Ingredients
When building a football team, some ingredients are obvious. Recruit players, train, compete, repeat. And in time improve. But there are other parts of building a football team that have very little to do with football yet are arguably just as important. As teams search for the bond between players, coaches and staff to be as strong off the field as it is on, the word connection is being used more and more. At Adelaide that includes Senior Coach Matthew Nicks’ demand that his players think of others before themselves and look after their teammates. “The sum of us together is stronger than the individual type stuff,” Nicks said on radio this week. Another element is understanding each footballer as a person and knowing that every one of them has their own story about how they got here.
Stolen Generations
For some, their stories go back to the day they were drafted, met their first coach or the day they were born and some stories go back generations like Wayne Milera, Danielle Ponter and Shane McAdam whose families have been touched by the Stolen Generations. “People think the Stolen Generations took place one time in one place and many moons ago,” Adelaide’s Indigenous Programs Manager Jeremy Johncock said. “It’s called ‘Stolen Generations’ for a reason because it still has ongoing impacts for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. Last week, representatives of the Club attended the Reconciliation SA Apology Breakfast which marked the 13th anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations and it’s one of the most moving events to experience and really hits home. As the lights dimmed, candles were lit across the room representing the hundreds of Stolen Generations survivors who were present in the room or were descendants of those members who were
Smoking Ceremony
Before AFLW and AFL training last weekend, Adelaide invited proud Kaurna and Narrungga man Jack ‘Kanya Kudnuitya’ Buckskin to perform a smoking ceremony for its men’s and women’s players. “Over the past three years the club has been working towards normalising an annual smoking ceremony for both our AFL and AFLW playing squads,” Johncock said. “This year was no different when long-time supporter Jack joined our playing groups at their recent training sessions, and coincidently, this aligned with the anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. Jack explained the purpose behind smoking ceremonies and how it represents a fresh start.” The ceremony was an important part of educating non-indigenous players and staff and also uniting them. Wayne Milera’s late grandmother Lillian, who passed away in December, was removed from her family home before the age of five along with her sister during the Stolen Generations.
Taken
“It’s a very important and significant time in our history,” Milera said. “My nanna on my dad’s side was taken from her mum when she was quite young, I don’t know exactly what age but under five, but her and her sister were both taken and throughout their growing up they were split apart, brought back together then split apart again. They ended up coming together and lived on a sheep station near the Clare region, and we went there once when I was about 10 or 11 to see it, because she spoke about it. My nan just passed not long ago (December) but her and her sister had a big focus on making sure our families stayed very close, so we always spent Christmas and New Year’s and a lot of family gatherings with that side of the family. It meant a lot to them, after what they experienced they wanted us to be very tight which was very important to them."
Dark Time
“She kept (those memories) pretty close to herself, I guess it was a dark time and you don’t want to (bring it up) but she would tell us little things about when she was scared and stuff like that, nothing too detailed through. What I take from all of that is she wanted her family to be really close. The smoking ceremony gives us a bit of a cleanse, and as Jack explained as Aboriginal people we believe in the spiritual world and Jack is able to make these things fun and engaging but also knowledgeable and an education for people who don’t know about it too much, so it was a really good thing that the club set up on Saturday morning.”
Impacted
Danielle Ponter said both her grandfather from the Anmatyerre tribe, which is in the Ti Tree regions north of Alice Springs, and her grandmother from the Maranunggu tribe, which is Daly River region, were taken away in the Stolen Generations and placed in a mission on the Tiwi Islands. “Both my nan and pop were adopted by the Tiwi people and the Tiwi Islands as our home and our family,” she said. It’s really important for me for my whole team to experience culture and why it’s so important to me. The smoking ceremony is a cleansing ceremony so you go in there and pour that smoke on you and you come out a better, stronger person and you get rid of all those old smells and bad spirits, and you come out fresh and come out as one, as a team all smelling the same. Unfortunately I was unable to go to the Apology Day (event) but to have something like that and for people to come together and recognise what happened and acknowledge it and understand is really important.”
Removed
McAdam’s grandfather Gilbert was also taken from his family in Halls Creek at the age of five and was doing manual labour work by the age of eight. “My grandfather was taken away in the Stolen Generation so I’ve heard a lot of stories from him which is a bit sad, he’s had a tough life and he’s a tough old man, he always tells us how easy we’ve got it now,” McAdam said. “He was removed from Halls Creek and taken out to a little station when he was about five years old, and started working hard labour about eight. “The main thing is educating the players who might not know a lot about it (Stolen Generation), a few of us boys especially me grew up doing that stuff (smoking ceremony) back home and even afterwards the boys came up to me and said how much they loved it, I had great feedback all around.
Refresher
“The smoke can represent a lot of things but healing, wounds or problems you can have physically and mentally, it’s a refresher as well," McAdam said. “The Club doing the smoking ceremony shows that they care and they’re open to not only indigenous people but any race, religion and culture. At its annual corporate season launch in January, Adelaide Chairman John Olsen and Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement Dr Roger Thomas, the chair of Adelaide’s Reconciliation Action Plan Committee, announced details of the Club’s second Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) which had been formally endorsed by Reconciliation Australia. One of its key features is the AFL’s Sir Doug Nicholls Round which brings players, staff members and fans together in a celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. The Crows have hosted home games during this round for the past six seasons and it will remain a priority request in the premiership season fixture moving forward."
