Isaac’s weekly routine is typical of any 14-year old kid. School from Monday to Friday means fooling around with mates, talking to girls, avoiding homework and occasionally getting into trouble with the teachers. He got a Saturday job in May, a “busy and boring” task of washing dishes at a cafe. Undoubtedly, the highlight of the year has been footy. In March, Isaac joined the Redfern All Blacks, in August they won the South Sydney Juniors Under-15s grand final, and over the October long weekend, he represented the All Blacks at his first Koori Knockout.
Isaac’s Under-15s were eliminated before the semi-finals, but it was a triumphant long weekend at Knockout for the Redfern All Blacks. The women’s side won their grand final, and the mens senior side won 36-32 in a cliffhanger over the Newcastle All Blacks.
Redfern All Blacks are the oldest and best known Aboriginal sporting club in Australia, while the Koori Knockout is the largest Aboriginal sporting event of the year. There is the Murri Carnival held over the same weekend in Queensland, but the Knockout is the largest gathering of Aboriginal people anywhere in the country. Established with just five clubs in 1971, it has grown to over 100, and an estimated 20,000 men, women and children made the pilgrimage to Dubbo, Wiradjuri country, for the 45th iteration of what many describe as “the modern corroboree”.
For as long as he can remember, Isaac wanted to play Knockout footy. His first taste was in 2009, in his mother’s country, Bundjalung. “I been to one in Tweed Heads, but that was years ago,” he says. “I reckon it’s a good idea, ’cos like you see all these other teams, all these other Kooris.”
Family ties Isaac to rugby league. His mother, Deslyn, was selected for the NSW touch footy squad before she fell pregnant with Isaac, and his father, Lawrie, rose through the grades in Sydney and played Knockout every year without fail. Mostly he played for Griffith Three Ways, and there was one year that he played for the Redfern All Blacks. This year, however, he’s in prison – one of the brothers behind bars.
Like most mothers, Deslyn was worried about how her son would handle the roughness of Knockout footy. “He wasn’t supposed to go until his dad could take him – to look after him,” she says. There used to be a revered prison team called “Brothers” in the Knockout, but not anymore, and so Deslyn bent her rule to allow Isaac to play.
Lawrie’s reputation precedes him, and Isaac has heard all about his father’s exploits. “I think he always used to get sent off for doing dangerous stuff,” he says. “He threw punches, big tackles. He’s a good fighter, and everybody’s scared of him. No one mucks around with him.”
You can hear the love and admiration that Isaac has for his dad in the tone of his voice, and in the way he holds himself. Neither of them are big talkers, but then again, they don’t need to be. At 14, Isaac’s already a big guy, and handsome too. Six foot tall, 80kg, size 12 footy boots, dark eyes and a brooding gaze – a spitting image of Lawrie as a teenager. Isaac wears his South Sydney Rabbitohs jumper everywhere, a black cap, and soon, when his dad says he’s ready, he’ll move from the lighter weights to the bench-press.
Lawrie has never seen Isaac play rugby league, but he’s keeping tabs on his son from afar. They write letters back and forth, and over the phone Lawrie gives him regular tips on how to handle himself on the field. “He tells me if I can put down the biggest player on the team, then people will start to know me,” explains Isaac. Earlier in the season, Isaac was sin-binned for flipping a huge forward on his back, an age-old rite of passage for any teenage second-rower. “It’s not as hard as I thought it would be, hey,” he says happily.
After a Wiradjuri welcome, the 2015 Koori Knockout was officially opened by the NSW Deputy Opposition Leader, Linda Burney, a Wiradjuri woman from Whitton. “Please stand out of respect for our elders past and present, and for all our brothers that can’t be here with us today,” she asked the crowd at Caltex Park. “This weekend in Queensland and NSW, there are over 200 Aboriginal teams playing rugby league. And whatever happens tomorrow, at the [NRL] grand final, there’s gonna be a blackfella holding up the NRL. Either Johnathan [Thurston] or Justin [Hodges] – there’s going to be an Aboriginal person holding up that cup.”
It has been a standout year for Aboriginal rugby league. The Dally M awards were a blackout – Thurston took out the best player, Ash Taylor the best Under-20s player and Jenni-Sue Hoepper the best female player. When North Queensland Cowboys captain Thurston lined up the last-minute conversion in Sydney with scored locked at 16-16, commentator Peter Sterling noted that “the amount of people willing this over is astronomical”. A particularly high concentration of those people were out in Dubbo, having watched a full day of games at the Knockout. Thurston may be a Queenslander, but he’s adored by every Koori regardless of whitefella borders.
The mayor of Dubbo also spoke at the opening ceremony of the special partnership between the council and the host team, Walgett Aboriginal Connections. This in itself is a significant progression – when Dubbo first hosted the Knockout in 1984, the Daily Liberal local newspaper spoke of an “influx” of Aboriginal people, and after some trouble in town, ran sensationalised stories and provocative headlines. Tit-for-tat arguments broke out between white and black residents, with the former mayor accusing Knockout fans of not respecting Dubbo’s “hospitality”.
Heidi Norman, author of An Unwanted Corroboree: The Politics of the New South Wales Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout wrote that in 1984, “Newspaper coverage attributed the ‘crime wave’ to Aboriginal people, who were never personified as locals, visitors, tourists or even football fans; their only identity was as a threat.”
Aboriginal people are Australia’s most watched group. Whether in big cities or rural areas whitefellas watch blackfellas out of fear, curiosity and for entertainment, sometimes all at once. The closest whitefellas get to watching blackfellas out of love or affection is on the sporting field, and even then it’s usually because they are helping a white team win.
The Knockout is not like that. You can feel the love reverberate around the ground, it’s “cuz” that, “sista” this and “brutha” there. NITV and ABC commentator Brad Cooke describes the kaleidoscope of colour as a washing machine, “a load of coloured clothing representing the bright colours of the jerseys and supporter gear worn by the community all mixed in together”.
It’s tribe on tribe, an all-black sporting and cultural conversation where First Nations are celebrated, friends are formed, new babies are conceived and old scores are settled. A few years back, there was a brutal, 300-man brawl between Moree Boomerangs and La Perouse Panthers. La Perouse on Botany Bay was the site of first contact between the British and Aboriginal people, and the Panthers get the same taunt from every side they come up against: “You let Captain Cook in.”
On Sunday, Cronulla Sharks pair Andrew and David Fifita played for Griffith Three Ways against the St. George forward George Rose and his brothers at Walgett Aboriginal Connections. The first half was basically a rolling brawl with flashes of footy played in between, as scuffles broke out in every set of six tackles. The Koori Knockout attracts too many first grade and reserve grade players to name, at least one in almost every team. There is something exhilarating and surreal about watching highly-paid professional players break their contracts to scrap and snarl at one another in 38 degree heat. Watch these gladiators battle on hard grounds under hot sun and you soon realise their communities are far more important than any NRL side could ever be.
The raw brutality is an essential part of the event, but although the fights can be wild, it is all handshakes and backslaps at final whistle. When Isaac’s team lose their second game after a heroic comeback that fell just short, the first thing both sides do is form a huddle for the other team. From his perch, the Godfather of the Knockout, Sol Bellear, is always there on the PA system, his smooth baritone voice a calming influence and a reminder that the elders must always be respected.
Bellear goes to Knockout on official business, but he also represents the Redfern All Blacks. Truth is, it’s hard to separate the Knockout from the All Blacks – they were there at the beginning in 1971, and the’ve won a record number of Knockouts. If you count the Redfern-based Cec Patten-Ron Merritt Memorial side from 2003-2006 – as Uncle Chicka Madden does – it brings their tally to 10.
Uncle Chicka, 78, and his wife Aunty Lily are Redfern All Blacks personified. Uncle Chicka has never missed a Knockout since it began, and Aunty Lily has missed just one. “That’s where I’ve got it over her!” laughs Uncle Chicka. They both hail from northern NSW, but their families came to Redfern in the post-war period looking for work. Uncle Chicka can still remember where he first met Aunty Lily in 1962, at Palms Milk Bar on Regent Street, Redfern.
“What people have gotta remember about Redfern, it was the industrial hub of Australia,” says Uncle Chicka. “All the industry was situated around Redfern, Waterloo, Alexandria, even out to Mascot, you know. When the Aboriginals, the Kooris in the bush, finished school and were looking for work they wouldn’t get a job in the shop there or the council. If they got lucky they might get a job on the railway or the station in town. If they wanted a steady income they’d come to Sydney, because that’s where all the industry was.”
Just like Isaac, Uncle Chicka is a mad South Sydney Rabbitohs fan, and like Isaac he got his first job at 14 and started playing for the All Blacks. For work, he cut timber and toiled in factories, and by 1973 became secretary of the club. During this period, Redfern was the epicentre of the Aboriginal Black Power movement, as blackfellas took control of their advancement organisations and agitated for land and citizenship rights. Toni Madden, the daughter of Uncle Chicka and Aunty Lily, was the first female patient at the Aboriginal Medical Service, and to this day she works there alongside Nathan Merritt, South Sydney legend and current star of the Redfern All Blacks senior team.
Back in the sixties and seventies the All Blacks were subject to the same suspicion as the other Aboriginal self-help organisations. In 1962, an ASIO file on the Redfern All Blacks noted that “this club is an affiliate of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement which is now under the influence from the Communist Party of Australia.”
One of these black radicals was Ken Brindle. In an essay for Dawn magazine in 1970, Brindle wrote that the club was “an expression of identity and visible proof that they can organise and manage their own affairs.” This is an ongoing tradition that cannot be underestimated. “I’ve heard different people, different Kooris, say it was the first Aboriginal organisation,” explains Uncle Chicka.
If South Sydney Rabbitohs are the heart of Redfern, the All Blacks are the soul. At the 2014 NRL grand final in Sydney between Souths and Canterbury, Uncle Chicka was supposed to host the Welcome to Country ceremony. But he declined, because he had to be at Knockout with the All Blacks, and so his brother Allen did it instead. Nathan Merritt did the same, missing his retirement tribute at ANZ Stadium to be at Knockout. The club stands out as an enduring symbol, and in September, the senior team won their first South Sydney District grand final in 28 years. Coupled with the Under-15s win and the Knockout victory, 2015 has been one of the best seasons on record.
Uncle Chicka says there are two key aspects of Knockout footy: depth and draw. This year, Redfern All Blacks had both. They got a bye in the first round, and in their first game they won 40-0. With 20 minute halves in the early rounds, that’s a point a minute. By the conclusion of their third game, they had racked up 138 points to four, steamrolling Walgett Dragons and Newcastle Emus before fighting for a tough win over the Original Boomerangs from Moree.
The squad is full of top-quality players, some who could have made it to NRL, like Mark Hickey; others who have made it, like Eli Roberts, Jonathan Wright, Joshua Addo-Carr and the Robinson brothers Reece and Travis. Then there’s those who have recently retired, like captain-coach Dean Widders, crowd favourite Merritt and the code-hopping hooker Brendan Williams. At 41, Williams is the All Blacks metronome, firing passes off both hands and sliding through gaps nobody else could see. Williams grew up on The Block in Redfern, played rugby union in Italy where they nicknamed him “Dingo”, and learnt to speak fluent Italian. Uncle Chicka loves Brendan, but when asked who the best player he ever saw was, he pointed a finger straight at Reece Robinson. “His grandfather Eric Robinson played for South Sydney,” he says. “He was the fastest.”
All weekend, Uncle Chicka fielded calls from Micky Mundine, the long-serving CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Corporation on The Block in Redfern, updating him on scores and standout performers. Micky’s nephew, the great rugby league player-turned-boxer Anthony “Choc” Mundine, was in Dubbo, running the water for the Redfern All Blacks women’s side. In the public eye Mundine might be brash and loud, but at Knockout he played a quiet supporting role, making sure the women were looked after in the hottest part of the day. That’s the side of Mundine whitefellas don’t often see, and that’s why blackfellas love him. Mundine wore a grey “Straight Outta Redfern” t-shirt, and by the end of the day they were sold out.
Indeed the gentrification of inner Sydney means that the Mundines, the Phillips and the Maddens are some of the last Koori families out of Redfern. Earlier this year, Ken Brindle’s old place on The Block in Caroline Street – once listed as club headquarters in the All Blacks ASIO file – sold for just under $1 million. But Uncle Chicka and Aunty Lily won’t leave. “Probably our kids and grandkids will live here too,” says Uncle Chicka. “In the golden triangle, they call it.”
The club, just like the suburb, is going through an evolution. These days the committee is dominated by women, and the Redfern Local Area Commander, Luke Freudenstein, is the waterboy. Freudenstein has been a police officer in Redfern for seven years and run the water week in, week out for the All Blacks for the last five. Uncle Chicka points to the white doctors and lawyers like Fred Hollows and Hal Wooten that volunteered at the Aboriginal Medical and Legal Services when they first started up. Proof, he says, that whitefellas have a role to play in Aboriginal organisations.
“A lot of people have got the wrong impression with the Redfern All Blacks,” says Uncle Chicka. “It wasn’t set up because there was all blackfellas in there. When Redfern all Blacks first started off on Redfern Hill, blackfellas used to drink there after work. They all got together, and when the football season was ready to start, all the blackfellas and whitefellas got together and had a yarn and said ‘we should put a team in the juniors’.
“They said, ‘yeah, righto – what are we gonna call it?’ They said it’ll have to be Redfern something. Souths juniors supplied the jumpers, socks and shorts, and if you put your order in through the year, you could pick your colours and design your jumpers. What they gave them was a black jumper, black shorts, and blacks socks with a white top and a white collar. That’s where the Redfern All Blacks got their name from.”
Freudenstein’s work with the Redfern All Blacks is a stunning subversion of the usual police presence in Redfern. He’s not in charge here, but Uncle Chicka reckons he gets the respect of all the community by putting in the effort. Isaac and his team-mates, all the younger boys, are growing up with a totally different perception of police thanks to Freudenstein. As Widders says: “Who would have thought that a person from Redfern police would put his heart and soul into the Aboriginal community, dig deep into his own pockets and come out here and sweat, burn all weekend, just for us boys.”
The Redfern All Blacks have got a way with words. The club song, “We Keep The Ball In Motion”, must be one of the greatest footy songs anywhere. Like many of the original Redfern All Blacks players, the song migrated down from the now-defunct north coast Tweed All Blacks after the war (that’s where the lyrics “just like a rolling ocean” come from). Uncle Chicka reckons it was introduced to Redfern by Archie Glass, one of the players who was there for the All Blacks first South Sydney District premierships in 1974. This means Isaac sings the same song as his great-grandmother’s brother, Napier Paulson, who played with the original Tweed All Blacks.
Before the open mens grand final between Redfern and Newcastle All Blacks on Monday afternoon, Uncle Chicka was invited into the dressing room by Freudenstein. Here is his warm, gentle speech to the players:
My name’s Chicka Madden. This is me 45th Knockout. I’ve been involved with a lot of your fathers and grandfathers, cousins over the years.
The club has got a great tradition, won more Knockouts than any other team. I wish you all the best today boys, I know you’ve got the ability to do it, and carry on the legend of the RAB.
Can you make this 11, for me?
Hope I’ve got a few more left in me to follow youse, you know? But youse have been very impressive, youse are a great team, just make everyone in Redfern, and all your families proud of you today boys.
You got the ability – let’s take out number 11 hey?
Brendan Williams was the first to embrace him as he left the dressing room, and one by one the others shook his hand and patted him on the back. It was a deeply emotional moment – the young stars were suddenly reminded of the importance of the task ahead of them.
And they did win it for Uncle Chicka. A swashbuckling comeback had the scores level at 32-32 at full-time, with Shane Nolan scoring a last-minute penalty kick from halfway to send the match into extra time. NRL star Jonathan Wright, whose dad was one of the founders of the Knockout all those years ago, crossed over to win the match in golden point.
In his post-match speech, Widders spoke directly to his team-mates. “To the young men of Redfern,” he said, “I seen these young boys, the amount of respect that you boys continue to give me day in day out, the hard work that youse have put in, the times you boys have just sit and listen to all the things I say, and go onto the football field and do your best to do it – I can’t thank youse enough, boys.”
A big part of this victory belongs to Widders. At one game against Mascot last season, he deliberately started the match with just nine players. The other 11 on the bench didn’t show up to training on time, and so they were forced to watch their brothers struggle on without them. It’s that sort of discipline has reaffirmed the respect for the RAB jersey.
In Widders Uncle Chicka sees shades of Ambrose Morgan, the great captain-coach who led the All Blacks to a first premiership more than four decades ago. “You gotta have the young ones around,” he explains, “but you’ve gotta have the old heads to keep ‘em on track, you know.” As kids, parents, wives and girlfriends milled onto the field to celebrate with the All Blacks, Uncle Chicka made a beeline for Williams. The first person to embrace Uncle Chicka in the dressing room was the first he embraced at full time. That, in a single moment, says all you need to know about the All Blacks and the Knockout: family, loyalty and an immense mutual respect between the young ones, the celebrity players and the elders. Long after Uncle Chicka and Aunty Lily pass away, Isaac’s generation and the generations after them will grow up with the legend of the 2015 victory.
Isaac watched the game with his mum and his little brother. Like most he left on the Sunday, but tuned in to NITV’s live national coverage. His team were knocked out, but he’s not one to dwell on results. He played well at a new position, shifting from second-row to centre, and he says this season has been more about meeting new friends at the club.
Without great fanfare or full knowledge of the importance of his initiation, Isaac has entered two vital institutions of Koori life. There are a world of options open to him and his team-mates. Next year he starts Year 10, and then maybe university. “If I don’t make it at footy, then I’ll probably join the navy,” he says. “It’s a good opportunity to travel the world. I want to go up to Europe.”
Whatever he does, there will always be a place for him in Redfern thanks to the All Blacks. As Uncle Chicka has shown, you don’t need to be the star player to play a vital part of the RAB family.
By virtue of the Redfern All Blacks’ victory, the Knockout is coming back to Redfern, the black capital of NSW. Isaac is already planning ahead. “I want to play again,” he says. “Next year, dad will take me.”
The Redfern All Blacks 2015 Koori Knockout champions are: Eli Roberts, Joshua Addo-Carr, Jonathan Wright, Nathan Merritt, Kieran Vale, Kareel Phillips, Reegan Carr, Heath Fernando, Scott Lyons, Steven Walker, Steven Winters, Dean Widders, Jimmy Widders-Leece, Mark Hickey, Joshua Nolan, Brendon Williams, Tyler Troy Terare, Reece Robinson, Shane Nolan, Travis Robinson, Raymond Carr, Kyle Mundine, Rick Lyons, Matt Nixon, Matthew Hickey.
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