s sixteen excellent minutes of high-revving art delivered in 2015. They could handle the venue and had the technology to fill it. They knew how big it had to be to reach the far corners of the room. It was one of those nights when it all worked, because Johnathon Thurston led the big hats of the North Queensland Cowboys to the NRL title for the first time. It was a great climax to the season that Robbie Williams had promoted with his hit ‘Let Me Entertain You’.
In rugby league, as in the AFL, plenty of artists came and went, barely leaving a mark in the guest book. Hopefully the entertainment committee do not lose their magic touch. On the big nights, there will be easily forgotten gems, but also if the past is a guide there will be magnificent duds. The latter providing footy heads with talking points and sonic flops, often far more memorable than the game.
THE NATIONAL AGENDA
The names Hawke, Howard, Menzies, Holt and Snedden set the bar at a gold medal height.
SPORT IS ALWAYS NEAR the top of the national agenda. These great role models all had competition in their genes. Many are called to the highest office, but not every Australian can snare a run-on spot with the A-Team. This line up gives all potential starters an idea of what is required to snare a green and gold guernsey.
They came hoping to make a difference to their nation, their suburb or their street, and maybe to get a nice car park near the local railway station. On the way out they had a tearful goodbye promising to spend more time with their family (but only if other activities permit).
The great all-rounder: Bob Hawke, PM 1983–91
Our twenty-third Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, was our great all-rounder. He could do the lot. Whether it was cricket, drinking, boats or bathers, he was up for it, on it and into it. As Prime Minister he loved being part of any team, as long as it was a winning team, and he was part of any team, as long as it was a green and gold team.
As Prime Minister he loved being part of any team, as long as it was a winning team, and he was part of any team, as long as it was a green and gold team.
Early notoriety came at university, where many of Australia’s greatest political stars got a start climbing the greasy pole to the top. Bob always had luck on his side. Like hard-living Australians of a certain age, he was an ice-cold lager guzzler. He got lucky when he established a spectacular world beer-drinking record at Oxford University. In 1953, Bob won a Rhodes Scholarship to the British Home of Brewing, University College, Oxford, to write a thesis on wage fixing in Australia. This was the sort of topic that needed serious alcoholic support and sustenance.
There were a number of students on campus who knew how to really put it away, but Bob demonstrated an exceptional talent in postgraduate grog tutorial. Sinking a long length of local brew was not a regular subject on the university curriculum, but students and staff felt the need to give the squirt a nudge during the difficult days of serious study and to ease the tension, especially when the final exams approached. Our future PM established a wonderful record. As a part of a ‘sconce’ penalty Bob put away 1.4 litres of beer in eleven seconds. The ‘sconce’ was an ancient form of punishment for college alcoholic infringements.
Not sure if his record still stands. Not sure if the attractive gauntlet that Bob threw down in the Uni refectory on that day in May has been picked up by other champions of the big gargle during the intervening years. That’s a PhD thesis waiting to be written.
All real Australians know that sport and drinking have gone hand in hand since Arthur Phillip blew through the Heads at Sydney Harbour with the First Fleet on Invasion Day, 26 January 1788. They are the twin pillars of the European-controlled Australia and were unpacked with the first convicts.
Sport was in Bob’s blood. He loved Test cricket. In his mind, the great game, especially the Ashes competition against the Old Foe, was best consumed with a beer in hand. Later, in his go-slow years, he would often waddle out to the SCG on a warm day three of the New Year’s Test and entertain the crowd during a dull session between lunch and tea by sinking a pint of beer in one gulp.
He dropped a jar to prove he still had it, all that time after his original gullet-challenging records were set in those exciting Oxford years. The thirst-quenching feat was always relayed to the SCG faithful via the big television screens inside the venue. As the beer went down, cheers erupted from a crowd that was always keen to be involved.
Let’s be honest: it was not a great act – a glass of cold beer on a hot day in your own time. It would be un-Australian to fail that Test match challenge. No records were broken at the SCG, but cricket fans, by that time of the afternoon, loved seeing a fit ex-Prime Minister do what they had been doing since 11 am. Sure, the packed Test crowd egged him on, but he never needed much encouragement. Simpler times, simpler pleasures.
Bob Hawke played cricket in his pre-Oxford, pre-wage-fixing student days for the University of Western Australia. He kept wicket. One afternoon, crouching behind the furniture, Bob pulled off that rarest of cricket tricks, dismissing a batsman twice with the same ball. It was a wicket the Uni side had to get against the local power side, Subiaco.
In a mid-pitch, mid-over confab with the bowler, who was doing a bit off the pitch from the Swan River end, Bob observed the clown with the willow in hand was getting a long way out of his crease. He tasked his wily medium pacer to put one down the leg side. Bob resumed the crouch, standing up to the wicket, hoping to remove the bails and effect a stumping. He went one better: he caught the ball the batsman snicked and took the bails off in the same motion. The umpire saw it Bob’s way and put the finger in the air not once, but twice. The stumping was a brave decision from the non-striker’s end, but the confirmation of the stumping came from the official standing at square leg.
The umpire saw it Bob’s way and put the finger in the air not once, but twice.
The future PM would have given the tw
ice-dismissed batter a solid send off to accompany ‘this hopeless loser’ on his long and lonely stroll all the way back to the pavilion.
Bob pulled on the pads and big gloves and crouched behind the furniture whenever time allowed during his political career. He turned out in the clash of a PM’s Eleven against the Press Gallery in 1984. These Press v Pollie brouhahas were hotly contested fixtures, with prestige and bragging rights on the line. There were serious players turning out on both sides.
At the crease with the willow in hand, Bob was known for keeping his eye on the ball. On this particular occasion Bob was set and was looking to push deep past 50 for the politicians. Suddenly he misjudged the line and length of a ball from Herald Sun journalist Gary O’Neill. The delivery reared up off a length and caught Bob flush in the face, breaking his glasses.
It did not look good for the PM’s good eye. Everyone went very quiet. Bob was rushed to hospital as the crowd held its breath. Given the all-clear by the cricket-literate, white-coated hospital eye staff, the PM was able to return later in the day as a spectator. There are dramatic photos of the moment the six-stitcher ball smashes Bob’s OPSM gear.
In 1983 he had not been long in the job when an Australian yacht, imaginatively named Australia II, skippered by John Bertrand with navigator Iain ‘Lard’ Murray at the wheel, snared the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club. This was a big thing! The arrogant NYYC had bolted the trophy in place, so confident were they of never being beaten. It was a best of seven series.
Our opponent in the twelve-metre war on water was Liberty, skippered by San Diego interior design expert (special subject, soft furnishings) Dennis Conner.
In the 1983 tilt, Australia II was in trouble early. Everything went wrong. Poor tactics, flukey winds, home track advantage, and suddenly after four races the gutsy Australian outfit were 3–1 down and Australian yachting types were looking down the barrel of another in a long line of America’s Cup defeats.
But our tub packed a powerful secret where only the snook could see it. Boat designer Ben Lexcen had tacked on a magical winged keel below the water line. This ‘hush hush’ technology gave the Australian twelve-metre genuine grunt.
As it turned out, it gave our barge a winning chance. The winged keel took a while to master, but Australia II romped home in the next three races in a row to bag that bolted-down old mug 4–3.
Business tycoon and media mogul Alan Bond, who bankrolled the brouhaha, had to go to the local Bunnings in New York and borrow a set of Stillsons to loosen the nuts on the pewter carafe for the first time in 132 years.
No one in Australia took much notice of this ‘unwinnable’ watusi of wetness until we won. It was seen as a private stink for people with far more money than sense.
This was true until the last day of competition. The final race ran through the night, Australian time, keeping many Australians, including Bob, glued to the dramatic television coverage. Next morning Bob Hawke appeared on breakfast television. He was over the moon. It was a dream come true for the recently installed PM. What a win!
He appeared wearing a very attractive Australia II supporter’s jacket. Bob could not contain his excitement. He declared to a deliriously, bleary-eyed and worse-for-wear nation that they could have a public holiday. He concluded this historic press conference with the immortal line, ‘Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum!’ One of the great quotes from any politician after an unlikely win in a sporting contest.
The winning edge was a winged keel!
The mystery from Down Under tacked to the bottom of the boat.
Ben Lexcen’s winged keel was a great bit of lateral thinking. The idea originally came from a Dutch floatation tank. Ben adapted the concept to twelve-metre racing yachts.
Great ideas are often very simple. Ben’s winged keel lifted the boat up when travelling at speed giving it superior glide. It was a big help for heavy yachts with sail up tacking into headwinds. The advantage to Australia II in that magical America’s Cup final series was measured at one minute every upwind leg.
The skipper of Liberty, Australia II’s America’s Cup opponent, the San Diego draper, Dennis Conner, sent down cloak-and-dagger spies with the scuba gear to have a peek at what the boat was packing downstairs. Mercifully these cloak-and-dagger merchants could not penetrate the shroud of secrecy that surrounded the pen in which the Aussie challenger was docked between races.
There were suggestions in the American press with a fake news agenda that the keel was fitted with micro-motors powered by miniature lithium batteries to basically cheat. As if Australian yachting types would be caught at it red-handed like a bunch of boof-headed cricketers or international cycling showboats!
Not sure the winged keel had many applications. It seemed to be limited to racing yachts and power boats cruising in shallow waters.
Sadly, the innovation was not adapted to the popular Toyota Lexcen, which was Ben’s next cab off the innovation rank. The car disappointed Australian car buyers who thought they were getting something very special in the speed department. They weren’t.
Once the Down-Under glide genie was out of the bottle it did not take long for a new breed of twelve-metre designers to tumble to the idea that it was the actual water that created the drag that slowed the boats to a crawl. Racing yacht designs evolved, eventually removing any contact between the yacht’s hull and the liquid source of the slows. Suddenly, the friction drag was reduced to nothing.
The next stage in design evolution got the hull up out of the water and the yacht flying, kite-surfing style. Twelve metres now go like the clappers, literally flying around the course. Twelve-metre buffs claim officials are planning to run the next series between two coastal airports.
Australia has always been a nation of great innovation. The Hills Hoist rotary clothesline, the Victa lawnmower, the Pope sprinkler, the wine cask, Interscan, over-the-horizon radar, the black box flight recorder, solar panels are just a few. The list of great ideas is endless.
They were not all hits. One great mystery was the Ralph Sarich orbital engine. Ralph’s two-stroke orbital combustion engine was going to revolutionise the motor industry. Not sure what happened to the concept. Maybe it was a dud in a car.
All revheaded Australians wanted to see the Sarich orbital slaved up to the fantastic Peter Brock Energy Polarizer to see how fast these technologies could make the FJ Holden or the Ford Falcon XY GT-HO phase III go.
That is just one of many great ideas lying dormant, waiting for a new generation of bright sparks to come along and kick start Australian speed innovation all over again.
Bob was very hands-on when it came to the nation’s sporting psyche. He had that chart-topping classic ‘Advance Australia Fair’ (known widely as the ‘Girt’ song) adopted as the national anthem.
The ‘AAF’ malarkey was originally intended to be sung at international fixtures where two great nations competed for ‘the greatest prize of all in the greatest games of all’. Nowadays it gets a blast whenever three or more Australians are gathered looking for peace to disturb. Apparently, this power ballad in the right hands unites the nation and allows Australia to stand as one.
Bob determined the national sporting colours would be green and gold. In doing so he set a challenge that no fashion designer has successful tamed – i.e. making those difficult colours when applied to singlets, shorts, swimmers and tracksuit trousers look anything but hideous. The colour combination spawned an endless bagging of national sporting designs, no matter how they looked. Green and gold have never looked good except on the top step of the podium with a medal dangling around the winner’s neck.
Bob was a keen racing man. He loved picking a winner. Like all punters he loved seeing his selection salute. He loved the Melbourne Cup. Gold and Black’s win in 1984 was one of Bob’s big wins early in the top job. The vision of him riding the conveyance down the long Flemington straight while camped on a comfy chair in the PM’s office still brings a smile to the lips.
It was one of his great rides.
Bob donned the silks and was riding in the stands the day Queen Elizabeth II lobbed at Thoroughbred Park in Canberra, ACT, to open ‘The QE2 Pew’, named, obviously, in her honour. This stand was a very modern facility fully equipped with handrails and women’s toilets. In those days the Queen was always out and about on the sniff across the Commonwealth looking for ribbons to snip, pavlovas to sample and bouquets of flowers to collect from the kiddies.
The QE2 Pew opening was one of the great Bicentennial occasions of 1988. Not sure anyone remembers the other great occasions during that fabulous year that ‘celebrated’ 200 years of occupation. For many local monarchists, the opening of this trackside perch selected itself as the highlight of that fabulous decade, the eighties.
The feature race on the card was the QE2 Bicentennial Stakes. The Bart Cummings–trained Beau Zam scored. It was another incredible ride from Bob with the Queen riding shotgun in the saddle next door. She was obviously impressed by the PM’s technique. Bob was a winner on the day and left the course grinning and with a groaning wallet, creating an unsightly bulge in the front of the trouser. Records don’t show which horse the Queen dropped a packet on in the race with her name on it. Surely the hard-working committee could have organised a result that went her way!
It was another incredible ride from Bob with the Queen riding shotgun in the saddle next door.
Bob was a bloke of his time and rightly got a lot of applause for doing what he loved. But many Sport Institute and Australian Olympic officials believe the pressure of work prevented Bob from expressing himself to the fullest in the sporting arena.
Newspaper and television sport editors knew that Bob had the skills to tackle our great sun, sand and surf epic, the Coolangatta Gold. This was an energy-sapping three-pronger set on the magnificent stretch of sand at the southern end of the Surfers Paradise holiday strip.