At the lowest point in the history of the Moree Boomerangs rugby league club in northern NSW, they walked off the field at half-time of a match against Glen Innes and did not return. The predominantly indigenous club had a glorious history in terms of the players they produced and the scintillating way they played, but a wretched one in terms of brawls on the ground and weekly alcohol-fuelled violence off it. One year, they won the premiership, but were locked out of their own town. Now the local association had had enough, and peremptorily banned them from the competition.
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That was in 1998. The ban would stand for 12 long and empty years. The 'Rangs, so-called, continued to field shadow teams in a non-affiliated knockout indigenous competition, and petition everyone up to and including the NSW Supreme Court and the Human Rights and the Equal Opportunity commissions for readmission, unavailingly. In a town with a history of racial tension, an undertone of racism was apparent to some. "I'd rather trust a black snake than a Moree Boomerang," said an unnamed official, quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2009.
Mitchell Johnson's uncle was once president of the Boomerangs, and as a boy, he thrilled to watch them play. Later, he moved away from Moree, but returned 10 years ago, mid-way through the club's time in the wilderness and immediately joined the vigil to keep the flame alive. When the Boomerangs at last were readmitted in 2010, he became president, co-opting his wife, Kylie, as secretary. He reinforced what the club already knew, that these Boomerangs could not come back as they were.
They posted a $5000, five-year bond with the local association. They introduced a players' code of conduct, stipulating for instance that if a player was sent off, he would be fined, too. They chose not to sell alcohol at home games. "We thought, we don't need it," says Johnson. "We can survive without that revenue stream coming in. It's difficult. But we can survive without it." They appointed ground managers to police intemperate or provocative language. Johnson acts as one himself, when not playing his occasional game in the reserves. On the field or off, he does not look like the sort of man to give cheek to. "If I can get hold of you, I'll go all right," he says. Weekdays, he is the local shire's mild-mannered corporate affairs director.
Johnson grasped that the Boomerangs could be more than merely a football club. "The Boomerangs rugby league club is pretty much the glue that holds that town together in terms of the Aboriginal population," he says. "Everyone follows the Boomerangs. We feel like we're in a position where we can influence things."
Inveigling all sorts of local bodies, the Boomerangs once gave spectators the chance to measure their blood sugar levels, and another day did 100 flu vaccinations at the ground. They teamed with the Australian Drug Foundation's Good Sports program to tackle alcohol abuse, and with a NSW body to confront domestic violence, plastering the town with posters. They ran workshops at the club on adolescent sexual health (called PASH, if you don't mind). They have also staged two deb balls; Johnson loves to see eyebrows arch at that.
Johnson says there has been little resistance to this makeover, nor much faltering. If a player falls out of line, he stands to be told that this might not be the club for him. "We actually did stand down a player two years ago for behaviour," he says. "To that guy's credit, he did come back and played this year, and wasn't any problem at all."
Before Moree's very eyes, a phoenix has arisen. The Boomerangs have changed out of all recognition, save their indigenous motif. Not one incident has been reported for three years. Duty police twiddle their thumbs, gladly. The ADF nominated the Boomerangs as their club of the year, and Regional Development Australia gave them its innovative community engagement award. "For a football club to win that was pretty special," says Johnson. The NSW government has weighed in with a $1.8million grant to build a second pitch and new lights. The local association has asked the Boomerangs to field a junior division next year. "They asked us, we didn't ask them," says Johnson. The Boomerangs now have a formal association with Tweed Heads, feeder club to the Gold Coast Titans.
Crowning all this, the Boomerangs have won the last two A-grade premierships, the first instance of back-to-back in its history (Johnson slept in the canteen the night before the first, on sentry duty). Old-timers are wondrous. "I can't believe how much we've achieved over the last three or four years," one said to him recently. Johnson has in mind a Saturday two years hence that starts with the under-6s on the auxiliary field at 9am and concludes with the seniors on the main ground at 3pm. "That will be a gratifying day," he says.
Johnson was at the MCG this week to receive the ADF award, in understandably good humour. Looking across the turf, he thought of his namesake, another rags-to-riches sports story. "We're pretty similar," he said, "except I bowl right-arm."
