In those far away days the world was simpler because we treated everything as black and white. In those days though a footballer challenged the old theories just by the way he played football.
So this then is a tribute to Syd Jackson. Sydney came to Carlton in ‘68 but couldn’t play until 1969. I remember his first games, how he’d race at full tilt to always be there when the ball spilt of the hands of a pack.
I loved Gary Crane and Brian Quirk as a kid, always marked a ball crying ‘Jezza’, let the football loose for the drop punt extravagantly in imitation of Ragsy Goold, but when playing in the street and I did a drop kick I’d always scream ‘Sydney’. The game’s long, racking drop kicks are lost to us. So, too, the glorious stab passes that cut the crisp winter air like a knife. How to explain to kids that have grown up on a diet of drop punts that there was once a kick, a kick that when hit just right, took your breath away? No other kick hits the heart like a perfectly executed drop kick.
When I was a kid, Carlton had two extraordinary exponents of the drop kick. One was Number 34’s Ian Robertson, the other was the famous number 5 in Syd Jackson. With his long blue socks and white ankle guards flashing in the sunlight as he raced across the turf, the crowd would gather their collective breath and wait for him to unleash the drop kick and send the ball spiralling perfectly towards goal.
Sure there were times the drop kick didn’t work, the ground was wet, the drop of the ball was rushed, or the player pushed, and so coaches, intent on outcomes, outlawed its use, but that was part of its glory. Anyone can kick a drop punt (though it seems less so every year) but if you wanted a player to really learn how to kick a ball then teach them to drop kick and stab pass. Mastery of these kicks gave you mastery of the ball. Syd possessed mastery.
The thing about Syd, though, is that he was an indigenous player. Doesn’t seem much now and that’s a good thing. Nowadays every side has their own swift, mercurial indigenous player racing towards the goal; players whose skill and speed steal our breath away. Back then Syd was alone. Now I do not know what is was like for Syd growing up in W.A. nor what it was like to leave his family and friends and come to chilly Victoria - although the fact that he came at 24 meant it must have been a difficult choice.
I have no idea, either, of the difficulties he must have faced both on and off the field. Remember this was a time when even the great Mohammed Ali was denied service in a bar after winning gold for his country! It was a different time then, a black and white time when South Africa separated whole peoples, when Americans still only served ‘whites’ in lots of places and where we continued to create the agony that we now know as the stolen generations. I cannot fathom the confusion of identity that may have occurred every time as a kid you sat in the classroom as an indigenous Australian and heard the teacher still teaching the idea of Terra Nullius and still spreading the world about the White Australia policy.
How do you cope with that? Never have spoken to Syd, I’ll never know. That’s his story. For me though, as a kid, watching him play for my beloved Blues, seeing him as part of our premierships in ‘70 and ’72, he was a shining light in a world so sombre and gray. But then it was the 70’s and things were finally starting to change.
It was a still a long way away from the time of Winmar’s jumper lift, further still away from the celebrations we have now with games dedicated to the joys the indigenous players bring to our precious game, but in some small way I like to think Syd helped pave the way for not only other players but even for important landmark decisions like Mabo.
How can we deny a people’s existence when they begin to play before our eyes or when we have a small picture card of them in our collection? How can we deny their worth when we are screaming out their name as they rush forth to slot through another goal, when they twice hold aloft The Cup, a worthy champion in another great Bleubagger team?
Changes never happen all at once; Barassi’s handball has led to Geelong’s handball picnics. Winmar’s jumper lift led to the notion that racism has no place in our great sport. So to, I think, Syd’s strength to travel down to Melbourne, his resolve to play the game even though he had to stand out for a year as he was made an example of by the WANFL board worried about losing players to Victoria, his grace, his elegance and his courage, left an indelible mark on a child growing up when the times were truly changing. When all the safety held in calling things black and white finally began to fall away as we saw the need to understand and accept all the different shades between.
So from that child who now tries to teach his children the whys and wherefores, thank you Syd, thank you for the joy and for the lessons.
Go Blues!
By the way, thanks to the Blueseum.org for the chance to check my facts!
Please Note: the views expressed in the above article are solely the opinion of the author and do not reflect the opinions of the Carlton Football Club or those employees of the Club. The Carlton Football Club would like to acknowledge the tireless work of those supporters who contribute to carltonfc.com.au.
