by Larry Writer
After Queensland Labor leader Jack Houston decried the Springbok tour on Brisbane television, his wife was telephoned by anonymous people using ‘shocking language’. Houston was not cowed. ‘The Government talks about law and order,’ he fumed. ‘There are some pretty vicious types supporting the Government who have not had the guts to publicly express their opinions. They use the cloak of a telephone to abuse women!’
As a consequence of the trouble-free South Africa versus Queensland match, there were only six police patrolling the touch lines at the Exhibition Ground three days later when the Springboks used their match against the Junior Wallabies to warm up for the Second Test. Only 2,500 spectators were at the match, won 31–12 by the visitors after they snuffed out early enterprise from the youngsters, whose ranks included future Australian players Russell Fairfax, Jeff McLean, Garrick Fay, Barry Stumbles, David L’Estrange, and Ian MacDougall. At hooker was livewire Bob Thompson, who had put himself on the selectors’ radar when he scored a try and kicked five goals against the South Africans for Western Australia. At half-time, Ray Whitrod, convinced that once more there would be no field invasions or missiles thrown onto the playing area, sent back to their stations some 250 of the 500 police on duty in the spectator areas.
There was minor drama after the match when the Junior Wallabies’ flowing-blond-haired fullback, Russell Fairfax, who left the field 17 minutes into the second half with blood streaming from his nose, claimed to have been pinioned by a Springbok forward while another gave him an uppercut. Springbok coach Johann Claassen was indignant. ‘It was a fair, clean and hard tackle,’ he insisted. ‘Why would we punch a young chap like Fairfax? I tell you now, there are no punchers in this Springbok team. Clean football has been a feature of the whole tour and we have counted it a privilege to compete against players with this sober and healthy approach. In my opinion, that is how rugby should be played.’ If indeed Fairfax was targeted, perhaps the Springboks considered the hirsute youngster a surrogate for the demonstrators and dealt with him as they would have liked to deal with their persecutors.
The day after the match, the Springboks donned civvies and were bussed to the Marineland amusement park on the Gold Coast, where four trained dolphins barked out the theme from TV’s Flipper. The performance may have mystified the footballers, for there would be no television in South Africa for another five years.
Wearing the gold Wallaby jersey in the Second Test, which Australia needed to win to keep the series alive, were Arthur McGill, John Cole, Stephen Knight, Geoff Shaw, Jeff McLean, Geoff Richardson, John Hipwell, Greg Davis (C), Bob McLean, Peter Sullivan, Garrick Fay, Owen Butler, Roy Prosser, Peter Johnson, and Greg Smith. The Springbok team was Ian McCallum, Hannes Viljoen, Joggie Jansen, Peter Cronje, Syd Nomis, Piet Visagie, Joggie Viljoen, Piet Greyling, Morne du Plessis, Jan Ellis, John Williams, Frik du Preez, Hannes Marais (C), Piston van Wyk, and Martiens Louw.
South Africa won comfortably, 14–6, three tries to none, in front of 15,000 fans. The match had few enterprising moments, as the Springboks played safety-first football, doing only as much as necessary to win. The handful of demonstrators present were subdued. Whitrod had increased the police presence, fearing Queensland protesters would try to make a statement in the crucial match, but this time not even a dog breached the ring of 100 police around the field, and the 200 officers lurking in the Exhibition Ground’s speedway pits were given no reason to break a sweat. Someone did let off a stink bomb as the national anthems were played, but a brisk breeze swiftly carried away the stench. Flappie Lochner was jubilant after the match. ‘Considering the unusual circumstances of this tour we have done well.’
That the Springboks had. To win the test series and remain unbeaten under the pressures they faced every day was a special achievement. These men, under siege from the moment they arrived in Australia, proved themselves to be as mentally strong as they were physically powerful. After the match and the official formalities with the Wallabies, the players, who had grown more tight-knit as the tour progressed, partied in private.
As the tourists travelled to the Darling Downs, 870 kilometres west of Brisbane, for their final Queensland match, the premier preened. His Government’s State of Emergency had allowed the Springboks to play and rugby fans to enjoy their sport without the civil disobedience and demonstrator violence that had marred their time in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. Why, my word! If those states had taken a leaf from his book, they could have spared themselves a lot of trouble. The promised Brisbane protests against the Springboks had fizzled, and now the Darling Downs rugby officials and police were assuring him that any demonstrators venturing to Toowoomba’s Gold Park would be kept in close check.
And Bjelke-Petersen could now point to two by-election triumphs to vindicate his policies. On the day of the Second Test, Country Party candidates were voted into office in the Merthyr and Maryborough polls. Maryborough had been a Labor seat for a quarter of a century — which only went to prove, chimed in Prime Minister McMahon, that ‘Australians wanted the Springboks to come here. Australians wanted to divorce sport from politics. And they did not like being intimidated by the small group within the ACTU.’ New South Wales premier Robert Askin gloated, ‘The results at the by-elections reveal that the Australian public is sick and tired of the way the Labor Party panders to law-breakers, who include demonstrators who use violence and union leaders who call a strike at the drop of a hat.’ Political commentators concluded that while many Queenslanders thought the State of Emergency an over-reaction by the premier, the 24-hour strike called by the Trades and Labour Council as a response and the occupation by students of the Queensland University Student Union complex had angered voters, who had given Bjelke-Petersen a show of support at Merthyr and Maryborough.
Wallowing in his success, Bjelke-Petersen said he was even considering ending the State of Emergency early because, with the demonstrators, unionists, and other assorted ratbags on the run, there was no longer any need for it.
As a precaution, there would be riot police in Toowoomba, but the premier expected them to have little to do but twiddle their thumbs. Bjelke-Petersen graced the town with a lightning visit. Walking the main streets, accompanied by a local politician and a gangly police constable named Wayne Bennett (a future rugby league international and master coach), he was mobbed by supporters crying, ‘Good on yer, Joh!’ When one young garage worker shied from shaking the premier’s hand because his was coated in thick black grease, Bjelke-Petersen, after making sure there was a press photographer handy, shook it anyway.
The Springboks, many of whom hailed from the veldt, were right at home in the Queensland bush. As in rural Orange, those who were not playing in the match against Queensland Country were able to relax. They enjoyed a barbecue at Jondaryan Station and a cattle property, Carina, at Bowenville; cuddled koalas in their natural habitat; and drank beer with friendly locals at a pub where they talked cattle, rainfall, and, of course, rugby. Hannes Marais, who grew up on a farm, was in his element. Wearing a dusty Akubra and carrying a stock whip (an ironic gift from his players to the renowned taskmaster), Marais inspected Hereford bulls bound for the Brisbane Show and grabbed one by the horns — and for a few seconds at least, the powerful prop bested it in a test of strength. As he cracked his whip, knowing there were no pesky reporters present, he allowed himself a word or two about demonstrators. ‘Most of the time we’ve had to sit around in motel rooms,’ he observed. ‘Only in Orange and here in Toowoomba have we been able to get out into the country and meet some people. For some of us, this is the most important part of the tour. You get a bit tired of being watched by the police all the time.’
In Queensland, it seemed, the reactionaries held all the aces. Anti-apartheid forces rued that the Queensland by-election results and the quelling of protest in Brisbane would have the world believing that Australia was a country where racists ruled. This view was supported by the Anglican Synod of Canberra and Goul
burn, which passed a motion that Australians by welcoming the Springboks had put sport before their social conscience. ‘Australia is one of the few countries still giving consolation to the South African Government,’ said the Rev. J. Collings. That support had come to the attention of the United Nations Committee on Apartheid, and it was possible that Australia would be excluded from sporting ties, as South Africa had been by most other countries. The Synod was also distressed by the violence and division wrought by the Springbok tour.
As it happened, trouble did erupt at Gold Park: not among police and demonstrators, but between the 60-or-so protesters, most of whom had driven from Brisbane, and a small pack of drunken rugby fans in the 3,000 crowd who were more intent on bashing up long-haired protesters than barracking for the country players and cheering the Springboks’ artistry. (The visitors dispatched Queensland Country 45–14, 11 tries to two — including four to speedy winger Andy van der Watt — constructed on their brutal rucking and mauling and their soaring line-out work that starved Queensland Country of the ball.)
The demonstrators were not blameless. As they entered the ground, they called out that they were here to give the Springboks a ‘send-off’ from Queensland. As the police shepherded them between the crowd and the picket perimeter fence to a reserved spot, they waved their placards — ‘Spectators Are Racist or Apathetic: Which Are You?’ and the perennial ‘Paint ’em Black and Send ’em Back’ — and taunted the fans as racists. Some deliberately obstructed people’s view by standing in front of them. A small number of spectators — the majority ignored the demonstrators and concentrated on the match — returned serve. ‘Have a wash!’ and ‘Get a haircut!’ were their predictable jibes, and they threw rubbish and Toowoomba’s trademark red-dirt clods at the protesters, who were showing more spirit than at the other Queensland games. But it was fairly good-natured and low-key.
Then things took a nasty turn.
The Springbok tour of Australia produced many ugly incidents, and one of the most unpleasant occurred in Toowoomba on that beautiful blue-sky afternoon. Six inebriated locals emerged from the crowd to jostle, slap, and punch the demonstrators. Police did nothing. Under instructions from their leader, Dan O’Neill, the protesters didn’t retaliate. One hulking fellow repeatedly poked his finger into the breast of a young woman protester. The demonstrators demanded he stop. The man then grabbed a student named Mark Georgiou, kneed him in the back, kicked him repeatedly in the backside, and dragged him along the ground. Georgiou, like the young woman, received no police protection. Then a tall but slightly built protester named Brian Tovey, a student at the University of Queensland, attempted to restrain the thug, who punched him in the face and broke his nose. Blood sprayed all over Tovey’s shirt; Tovey crashed to the ground and lay there. The drunks yahoo’d and yee-ha’d. Fifteen police were within metres of the vicious assault yet did not arrest the attacker. One sergeant ordered a hysterical woman to ‘Shut up and go home and have a wash!’ Tovey was photographed looking dazed and shocked, his bleeding face swathed in bandage, then taken to Toowoomba Hospital in an ambulance. Demonstrators, shocked by what had befallen Tovey and Georgiou, feared for their safety. Dan O’Neill calmly addressed them: ‘We’ve made our point. The Springboks are a racially-selected team. The crowd is very angry because we have disturbed their enjoyment of the match and their consciences. We have seen unprovoked brutality, not by the police but by rugby fans. It was done and consistently done in front of the police and we urge them to stop this brutality.’ After a vote, O’Neill advised the police that he and the protesters would leave immediately if they could be escorted to their vehicles.
When questioned by reporters, the man who had attacked the woman, Georgiou, and Tovey admitted that he had hit Tovey but insisted that he was ‘just a victim of circumstance’. He was never charged. In fact, only one person, a protester named Bill Steer, was arrested that day, for yelling, ‘Boks fuck off!’
When Premier Bjelke-Petersen praised the Queensland police for ‘doing themselves and their state proud in the face of abuse, obscenity and extreme provocation’ during the Springbok visit, it’s hoped he was not lauding those who were on duty at Toowoomba that afternoon and allowed the local bully boys to commit mayhem … but he probably was.
After the match, the South Africans bypassed Toowoomba’s Wilsonton Airport and were driven an extra 30 kilometres to the RAAF base at Oakey, where they boarded their planes and were flown to Sydney. Thirty members of the police force’s public-order squad formed a guard of honour on the tarmac as the aircraft taxied and lifted off.
For one man, John ‘Rugby’ Ryan, whose nickname attests to his love of the code, the Springboks’ visit to Queensland was a dramatic period. ‘My business and my rugby interests collided … [When] the protesters threatened to make Ballymore unplayable, which was easily done as it lacked any real security, I was invited to join a committee to protect Ballymore. The ten-man committee organised rosters of volunteers to patrol the perimeter fence at night armed with baseball bats or the equivalent.’ The committee was even briefed by Special Branch, but their plans were abandoned after the premier declared the State of Emergency and moved the games to the Exhibition Ground. Ryan found it a rancorous and ‘distasteful’ time, during which ‘friend turned against friend … Rugby enjoyed its major playing support in tertiary education institutions such as Queensland University and the Teachers College. These institutions were, and still are, a healthy bastion of democracy, and the majority of the demonstrators were students. A lot of them were rugby players and I can remember walking into the Exhibition Ground to the boos and jeers of people who two weeks before had been drinking mates and friends.’
The farce over the serving of the assault summons on Hannes Marais continued north of the border. After Jim Boyce’s serving the summons on Marais had come unstuck, the job of presenting the order to the Springbok skipper fell to ‘Rugby’ Ryan, who was studying to be a chemist but moonlighted as a process server for some lawyer friends to earn ‘beer money’. He recalls, ‘When the Springboks arrived in Brisbane, I received a phone call from John Currie, whose firm Currie & Co acted for the trade unions in Queensland. I did not normally do their work. Currie knew of my rugby connection and suggested that it was in everyone’s best interests that the summons be served quietly and without any publicity, so that the law could take its course … He inferred that if I were successful, he would see that I received all [of Currie’s] business that was substantial. Before accepting the role, I contacted Barrie Ffrench, chairman of the Queensland Rugby Union and deputy chairman of the Australian Rugby Union. Barrie agreed that it should be handled quietly and he would arrange for me or one of my workers to meet with Marais. I phoned John Currie and said I would accept the job. [However] it became obvious to me when Barrie did not answer or return my phone calls that I had been double-crossed. Barrie was protecting Marais.
‘With the State of Emergency, the players were heavily guarded, and when my agents were thwarted in their attempts to get close to Marais, I decided that our best opportunity would be in Toowoomba when they played Queensland Country. The ground there was fairly open, and one of my more determined men, Rod Hawkings, who played for Wests, accepted the challenge. I went with him to see the game more than anything else. Once again we were outsmarted, as Marais, although named [in the team], did not play. I had to return to Brisbane as soon as the game was over, but Rod decided that if he could get into the after-match function he could do the job and then find his own way back to Brisbane.’ He set himself on the side of the road and was picked up by a truckie carting wheat. The truck driver, however, was not bound for Brisbane but for Sydney, and the oblivious Hawkings ‘slumped in the back among the wheat bags and went to sleep until the truck pulled up for breakfast in Armidale. We were never able to serve the summons, and I sent it back to Currie with apologies and no charges. I kept out of Barrie Ffrench’s way for some time as I knew that if I met up with him I might d
o or say something I would regret. I didn’t blame him for protecting Marais but felt a simple phone call cancelling the arrangement we had made would have saved me a lot of time and money. Later on, although he and I had become friendly — in fact he asked me to propose the toast at his 70th birthday — I never brought up [the serving of the summons] with him.’
On 4 August, the day the Springboks flew to Sydney, where the dead-rubber Third Test, their last match in Australia, would be played in three days’ time, Premier Bjelke-Petersen lifted his State of Emergency. Police Minister Hodges insisted that the paucity of serious demonstrations at the Springbok matches had shown that it had been completely justified. ‘The emergency regulations have enabled police to work to plans in the best interests of the public and the players,’ he declared. At the University of Queensland, the sit-in continued, although, with the Springboks gone, only a handful of students and staff remained on strike. The government proclaimed total victory over the ‘rat-bags, long-hairs, agitators and communists’, yet, in a sign that while the battle might have been lost, the war was on the way to being won — and burgeoning numbers of Australians were understanding what apartheid was and realising that it was wrong — even the conservative Brisbane Courier-Mail editorialised, ‘It will be better for South Africa and ourselves if [the Springbok game against Queensland Country] is the last football match played here by a team selected on a racial basis. This does not mean the Springboks tour should have been called off. The principle of the right of an Australian sporting body to run its own affairs without threats of sanctions or black bans is undeniable. The Springboks, however, would be wrong to believe the insistence of the State Government and of a majority of Queenslanders that they be given a “fair go” implies sympathy with apartheid. Many Queenslanders pity South Africa its racial problem but are revolted by the social cruelty and moral evil of apartheid … Perhaps the contacts the Springboks have had here will help them to inform their countrymen on how Australians oppose racialism in sport and look forward to a visit by a Springbok team which includes black players. If the tour does this, it will have been worthwhile, despite its cost, and the disruption it caused.’ It is inconceivable that the Courier-Mail could have run with such an editorial before the pandemonium of 1971.
