In response to abusive racist taunts from Collingwood fans, Nicky Winmar pulled up his jersey to point with pride to his skin colour. Melbourne Age photographer, Wayne Ludbey, framed the moment in a colour photograph which was reproduced as the key image to the next day's Sunday Age report, titled Proud to be Black. The grace and economy of Winmar's figure and gesture give him the look of a Renaissance bronze sculpture.
The day the game changed
By Nabila Ahmed
April 19 2003
Picture: WAYNE LUDBEY
Nicky Winmar does not know why it took him so long. As a young footballer playing in Perth and as a child growing up in the West Australian country town of Pingelly, Winmar and his family had been subjected to such cruel racial taunts that he cannot bring himself to repeat them even now for the hurtful memories they invoke.
Even in the AFL, where the magical, maddening Winmar later became one of the game's most celebrated footballers, he could not get away from the swearing and "the black word".
On April 17, 1993, he had had enough. "We (St Kilda) hadn't won at Victoria Park for many years and it was an exciting day for us," Winmar recalled this week.
"But I remember all the racial comments that I was receiving from the crowd. I got sick and tired of what was happening.
"As an indigenous sportsperson, I wanted to show that I am a human being as well, no matter what colour I am.
"I said I was black and I was proud."
A decade on, the raw emotion of the incident has not faded, with people contacted by The Age this week making impassioned pleas to either set the record straight or add to what has already been recorded.
Some, like then St Kilda coach Ken Sheldon and then Magpie president Allan McAlister, would not be drawn at all.
McAlister, who was made to apologise for his comment that indigenous players would be respected "as long as they conduct themselves like white people", was dismissive. "Not again! It's been done to death in the past 10 years."
Kath Johnstone, then president of the Collingwood cheer squad, at which Winmar's gesture was directed, vehemently denied her group was responsible. "We copped the blame for what was said but it wasn't coming from us, it was coming from alongside of us," Johnstone said. "It would've been something simple like 'You black bastard' or something like that, you know?"
Questions have also been raised over Winmar's intended message. Collingwood's captain that day, Tony Shaw, thought the Saint was pointing to his heart, boasting of the courage shown by his team in their first win at Victoria Park in 17 years. Although Wayne Ludbey's Sunday Age photograph of Winmar ran with the headline, "Winmar: I'm black and proud of it", the Sunday Herald Sun published an almost identical picture with a caption suggesting he told the Collingwood fans, "I've got guts".
The latter interpretation was initially supported by Stewart Loewe - "I just thought he was pointing to his heart and saying, 'We showed a lot of heart' " - but Winmar is unequivocal. "I said it to the people in the crowd and they knew what I meant."
The words become inconsequential when measured against what the interpretation of his action has done for football and the community on the whole. The image of a defiant Aboriginal footballer remains one of Australian sport's most poignant.
For Colin Tatz, the visiting professor of politics at Macquarie University and co-author of Obstacle Race: Aborigines in Sport, that day is the "most significant in AFL history".
"If you go back to 1969, '70, '71, Syd Jackson . . . was very outspoken, made a lot of gestures to the crowd," Tatz said. "He made it quite clear that he was the victim of lots of things and everybody said, 'Why is this nigger making trouble?'
"It (Winmar's stand) was probably the most significant day in AFL history in the sense that an Aboriginal player indicated his pride in his colour and his ethnicity, and most of the press and certainly the players and supporters of his own team were equally proud of his gesture, of his defiance."
Tatz credits Winmar's stance as the turning point for indigenous footballers, even though the AFL did not implement its code of conduct until Michael Long spoke out about on-field racism in 1995. Even Damian Monkhorst, accused by Long on Anzac Day that year of calling him a "black bastard", himself believes the latter incident is what really brought about change for indigenous footballers.
"I think it's great that I was probably the person that started it all off," Monkhorst said. "I think it's great in what it's meant for the community, not only at AFL level but in country football as well.
"My name's probably the first person that's been tried but at the same time, I might be the guy who has made people and the community aware."
While it is widely acknowledged that things have improved markedly for indigenous players in the AFL, Tatz says there is still a long way to go. He believes rugby union is making more progress at the grassroots level, especially by aiding former Wallaby Lloyd McDermott in his attempts to develop indigenous players through the Lloyd McDermott rugby development program.
"I'm not saying the AFL hasn't cleaned up its act, but the AFL itself doesn't have jurisdiction over country leagues . . . where there are lots and lots of problems of Aboriginal teams being chucked out of leagues, stories about withdrawal of white teams as recent as 1999, 2000, leaving Aboriginal teams without an opponent," Tatz said.
But Winmar, who this week returned to Melbourne to play in the Yarra Valley Mountain District league, said things were improving at grassroots levels as well. "It's changed heaps. Things have been good for Aboriginal players."
The past 10 years have been eventful, often dramatic for Winmar, the first Aborigine to play 200 games.
He endured the disappointment of a grand final loss, the breakdown of his marriage and retired from football before moving back to Western Australia, where he has most recently been "in and out of shearing sheds" and working in iron ore mines.
But he still thinks about that day at Victoria Park, when even his direct opponent, Magpie backman Alan Richardson, felt "uncomfortable and embarrassed" about the racist slurs being hurled by his own fans.
"I think it (the gesture) did a hell of a lot. I am happy, when you look back at things like that and see the changes that were made," Winmar said.
"It was one of the best things I did. It will always be there. I mean, it's history."
Snap!
... It's the AFL (Oz Football League), not AFA, as I lead you to believe. Nothing to gain, they just did nothing to curb it. (On-field, behind the scenes racist taunting to undermine Aboriginal players. A lot of non-Aboriginal nasty stuff behind the scenes, too!) No major separate black league to my knowledge. But many Aboriginal footballers are "imported" to the AFL. Like Ricky Winmar, Michael Long & others.
