Senior arts writer Karl Quinn and sports broadcaster and columnist Kelli Underwood presented the keynote speeches at The Age’s Melbourne Assembly forum, moderated by Waleed Aly, on the topic, “Sport v the Arts: What is the true heart of Melbourne?”
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heart → present → Melbourne
Below is an edited excerpt of Quinn’s speech.
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excerpt → edit → speech
I grew up in a city where sport versus the arts wasn’t just an abstract topic for debate – it was a genuine life choice.
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it → grow → debate
You were either Team Sport or Team Arts, and there was no in-between, and barely any overlap.
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You → be → ?
That was Brisbane in the 1980s, and it was a place I couldn’t wait to get out of.
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I → wait → 1980s
I was an artsy, book-reading, model-making, role-playing kind of kid; I loved nothing more than curling up in an armchair and reading for days on end during school holidays, or hunching over the dining room table as I drew or painted my Airfix models or built a diorama of a Roman fort under assault from the Celts, my tongue invariably poking out the side of my mouth as I became lost in concentration for hours at a time.
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I → love → time
But I also loved sport.
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I → love → sport
And I played plenty of it.
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I → play → it
I had a brief dabble with rugby league before realising I possessed a neck, which seemed to rule out that particular code.
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which → have → code
There was plenty of cricket, athletics, some motocross and BMX – I even have the chipped teeth and scarred legs to prove it – but above all, there was my great and enduring love of soccer.
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I → be → soccer
I started playing when I was about 10, and was still playing until a few years ago when I was forced to concede that the mathematics of it all – 90 minutes of joy followed by three days of hobbling around with aching knees, groin and hammies – no longer stacked up.
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mathematics → start → knees
There was a period, though, when I didn’t play at all.
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I → be → ?
That was in the mid-1980s, the peak of Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s corrupt regime, when the battle lines were well and truly drawn: sport and all it represented – extreme blokiness, anti-intellectualism, private-school bonds parlayed from the field to the boardroom via brown paper bags stuffed with cash, and the shady real estate deals they facilitated – was set in direct opposition to the world of culture, or counter-culture, towards which I had increasingly gravitated.
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I → draw → which
One had to pick sides, or leave.
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One → have → sides
So I headed to London.
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I → head → London
It was there that I first realised sport and the arts actually could co-exist.
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sport → realise → ?
I started playing soccer again with a bunch of people I met at an arthouse cinema.
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I → start → cinema
The music scene was full of football-inspired fashion.
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scene → inspire → fashion
Artists and writers and filmmakers were unabashed in pronouncing which team they supported.
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they → pronounce → team
Looking for an Australian city that might similarly play both sides of the Arts/Sport divide, I chose Melbourne, landing here in the early 1990s, just in time for a recession that would drag on for years.
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that → look → years
I came on a punt (so to speak) and though work was thin on the ground for someone with aspirations to write for a living, I fell in love immediately with the music, the galleries, the theatre, the festivals: St Kilda, Brunswick Street, the Arts Festival, the Writers Festival, the Comedy Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, one of the biggest and longest-running in the world.
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I → come → world
I loved the cinemas.
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I → love → cinemas
And I loved the book stores, too.
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I → love → stores
I still loved sport, though.
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I → love → sport
I was at the MCG for the cricket World Cup Final in 1992 and again for Australia v Iran and the infamous pitch invasion that cost us qualification for the FIFA World Cup in 1997.
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that → cost → 1997
I’ve been there for my share of footy and Boxing Day Tests over the years, and to Marvel and AAMI stadiums and, in the distant past, Princes Park, as well as our ever-expanding tennis precinct for the Australian Open.
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I → expand → Open
Hell, I’ve even been to the Formula One grand prix a couple of times – an experience that only served to convince me that no sport has ever been more suited to television than to actually being there.
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sport → serve → television
“Wow, did you see that?”
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you → see → that
“No, sorry, I blinked.”
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I → blink → ?
Sport demands we pick a side.
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we → demand → side
The arts, however, strive to find the things that bind us, despite our differences.
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that → strive → differences
A city that embraces both, it seems to me, is one that is comfortable acknowledging what makes us unique, what makes us members of particular tribes, and what unites us in a common sense of identity – one that celebrates plurality rather than bows to a monoculture.
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that → embrace → monoculture
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect embodiment of that unity than Kylie Minogue’s pre-game show at the AFL grand final last month.
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It → ’ → final
It was uniquely Melbourne in its references, it embraced the game and diversity and fun, and it brought sport and music and dance together in a moment of pure, joyous celebration.
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it → embrace → celebration
And perhaps best of all, it made Peter V’Landys and our rugby league-playing cousins north of the border jealous as hell.
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V’Landys → make → hell
Within a few years of European settlement in 1835 – following a shady transaction orchestrated by John Batman that nonetheless had the virtue of at least acknowledging First Nations custodianship of the land – we had cricket matches and horse racing.
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we → follow → matches
Obviously, there was a long and rich cultural tradition before that, full of song and dance and story – and sport, too, with the game of marngrook believed by many to be one of the major influences, alongside Gaelic football, on what would become our Indigenous code.
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what → be → football
The Melbourne Cricket Club was founded in 1839, the city’s first debating society was founded in 1841, its first theatre opened in 1842, the first codified Australian rules for footy were agreed upon in 1859, and two years later the National Gallery of Victoria – the nation’s oldest such institution – was established.
As this nascent city was building its identity, sport and art were its foundation stones.
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sport → found → identity
But let’s not sugarcoat things: so was money.
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money → let → things
Sport, and the gambling it spawns, has always been a favoured way for Melburnians to dispose of their income.
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Melburnians → spawn → income
…and 64 more, not listed.
The Aporia
