Sunday Star Times (New Zealand)
By Richard Boock
19 September 2010
Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring out the best in people. Certainly, that applies to sport. So often maligned in the uber-professional era, it seems its true worth is only really glimpsed when everything else starts falling apart. Disasters have a way of doing that; of clarifying priorities. Most of those who still believe sport is all about winning and losing probably weren’t sitting in the middle of a magnitude 7.1 earthquake a fortnight ago.
Christchurch, we know, has been broken on a wheel. That no lives were lost during the tumult remains a miracle, but the cost has still been high. Stress levels have soared, as evidenced by the region’s escalating domestic violence rates. Many have lost their homes, their businesses and their immediate certainty of future. Most haven’t slept properly since September 4; the aftershocks putting paid to that. The city needs to be rebuilt spiritually, as much as physically.
Sport has an important role to play in the reconstruction. Dismissed as an irrelevance during swimmingly good times, it nonetheless offers a semblance of normality during the bad. At a time when nerves are frayed and patience is thin on the ground, bringing together disparate cross-sections of the community, folk who might otherwise share nothing in common, can only assist in the rehabilitation. In terms of boosting morale and fostering goodwill, it’s a more than worthy vehicle.
Thankfully, much of the sporting infrastructure around the Garden City has survived the quake. Apart from some notable exceptions such as hockey’s Porritt Park, the Coastal Spirit football club grounds at Bexley, and the rowing headquarters at Kerrs Reach, most of the municipal amenities have remained functional, if not unscathed. A return to the days of fields and courts teeming with competitors and spectators, both young and old, can’t come quickly enough.
There are hopes too, that sport will look to give back to the community, especially those codes that have enjoyed fanatical support from Canterbury folk over the decades. A blogger last week wrote to rugby authorities, asking them to consider allowing free entry to next Saturday’s provincial match between the red and blacks and Wellington at AMI Stadium. To its credit, the Canterbury union agreed, opting to waive all charges. That’s what you call quality leadership.
You don’t have to look far for examples of sport playing a key part in the emotional state of communities during hard times. Australians were buoyed by the deeds of Don Bradman during the Depression years. The United States insisted on sport being played domestically during World War II, as a method of boosting morale. On Christmas Day, 1914, German and British soldiers played football on the western front.
Sri Lanka’s Tamil cricket star Mutthiah Muralitharan arguably contributed more towards resolving his country’s ethnic conflict than all the politicians put together. Football programmes are being used in the Indonesian region of Aceh, another to be ravaged by ethnic civil war, in a bid to promote the peace-building process at community level. And surely one of sport’s greatest triumphs over the past decade has been the success of the Afghan cricket team.
When it comes to accounts of sport laughing in the face of intimidation, however, it’s hard to go past the 1944 cricket match at Lord’s between the RAF and Army teams, when the descent of a flying bomb reportedly forced the players, with some urgency, to throw themselves flat on the ground. The story goes that one of the batsmen at the time, Dunkirk survivor Captain J.D. Robertson, stood back up, dusted himself down, re-took his guard and blasted the next ball for six.
In a similar vein, although on an entirely different level, New Zealand Cricket has been drawing widespread praise for their decision to break the touring deadlock with Zimbabwe, and to send an “A” squad to the African nation next month. It’s true, the power-sharing accord between tyrant Robert Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai is far from ideal but, for now it seems, it’s about as good as it’s going to get. NZC should be congratulated for seeing the light.
As the Zimbabwe sports minister David Coltart observed last week, no one would try to claim that the troubled republic was perfect. On the other hand, there was a need to reward institutions such as Zimbabwe Cricket who were trying to improve conditions locally.
He’s right, you know. With security concerns non-existent, safety issues mostly resolved and political progress (albeit moderate) recognised internationally, the time is ripe to lend a hand. It’s all about reaching out.
Sport has that responsibility. It’s just a pity that so many of the athletes and codes that will attend the Commonwealth Games next month are yet to recognise the duty. After hunting high and low for a security loophole, their complaints now seem to revolve around the inconvenience of Delhi being located in India.
Humidity, rainfall, strange food, and what’s more, the place seems to be teeming with Indians. They must be wondering why Britain invaded in the first place.
For most Kiwis, however, and particularly those traumatised by that ugly quake a couple of weeks ago, the true meaning and worth of sport must now seem abundantly clear.
Winning is the aim, no doubt, but the real value is in watching the kids play, in sharing a sideline chat with a complete stranger, and in revelling in the sense of community and bonhomie. Stripped of its pretension at a time of crisis, sport once more becomes the small celebration of life it was always meant to be.
A delightful irrelevance, perhaps. But an important one all the same.