[Marxism] A book launch in old Fitzroy

[Tom O'Lincoln]

Last week-end, for the first time ever, I entered the Bowls Club in
Fitzroy (inner Melbourne). In the far corner was a list of bowls
champions going back to 1879. In the foreground, a crowd of football
die-hards whose traditions went back just as far.

Ian Syson's Vulgar Press was launching a book* about the Fitzroy
Football Club. If you're nowhere near Melbourne, or you don't share its
religion, maybe I should explain: this small club disappeared ten years
ago, swallowed up in the rationalisation that created the Brisbane
Lions.

Business is business. Football teams' community base has become a
secondary consideration to the people now running Australian Rules
football, and the crowd at the launch knew it better than most.

The speeches and songs were light-hearted, yet they kept coming back to
what capitalism had done to their club. "Footy now is business, and
money rules as king" sang one; another lamented the new era when a footy
club is "just some fat boy's marketing tool". The legendary Bernie
Quinlan, who kicked 576 goals for the Lions, suggested Fitzroy and its
working class club "shouldn't be part of this modern crass society".

***
But it's hard to avoid, isn't it? I've spent hours watching the that
monster cash cow called the World Cup even though, dogged Marxist
internationalist that I am, I found myself barracking for every single
country that played against the Socceroos. And of course the reason the
Socceroos play well is partly because they spent a fortune on the coach,
who is Dutch rather than Australian, which is bizarre given the
patriotic hysteria. And partly because they spent a fortune on building
a team. And partly because Harry Kewell et al are top professionals
making heaps of money in Europe.

The money power in sport is an issue the Australian left should consider
more closely. In 2000 two academics published a paper called "The Price
of Olympic Gold", which found that each gold medal Australia won in the
period 1980-96 cost about $37 million dollars. The justification offered
for this splurge was firstly that it was really, really important for
Australia to win lots of gold medals. Self-evident, is it not.

And secondly, that the effect would trickle down to more sporting
activity among the masses with consequent health benefits. The academics
found no evidence whatsoever for this. I guess the investment splurge
just created more couch potatoes.

Someone should write a book about this. Speaking of which ...

***
Until Vulgar Press appeared on the scene, I had lost interest in book
launches. They always seemed to be precious little in-group affairs.
This small publisher has turned them into political rallies and
community festivals.

What made me realise something important was happening was the launch of
Liz Ross's  "Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!" about the Builders'
Labourers. The State President of the CFMEU launched it. Scores of blue
collar militants turned up to buy a book that told their story. Like the
Fitzroy launch, we began with a song that brought history alive, one
many of us had sung in the old days.

The old days ... During both launches, amidst the festive atmosphere, I
felt that tremor of melancholy you get when you realise something is
gone forever. There will be plenty of class struggles in the future, but
the particular working class culture represented by the Builders'
Labourers' Federation will not return. Neither will community-based
sport in the particular form that Aussie Rules still represented two or
three decades ago.

Which is why our enemies call us dinosaurs, for not wanting to let go of
the past.

But the past is a key to the future. The people who run sport, the
building industry and everything else want us to believe things can be
no other way. Capturing the past allows us to answer that another world
is possible.  We know because we've learnt our history.

***

*The book  is Adam Muyt, "Maroon & Blue" from Vulgar Press:
http://www.vulgar.com.au/