First Indigenous Rugby League Footballers

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

Glen 'Paddy' Crouch From the Cooparoo club in the Brisbane competition, Aboriginal winger/centre 'Paddy' Crouch played for Queensland on their 1925 tour of New Zealand.

The contribution to the history of rugby league in Australia from Indigenous footballers stretches all the way back to the founding year of the code.

The extent and scale of the involvement and support of rugby league amongst Indigenous Australians is far more significant than most of us realise.

While Australian rules is portrayed and perceived to be "the game" of Indigenous footballers (history, fans and players), the reality is that both rugby league and Australian rules have a comparable story to tell of the contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

In the early 1900s many Aboriginals opted - out of a fear of government restrictions and prejudice that treated them as 2nd class citizens - to disguise their heritage by claiming to be Maori, South Sea Islanders or from the Americas.

For this reason, the complete early history of Aboriginal footballers may never be uncovered, and the full story of others still open to conjecture and rumour (for example, Newtown's Billy and Viv Farnsworth who toured with the 1911/12 Kangaroos).

Rugby league lore has it that George Green, who played for Easts and Norths (1908-22) in Sydney, was the first Aboriginal footballer. Photos confirm Green was undoubtedly a dark-skinned man, however documentation verifying his family origins one way or the other is ambiguous.

Born in 1883 near Grafton in northern NSW, Green's contribution to rugby league is far from than merely being the first purported Aboriginal to have played the game.

Green quickly came to grips with the new code, and coached Easts to success in the inaugural President's Cup competition (1910). A hooker, his place in first grade were limited by the presence of "Sandy" Pearce, but his back-up role no doubt aided Easts in their premiership winning sequence of 1911-13.

Across at Norths, Green captained the club in 1919, was vice-captain in 1920-22, and was an integral part in 1921 and 1922 premierships won by "the Shoremen".

It was Green who conducted the Norths training sessions which began to lift Norths in the late 1910s, and it was said that many of "the theories expounded by Mr Green" laid the platform for the club's premiership success. In 1923 the NSWRL held a testimonial match in Green's honour (and to raise a few quid for him).

Photographs of North Sydney's Paul Tranquille, a fleet-footed winger of the 1920s, has led to claims over the years that he too was possibly of Aboriginal heritage. However, family research points to his father being West Indian and his mother a mix of Maori and Irish blood. Apart from his on-field involvement with the game, Tranquille worked at the NSWRL as an office clerk.

George Little, writing in "Through Thick and Thin - The South Sydney Rabbitohs, puts forward a strong argument that George Reynolds (Souths, Annandale & Glebe in the 1910s decade) was an Aboriginal. Max Solling, who has undertaken extensive study of the Glebe club, concurs with Little's conclusion. Solling recalls that Reynolds was described by a team mate in a 1980s interview "as a nippy little Aboriginal half-back."

At the very least, the presence of these footballers in the formative years of the Sydney club competition demonstrates that there was no "colour bar" in rugby league.

Indeed, NSWRL official Harold Matthews said outright in 1936 in The Sydney Morning Herald that "colour or creed did not enter into the matter...provided an Aboriginal had the necessary residential qualifications, he was eligible" and that they "were only concerned about the ability of the players."

In Queensland the first Aboriginal footballer to come to prominence was Glen 'Paddy' Crouch, who played in the outside backs for Coorparoo in Brisbane (now Easts Tigers) from 1922 to 1927.

Crouch became the first Aboriginal to tour overseas in a representative team when he won selection in the 1925 Queensland team that played 11 games in New Zealand - regarded as one of the greatest teams of all-time, the Maroons included Jimmy Craig, Tom Gorman, Vic Armbruster, Herb Steinohrt, Norm Potter, Cec Aynsley, Jim Bennett, Jeff Moores and ES Brown. In 1927 Crouch captained a Brisbane selection that toured to Barcaldine and Longreach.

The greatest impediment to Aboriginals playing in Sydney or Brisbane was the restrictions on free movement imposed upon them by governments, with most Indigenous Australians forced to live in "Reserves" and "Mission stations."

Cherbourg footballer Frank Fisher (grandfather of Olympic gold medallist Cathy Freeman) was a particularly fine footballer of the 1930s. Playing at five-eighth, 'King' Fisher starred in representative teams for Wide Bay in 1932 and 1936 against touring Great Britain teams.

After the 1936 match, in which Fisher scored a great try, the Lions' captain Gus Risman is reputed to have declared that Fisher was the best individual player his team had encountered on the whole of the tour. So impressed was Risman that he promised have his home club (Salford) send out a contract offer to Fisher as soon as he returned home to England.

The contract from Salford duly arrived, but Fisher was refused permission by the Queensland Government's "Protector of Aborigines" to leave - the famous Aboriginal cricketer Eddie Gilbert had already been given leave from Cherbourg, and the rumoured true reason for rejecting Fisher's request being a reluctance by the authorities to approve another.

Emerging in that same decade was Arthur 'Stoker' Currie (his grandson is Australian Test player of the late 1980s Tony Currie). Playing for the Tweed Heads "All Blacks" team (an all-Aboriginal team that played in the local club competition) in 1937, Currie earned selection in the NSW Country team that defeated City in Sydney.

The following season saw Currabubula born (near Tamworth, NSW) Dick Johnson arrive in first grade at South Sydney. A talented goal kicking fullback, Johnson played for the Rabbitohs in 1938-39 (including the 1939 team that lost the Grand Final), and then later with Wests and Canterbury. He also played 13 games for the NSW Blues between 1938-45.

His brother Lindsay, known as "Lin", had an equally distinguished career, playing for Canterbury from 1940-46. "Lin" Johnson played twice for NSW in 1940, and kicked the winning goal for "the Berries" in the 1942 Grand Final against St George.

By the 1950s Aboriginal footballers had become a permanent part of Sydney club football, particularly with the Rabbitohs. Today, the NRL's Reconciliation Action Plan (Feb. 2008) states that 11% of NRL players are of Indigenous heritage (similar to the number of Indigenous players in the AFL - see below).

On the representative scene, the first Aboriginal to play for Australia was Tweed Heads and Wynnum-Manly star winger, Lionel Morgan - playing in the 2nd and 3rd Tests against France in 1960. Later in that same year Morgan played for the Kangaroos in the Rugby League World Cup in England.

Lionel Morgan was the first Aboriginal to be chosen in a major national representative sporting team (i.e. before soccer, rugby union, cricket, Olympics).

Arthur Beetson became the first Aboriginal to captain Australia in any major sport when he took the helm of the Kangaroos against France in 1973. He also led Australia in the 2nd Test of the 1974 Ashes series, and in six World Cup games (1975/1977).

On the club scene, Beetson achieved the distinction of becoming the first Aboriginal captain of a team to win a major Australian club football competition (Eastern Suburbs in 1974 and 1975).

Wally McArthur - the first Aboriginal to play for an English rugby league club.

Perhaps the most unique story of an Aboriginal rugby league player belongs to Wally McArthur.

Born in Borroloola in the Northern Territory in 1933, he became a first-class sprint champion in Adelaide in the early 1950s.

In between his athletic pursuits, McArthur wanted to took up football, but the local Australian rules club had a "colour bar".

McArthur, who in his teens had lived at Penrith and the lower Blue Mountains west of Sydney, had played rugby league at school. With Australian rules turning its back on him, McArthur joined the fledgling Adelaide rugby league club competition.

After winning the national Under-19s 100 yards championship, McArthur was in a prime position to represent Australia at the 1952 Olympics in Norway. With more than a strong suspicion of racial discrimination, McArthur missed selection in the Olympic team.

McArthur continued with rugby league, winning the SARL's best and fairest award in 1952, and a place in the South Australian team against Western Australia.

A former Rochdale Hornets player, Paul Quinn, had migrated to Adelaide and soon alerted his old club in England to the prospects of McArthur.

Away from the close-eye of the ARL and Sydney clubs, and thus alluding the international transfer ban in operation at that time, McArthur went to England, where he etched out a memorable 165 game career with Rochdale, Blackpool Borough, Salford and Workington Town.

References:
The Glory of Their Times - edited by Phil Melling and Tony Collins.
League of a Nation - edited by David Headon and Lex Marinos.
The Mighty Bears! - by Andrew Moore.
NRL's Reconciliation Action Plan - www.reconciliation.org.au/downloads/3/NRL_RAP_2008-02-27.pdf
AFL media release 22 May 2007: "There are 71 indigenous players listed with AFL clubs representing nearly 10 per cent of players."
Thanks to John Patten for additional information on George Green.
Thanks to Tony Collins for additional information on Wally McArthur in Adelaide.

* George Green was included in the Indigenous "Team of the Century" in 2008, and is described in the NRL's Reconciliation Action Plan (Feb 2008) as "George Green is recognised as the first Indigenous rugby league player". George Green Played for Easts & Norths 1908-1922 In 1995, Professor Colin Tatz and a panel of sportspeople and historians selected 129 athletes for the inaugural "Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame" - George Green was one of the athletes inducted, and is profiled in the Aboriginal Studies Press published book, Black Gold: The Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame by Colin and Paul Tatz (2001). The "George Green Medal" is awarded annually by the "ARL Indigenous Council" for the best new Indigenous talent of the season. The Council's media release of 15/2/2010 stating: "The George Green Medal was struck in 2008 and named in honour of the first Indigenous player to play professional Rugby League. Green played at a time when [Aboriginal] players were deliberately vague as to their true heritage and even though some still choose to debate his background, Green is still acknowledged by the Australian Sports Commission as the first professional Indigenous Rugby League player and is unquestionably an important symbol for many Indigenous athletes." On 8 November 2008 in The Sydney Morning Herald, Associate Professor Andrew Moore set out his contention that George Green (the rugby league player) was not of Aboriginal heritage - link.