There have been some great moments in Australian sport, and others that have stunk of scandal, of ineptitude, and of the downright bizarre. Here are four.
‘Deportation, Mr Djokovic’
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Novak Djokovic could not have picked a worse time to pack his bags, log on to Instagram and announce he was heading to Melbourne. In early 2022 the city was so divided, with Covid case numbers in the tens of thousands. Melburnians were so worn down that a mass brawl broke out at a supermarket, with one shopper whacked over the head with a saucepan. Then Novak sauntered in with his wacky ideas on vaccination, his sloppy paperwork, his 20 grand slams and hundreds of millions of tennis earnings. He didn’t have a prayer.
The saga over medical exemptions, visa bungles and entry permissions dragged on and on. The smirking mug of “No-Vax” led the news every night. His supporters were singing Balkan folk songs outside his hotel. His visa appeal was a circus. The live streaming was bedevilled by lengthy dropouts, porn, spamming and bootlegging.
The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew noted how Djokovic treated it all like a tennis match, “with an unshakeable and messianic belief in his own supremacy. He contested his deportation as if it were a crucial break point – as if it were his last stand against total oblivion.” The problems, Liew wrote, “arise when you begin to conflate the hard, white lines of the tennis court with the messy compromises of the world at large”.
Essendon go the jab
It was driven “by incompetence rather than malevolence”, according to Chip Le Grand in his book The Straight Dope. That’s being generous. The Essendon supplements scandal enmeshed a prime minister in an election year, the most powerful and defensive sporting organisation in the country, mysterious new drugs, warnings of susceptibility to organised crime, an underfunded peak anti-doping body, a haughty AFL boss, a rabid press, controversial sports scientists, senior bureaucrats, crack silks, human rights experts, golden boys, conspiracy theorists and flag wavers.
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It was a perfect sporting shitstorm and the scandal needed a face. For months, it was James Hird’s ashen visage plastered all over the front and back pages. The AFL, as always, sought to control the narrative. Essendon countered with anaesthetic press releases and lame hashtags. The natural inclination, whether you were a columnist, a tweeter, a keyboard thumper or a water cooler bore, was to take as strident a stance as possible. It netted some Walkley awards. It cost others Brownlow medals. It sent some mad and drove others from the sport. Few can explain with any clarity what the hell actually took place. Essendon has never been the same since.
Fine Cotton is subbed out
There had always been ring-ins in horse racing. In the 1970s a gentleman named Rick Renzella – who the journalist Andrew Rule called “a man of many parts, most of them stolen” – orchestrated a series of successful stings. The key, Renzella realised, was that the nags had to vaguely resemble one another. But the Fine Cotton/Bold Personality ring-in was a misbegotten shambles. It featured a cast of chancers, charlatans and crackpots, most of whom were untroubled by intellectual concerns. For a start, Bold Personality was a full shade lighter and half a furlong quicker than Fine Cotton. He also had a big white star on his forehead. The application of dye and peroxide didn’t help. A half-smart sixth grader could have concocted a more effective scam.
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What’s fascinating about the Fine Cotton affair is that it was never fully explained or resolved. The Waterhouse family, while not accused of being involved in the ring-in itself, were found to have prior knowledge of the switch. Bill Waterhouse, Rule wrote, was “a liar, cheat and a bully”. When he and his son Robbie were found to have known about the ring-in they were “warned off” every racetrack in the world. But the Sydney racing world forgives all trespasses and Robbie eventually returned to bookmaking. Big Bill himself, with a straight face, a nice turn of phrase and not a shred of shame, published a book What are the Odds? and took his truth to the grave in 2019. Robbie went on to marry wife, Gai, who’s horses won all over the world, and his son Tom’s ads constituted approximately 75% of all advertising on Australian television.
The underarm incident
The little girl tugged on Greg Chappell’s arm. “You cheated!” she cried. “You cheated!” On an atrocious MCG pitch, in 41C heat, he’d made 90 and bowled 10 overs. Now, with one ball remaining in the limited overs clash against New Zealand,the series all square and the Kiwis needing a six to force a replay, the Australian captain sat on his haunches at mid-off. The spectators – adhering to the MCG’s two-slab maximum and living in a pre-ozone layer world – were having a whale of a time. But Chappell was in complete mental disarray. He was craving a day off. He later called his biography Fierce Focus. At that moment he was focused on two things – rest and the brick outhouse making his way to the crease.
Brian McKechnie was a double All Black, having represented New Zealand in rugby league and rugby union. As a batsman, he made a good fullback. But he was a big lad. If anyone was going to hit a six, Chappell convinced himself, it was this bloke. He asked his brother Trevor: “How are you at bowling your underarms?”
It was the sort of thing you could only ask a younger brother. Trevor was no world beater but he rolled a nice grubber. McKechnie flung his bat in disgust and all hell broke loose. The New Zealand prime minister called it “an act of true cowardice and I consider it appropriate the Australian team were wearing yellow”. In the dressing shed, Mark Burgess threw his teacup against the wall – a very Kiwi tantrum. Greg Chappell retreated to his hotel bolthole, slept properly for the first time in months and was booed into the SCG several days later. He then received a standing ovation after his match-winning 87.
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