The Working Man’s Game

I can still remember it as clearly as though it were yesterday. My father, a serious and stern expression on his face, was sitting me down on one of the much loved and ageing living room sofas in our home. It was clear by the man’s focused gaze and his intense but monotone voice that this was no ordinary conversation. No, this was real father to son material – the passing down of wisdom from one generation to another. In a manner similar to one relay runner passing the baton to his fellow team member, my father had something very important to explain.

And it had absolutely nothing to do with either birds or bees. No, puberty and the dropping of voices associated with it were pushed to the side for a much more important aspect of life - social classes.

Suffice to say, at eleven years of age this wasn’t the sort of conversation I had expected to share with my father, particularly considering I was of the opinion that social classes were both distant and irrelevant. I had no idea just how wrong I was.

My father had emigrated from England to New Zealand a little more than twenty years earlier. His background was not one of wealth – his mother had been a cook for a wealthy land owner in the area, and his father had ridden a bicycle to get to work each day because the family lacked the money to own a motor vehicle. For that reason, if anyone knew about social classes, it was my dad. And he wanted to explain to me that classes existed in New Zealand, albeit with less impact than in his place of birth, and that they were evident everywhere, even on the football field.

As I listened on in silence, my father pointed out to me that in contrast to rugby union, where a referee will address a player by their surname, a rugby league official, (or a soccer referee, as was my father’s original train of thought), will use the player’s first name when speaking to them, in a similar manner to the way teachers get the attention of students at private and public schools respectively. In fact, it seems that it is from this educational background that such habits are born and fostered. It is a trait that stretches to the fans of both codes, whether they are passionately cheering on their team, or just discussing the topics of team selection and player form in civil conversation.

The use of a surname or a first name might seem like little more than semantics, but I believe there is something defining about it. Knowing someone on a first name basis indicates a closeness that a title or a surname cannot provide - a primitive form of intimacy and the most basic of relational connections. Perhaps this is why it seems to hurt so much when our rugby league teams lose, no matter the opposition. An emotional investment has been made, and it doesn’t always pay out with the profits we crave.

Such is the nature of sport in general – each fan has his or her favourite player for one reason or another, and pretending to know them in an innate manner simply adds to the agony and ecstasy of supporting a rugby league team. Calling players by their first name is just one way of doing that.

I remember sitting in that sofa, refusing to make a sound as this information – something I considered to be nothing short of revolutionary – was gifted to me. It was as if a buried treasure chest had just had its lock broken, but it was several years before I was able to properly open it and discover the treasures inside; something I continue to do to this day.

The professional arena has changed a lot of things. Players can now be seen driving Holden Commodores and sporting the latest clothing labels; television sponsorship deals bring in millions of dollars each year to the sport’s governing body; professionally trained staff organise training sessions for teams; players are paid high wages and stay in five star hotels when touring other countries, and they are made into celebrities, holding autograph signing sessions for their many adoring fans.

But one thing remains. It is the ability, and even the invitation, to do as the referee does each and every week: to call each player by his first name.

From The Circles Of My Family History To The Ovals Of My Future

I splash cold tap water onto my face and watch as minute streams form down my cheeks, the clear liquid dropping into the bathroom sink below. An exhausted face looks back at me from the mirror, complete with reddened cheeks and sweaty hair. What is it that has caught me so short of breath? I haven’t just been playing rugby league, which may well be to the disappointment of many people reading this. No, I have in fact been partaking in a social yet fiercely competitive game of soccer.

Why on earth am I mentioning the sport of my forefathers in Britain, as opposed to the game which I have followed for the last twelve years of my life? Comparisons, of course! Why else?

I grew up playing soccer. My father, originally from England, knew that it is the one sport where anyone can play, regardless of size or ability, and, seeing as I was a skinny, slight young lad who lacked both, soccer and I seemed like a perfect match. But, as it is often wont to do, my curiosity sought out other sports, and one day I stumbled across rugby league.

Ever since then, I have been intrigued by one aspect in particular of the thirteen man game. It is the singular most unpredictable and unreliable part of the sport. It can be a best friend one moment, and the worst of enemies the next. It can make or break an attacking play, a match, or even a season. Players are subject to its will, attempting to pre-empt its next whimsical manoeuvre. It is the 'X' factor of the game, and it can be a coach killer in every sense of the word.

It is, of course, the bounce of the ball.

Coming from a bloodline that finds its origins in the British working class, where soccer, (or football, for those still in the mother country), is king, my curiosity is hardly surprising - indeed, it is almost to be expected. A spherical ball, whilst still able to curve and spin in order to produce confusion amongst opposition defenders, is a far cry from the bobble and hop that can be found in rugby league which shreds defensive lines to pieces on an almost routinely basis.

This unusual shape presents itself as some kind of wild animal, potentially willing to be tamed, but only by the right player. And that's the key, I think: potentially. Even the greatest of playmakers - suitably otherwise known as 'ball tamers' for the purpose of this musing - can misjudge the next move of the ball, making for interesting and sometimes spectacular results. And like all wild animals, even the most cooperative of rugby league balls can turn on its master at any given moment.

But it is the few, (those happy few), maestros - nay, magicians - that can be relied on to have near flawless ball control in the most literal sense possible. They and they alone have the power and panache to define the bounce of the ball; to decide its momentum and direction, only to sit back and wait as the ball takes care of the opposition defensive line on his behalf.

Such players are very few, and even further between.

And it is here that the comparisons between rugby league and 'the beautiful game' stall. Despite the best efforts of Pele, Ronaldo, and the late George Best, their sport provided unpredictability only when forced to by the brilliance of an individual player. Rugby league, however, can provide that very notion of uncertainty simply due to the comparatively unusual shape of its ball alone, making a mockery of any team that isn't - excuse the pun - 'on the ball'.

With a towel drying my face, and my ponderings subsiding for only a few brief moments, I reflect on the situation: a first generation New Zealander, still playing the most popular game of my ancestral origins, but choosing to vigorously support the underdog of my geographical home. It’s an act of pioneering, and one that I intend to make last.

From circles to ovals – it hasn’t really been that much of a leap, has it? After all, were it not for the elliptical shape of a pig’s bladder, I might have forever remained none the wiser.

***Published in Issue Five of Super League Magazine, 2006***