River Sport
Anwen Crawford was commissioned by Powerhouse to write this essay for The River, a series of new writing and photography responding to the landscape, communities and histories surrounding the Parramatta River.
River Sport
Noise bursts upon me as I arrive at Warrang – service announcements, diesel thrum. Sunlight splinters the water in a cove that feels too narrow for itself, hoarded in by the built things.
The wake of boats is soapy, they foam up the green, but the springiness of children’s voices countervails the low churn of water. Low churn past the Bridge with its upside-down grin and the baleen mouths of the Opera House sails; past Me-Mel; past Border Force in their matte-black inflatable anchored in the blue off Ball’s Head. Past the incline of Balmain’s nineteenth-century terraces and past Pyrmont’s new-found vapidity, its finger wharves made over as luxury real estate. There’s quiet chatter on the Parramatta RiverCat: my mum and I discuss the evening’s forthcoming AFL match between the Greater Western Sydney Giants and Port Adelaide.
My mum grew up in rugby league land. Her family, which is my family, would make the trip from Lalor Park (a suburb) to Redfern Park (the oval) to watch the South Sydney Rabbitohs. It’s funny how geography can have so little to do with sporting loyalties – or, of course, so much – and I imagine those journeys, parallel to the river, from west to east and back, Seven Hills to Redfern station, on trains nicknamed Red Rattlers for their loose windows. Going in, picnic in hand, and going out again, sunburnt and exultant: those were the Bunnies’ glory days, the late 60s and early 70s, when they won four NRL Premierships in five years. And then nothing, long decades of bewilderment, the fans ebbing away like an old balloon.
It was only recently I asked at Peter Wynn’s sports store if they had any Giants gear. It’s been there pretty much since I can remember, the eponymous Peter Wynn’s, a stone’s throw from Parramatta’s Anglican cathedral, but for rugby merchandise, league and union; soccer at a stretch. (Wynn himself, my mum’s age, played for the Parramatta Eels, and in 1985 in a league Test series against Aotearoa.) My request is not one that a local would make, which is why I’m not a local anymore, if I ever was. Try Rebel, a staff member suggested, sniffily.
