THE NIGHT OF THE LONG JOURNEY

by Whispering Jack

Paul Kelly (the singer not the footballer) sings a song entitled "From Little Things Big Things Grow". The song itself tells a story of great historical significance for this country but its basic message is what brought me to The Long Room of the Melbourne Cricket Club on Thursday 16 July 2009 where, on behalf of Demonland and together with Judee of Demonology, we presented the jumper to Liam Jurrah that he wore a month before when he made his debut for the Melbourne Football Club against Essendon. It was truly The Night of the Long Journey.

The Long Journey was an evening put together by the Women of Melbourne to honour Melbourne's indigenous footballers. The story of the jumper began when Luke Scholes, a mad keen Demon fan and a resident of Alice Springs who posts on both Demonland and Demonology as "The Fork", discovered that the jumper was being auctioned off on the internet. The Fork posted on both sites initially in the hope getting about 30 people to fork up (pun intended) about $20.00 each to help make a bid in order to get the jumper back to the people of Liam's community at Yuendumu which is 297 kilometres north west of Alice Springs.

Well, the whole thing snowballed, the bids kept coming in and a movement began which included co-operation with the Mount Theo programme run by Susie Low and which closely works with Liam's community. We ended up with the winning bid of $3,100 which was the highest amount ever fetched for a guernsey on the club's auction website. It even pipped the bid that secured David Neitz's 300th game guernsey. And that's not all because the donations have kept flowing in ever since, even from people who have never previously posted on the sites. I understand that about $5,000.00 has been collected to date.

So it came to pass that Judee and I handed over the number 48 guernsey to Liam who, in turn, passed it on to two beautiful ladies - his grandmother Cecily and Susie Low who told of how it will have pride of place in the Mount Theo office where it will stand as an inspiration for the young of the community to assist them in taking their long journeys in life whether they be at home or in far away places like Melbourne.

Susie described Liam as a perfect role model and said the community was proud of what he has achieved. She also thanked the internet community and especially Luke, The Fork, whose brainchild – a little thing like starting simple threads on two internet sites – grew into the big thing that made it all possible. Also people like our own Rudeboy (despite being a Collingwood supporter) who from the start mentored Liam in Melbourne, posts on our site and thinks Melbourne is the right club and the right place for our new hero!

Grandmother Cecily spoke in both her mother tongue and in English of how proud she was of her grandson who co-incidentally was this week's NAB Rising Star Award winner. The whole room was immersed in the same pride – not just for our Warlpiri Wizard as Liam prefers to be referred to but also for all of our growing indigenous crew.

Another of the evening's highlights was Lynette Jetta, mother of Neville who was introduced by Chris Connolly and who spoke from the heart about how she and her husband made their long journey in the family ute from Bunbury to Melbourne to support their son. Connolly was at his witty best when he descibed the look on the face of the concierge at the Crown Plaza Hotel when the family arrived in the vehicle whose gear stick came off as soon as one of the porters tried to park it. Lynette spoke beautifully of her experience and articulated her feelings as a mother when she recited a graceful and moving poem that she wrote to reflect her support for her son in his quest to fly.

Demon forward coach Josh Mahoney visited the Tiwi Islands last summer and came back with a five minute film he made of his experiences from Austin Wonaeamirri's home territory - a place where footy and fishing are the main pastimes and life is simple and very laid back. Aussie treated us to a little anecdote about when he played a joke on Mahoney after he relieved himself near a watering hole.

Josh recalled the story of the sea turtle which lives in warm temperate coastal waters like those that surround Aussie's home island. The adult female sea turtle returns to the beach where she was born to lay up to 200 eggs in the sand. Only a small proportion of these eggs are hatched, a small proportion of the hatchlings make the 30 metre trip across the sand to the water's edge and few survive the journey once in the sea. Mahoney drew the analogy between the sea turtle and the success rate of young indigenous footballers. Many living in remote regions start off kicking makeshift "footballs" like plastic coke bottles as shown in Mahoney's film but only a small handful make it onto the MCG to play like Matty Whelan, Aaron Davey, Aussie, Jamie Bennell, Neville Jetta and, of course, our own Warlpiri Wizard.

The night was more than a tribute to these electrifying young men but also to those who preceded them. Chris Connolly told the story of Melbourne's first indigenous player, Eddie Jackson, who came to the club as a lightly built wingman in 1947 and played in the club's 1948 premiership side. Eddie has since returned to the Dreamtime but his daughters Fiona and Karen proudly took the stage to stand alongside our six great young men who carry on the tradition of their father to this very day. When asked what Matty Whelan wanted from the players on stage with him, he answered, "a premiership". Just like Eddie who will always be remembered as the man who opened the gateway to indigenous players at the Melbourne Football Club.

Connolly could have gone back further than Eddie Jackson. He could have gone all the way back into history when Australia's first people played a game with some of the characteristics of our game today. Some historians consider that one of our game's founders Tom Wills, who lived part of his life in the outback, took parts of what he saw and included them when formulating the rules with co-founder Henry Harrison. These were the rules of the Melbourne Football Club - the oldest football club in the world. Harrison was its first captain: perhaps Aaron Davey will be its next?

The host for the evening Ernie Dingo alluded to the fact that the oldest club was a perfect place for players from our land's oldest community. He also did a sensational job (I'll allow him the slight gaffe when he almost had me married off to Judee although undoubtedly neither my wife nor Judee will!) despite the fact that his allegiances lie with the West Coast Eagles. Many of his relatives play the game including former North Melbourne, Port Adelaide and Melbourne star Byron Pickett. Ernie once caught a flight across the Nullarbor to watch a Port Adelaide v Fremantle game. What on earth for? Because a record 13 indigenous men were playing in that game. He also took a bit of a risk (considering that it was a Women of Melbourne function) of comparing the Collingwood Football Club with a poorly made bra - plenty of support but no cups.

Board member Karen Hayes who chairs the Women of Melbourne gave her thanks to all who contributed to an amazing night. It was as much a night for women as it was for the players. We had seen and heard from Cecily, Lynette Jetta and from Aaron Davey, who came up with the idea of a scholarship for young indigenous footballers which the Women of Melbourne are sponsoring, had told the audience how he owed such a great debt to his mother who brought up the family alone after his father died in a car smash when he was just nine years old. Jimmy's wife Sam was also there and we stand with her in support of her man's long journey to recovery from his illness. Also interesting was the reflection that such a function was taking place in The Long Room - a place where not so long ago women could not venture and dare I say it, neither could black people and other minorities.

The changes that have taken place in our society during my lifetime have been quite amazing. I've personally travelled through time from when, as a nine year old I watched my mother, a Holocaust survivor, nursing an aboriginal man bleeding from stab wounds in a suburban milk bar while others stood by refusing to help, to the 1967 Referendum which gave our original people the right to be "equal" with recent arrivals, to my work in the early days of the Aboriginal Legal Service, to the story of Vincent Lingiarri, the Gurindju people and Gough Whitlam from the Paul Kelly song, to Kevin Rudd's sorry and all the way to my own recent discovery that this oppressed community produced such heroic (but sadly unknown) figures as William Cooper who made his long journey in 1938 when he led an indigenous delegation on a march from Footscray to the German consulate in South Melbourne to protest at that country's treatment of its Jews. To my knowledge, no other such protests took place anywhere else in the world.

For of all of the long journeys made by these proud, gentle and wonderful people it was a true honour for me to recall my own long journey and to play a small role in such a wonderful evening.

And as far as I'm concerned, the Melbourne Football Club won its 13th premiership on Thursday night.