Geraghty outburst a thing of the dreamtime

Letter From Australia:In 1999, after a tour match between the Irish international rules team and an Australian under-18 squad, a match that was a warm-up for the opening game of the international rules series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a storm blew up when it was reported the Meath footballer Graham Geraghty had called an Australian player of South African background a black c***.

Geraghty, after being informed of the strength of feeling against racial vilification in Australian football, apologised to the player, Damian Cupido, and officials hoped the matter would slip away. I, however, got wind of the incident and, in a timid few paragraphs in a story in The Age in Melbourne, reported what had happened.

I was timid because I realised the controversy that would be unleashed. On the issue of racial vilification, there was a gulf between the football cultures of the two countries.

In Australia, racial vilification of black players, who are generally Aboriginal, had been the biggest issue in football for four years, since a match between Australian Football League rivals Essendon and Collingwood in 1995. In Ireland, where a Gaelic football match was more likely to feature a leprechaun than a black player, there had never been any need to address such an issue.

In the match between Essendon and Collingwood in 1995, which was played before a crowd of more than 90,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Essendon's Aboriginal talisman Michael Long had arisen from the bottom of a pack of players and screamed about what he obviously felt was a grave injustice.

Long was a highly respected player who had done much to champion the cause of Aboriginal players in Australia's indigenous football code. He was not, however, known for histrionics. Spectators, and many of the players on the field, were perplexed by his rage.

It emerged that Collingwood ruckman Damian Monkhorst, in seeking to push Long off him after a stop in play, had said, "Get off me, you black c***." Long screamed at the referee, who in Australian football is called an umpire, to do something. In the way of the times, the umpire did nothing. Play was restarted and a classic match ensued.

Essendon and Collingwood played out a draw, a rare occurrence in Australian football, but the main topic to emerge from the match was Long's rage.

A press conference was called in which Monkhorst apologised, but in his lack of grace the Collingwood player made it clear he believed he had done nothing wrong.

Long seethed during the stage-managed apology. Rather than let the matter rest, he later told an uncomfortable nation every Aboriginal player in the national competition was accustomed to being vilified, which was code for being called a black c***, not long after running on to the ground.

Long's retaliation generated debate that reached the halls of the national parliament. Most Australians, while acknowledging the distastefulness of attacks on the basis of skin colour, were unable to see the extent of the offence. The common line was that they, as white Australians, would have little objection if an Aboriginal person called them a white c***, so, surely, the reverse could apply.

This argument betrayed a profound ignorance. No white Australian has ever been denied a job or entry to a nightclub because of the colour of his skin. No white Australian has ever been wiped off as a blight on the nation because of the colour of his skin. It's not a level playing field when you're talking about vilification.

To its eternal credit, the Australian Football League administration saw that its attempt to sweep Long's grievances under the carpet was wrong. It declared racial vilification had no place on its fields of endeavour. The outcome of Long's stand was that it became an offence to use skin colour as an insult.

One or two players were slow learners, and were duly chastised when their insults against Aboriginal players made national headlines, but, before long, the AFL's stance had generated change. In the scrubbiest football competitions in the most isolated backblocks, racial vilification was considered not quite in line with child molestation, but not far above it.

The culmination of this change was to be seen in Melbourne over the weekend just gone. As a promotional tool, the Australian Football League in recent years has designated three rounds of games as "theme" rounds. There's the rivalry round, in which traditional rivals are pitted against each other, and the heritage round, in which all clubs wear strips of yore, such as a 1920s strip with really thin stripes. This weekend, for the first time, there was an indigenous round.

Michael Long, now living back in the region of northern Australian known as the Top End, was brought down to Melbourne in his unofficial role as Australian football's indigenous spokesman. Long did countless interviews in which he recounted his struggle for recognition of Aboriginal people, not just footballers, and capped his ambassadorial quest with a performance of the single he has released. Long plays guitar and has a fine voice. His song features a singalong chorus that summons emotions many listeners never realised they had.

Long's performance of his single in Melbourne's Federation Square preceded the climax of the indigenous round, the match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between Essendon and Richmond, which was billed as "The Dreamtime Match". Aboriginal players such as Richmond's Andy Krakeour and Essendon's Alwyn Davey displayed the lightning speed and skills for which black players are renowned.

Essendon's Paddy Ryder, a 198-centimetre prospect of rare talent, confirmed it's not just small and quick Aboriginal players who can make a mark on the national game.

One of the statistics trotted out during the weekend was that, in a country in which Aboriginals comprise two per cent of the population of 20 million, about 10 per cent of players in the Australian Football League are Aboriginals.

In defiance of the situation that existed as recently as 10 years ago, every Australian Football League club has Aboriginal players who are among the top few players in their team. For all the anguish over the plight of Aboriginal people in Australia, the indigenous football competition is a showcase of what might be.

There is no excuse, absolutely none, for what Graham Geraghty said in a nondescript match in 1999, but it's fair to say he had no inkling of the furore he would unleash. The positive outcome was the step in understanding that resulted.