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.