The Bintangs and an Aboriginal link
By John Milne
JAKARTA (JP): With the conclusion of the Australian soccer season, Australia Television has begun screening five of the eight Australian Football League (AFL) matches played each weekend.
It is hard to imagine Asians with satellite television being glued to their seats to watch such a foreign sport.
But there is an Asian interest. Australian Football teams from Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan (comprising all Japanese players) participated in the recent Arafura Games in Darwin. There's even talk of an ASEAN team competing in the 2001 Games.
In Kuala Lumpur in the late 1970s, I arranged a videotape screening at the Australian High Commission of a VFL (former name of AFL) grand final. The room was packed with Malaysians who had developed a keen interest in the sport while studying in Melbourne. When the video unexpectedly cut-out several minutes before the finish of a riveting see-saw game (that was won in the dying seconds) I became the inevitable target of their wrath.
Possibly the first person of Indonesian descent to play in the AFL was former Richmond centerman Maurice Rioli, now the shadow Minister for Sport in the Northern Territory Parliament.
Maurice, an Aboriginal, told me his paternal grandfather was Asian. He thought Japanese. From lecturers at Atma Jaya University in Ujungpandang I have learned that Rioli is indeed a common name in some villages of the Tanimbar Islands in the Mollucas. Maurice accepts there is a possible family link with Indonesia.
Jakarta's Australian Football Club, the Bintangs, was founded in 1995. The team has international credentials, having played matches against Singapore and Malaysia at the Cibubur Cricket Ground in East Jakarta. Reflecting on the games, local Aussie Rules organizer and prominent Australian businessman Ken Allan recalls: "The temporary lake at one end of the ground and the discarded building site carpet covering the artificial turf wicket did not stop the ball wobbling towards the makeshift bamboo poles painted white for the occasion."
The Jakarta Post carried a report on one of the games. On or around Australia Day each year an Aussie Rules match is played in Jakarta, usually at the International Sports Club of Indonesia.
New jumpers
The Australian Embassy's own Tony Burchill and Matt Stephens are key Bintangs players and proudly wear the team's new jumpers -- black with red yold and a big white star on the chest. The Papua New Guinea Ambassador is a fellow team member.
Last year when Ansett Cup AFL matches were played in New Zealand and South Africa to promote the sport overseas some consideration was given to playing a game in Jakarta, until it was discovered that no suitable playing field existed.
A cultural misunderstanding occurred several years ago when an enthusiastic followed of the red-and-white Sydney Swans AFL team arrived in Jakarta on his first visit to Asia. It was Aug. 17, Indonesia's national day, and the country was awash with bunting and banners featuring the Indonesian national colors and flags. When the your Australian's taxi entered the city he phoned home saying he had come to a city where he believed all the people were Swan's supporters.
I met an Indonesian who perchance had watched a game of Aussie Rules on Australia Television. He said he was completely baffled when the commentator said, "The Cats are clawing their way back" and "There are Tigers popping up all over the field" -- when not an animal was in sight.
But Australian television has played a part in drawing Indonesians into the sport. Take Cahyana and Andi. They are the first Indonesian members of the Bintangs team and both played in a recent game against Singapore.
Cahyana had not heard of Australian Football until an expatriate friend gave him the opportunity to watch a match on Australia Television. Local Australians taught him the fundamentals of the game and with some training he has become a regular team member.