League and the Jewish community

[Gav-bt]

Noticed this on the TRL and RLfans forums. Thought it might be of interest to League fans in Oz; perhaps someone has information on a Jewish League that existed in the 1920's.

<span>Dear all
I'm doing some research into rugby league and the Jewish community in Britain and I wondered if anyone could help.
Jewish players, supporters and administrators have featured prominently in the game at various times, perhaps most famously with Hall of Famer Albert Rosenfeld.
I'm aware of other Jewish players, such as Wilf Rosenberg, Hull KR's Louis Harris and Rochdale's Sam Birkinshaw, but I wondered if anyone knew of any others. Similarly with administrators - for example, can anyone confirm that Hull's Joe Latus was Jewish?
I'm also interested in Jewish supporters - Leeds, Salford and the Hull clubs have traditionally had Jewish followers, but what about other clubs? Can anyone confirm that Leeds supporters sang songs in Yiddish in the 1930s?
Also, is anyone aware of anti-Semitism within the game, such as discrimination against Jewish players or anti-Semitic crowd behaviour.
You can post any information here or email me direct at drtcollins@hotmail.com
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.
_________________
Tony Collins
Research Fellow - International Centre for Sports History &amp; Culture
RFL Archivist
drtcollins@hotmail.com</span>

 

[CanadianSteve]

Good to see you posting Gav.

 

[Willow]

G'day Gav. WB.

Don't know of anti-Jewish behaviour in Australian football crowds. I don't think its ever come up before. But, racism is out and about. There used to be an anti-catholic thing amongst selectors years ago but thats well in the past.

 

[Gav-bt]

G'day guys.

The following article from the AIJAC was highlighted:

By Jeremy Jones.
It was a glorious Sydney autumn day, in the early 1970s, when South Sydney played St George at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the traditional Rugby League match of the round.
South Sydney, as expected, triumphed, as spectators saw the rare sight of Eric Simms making a try-saving tackle on Johnny King, and the marginally rarer sight of a Jewish first-grade Rugby League player, Mark Shulman, who played as halfback for St George. Sydney’s most visible and obnoxious self-styled Nazi, Ross May, known as "The Skull", was at the game in his role as a fanatical supporter of the St George Dragons. When a Jewish player was directing attack and defence of the team he supported, The Skull was temporarily confused, perhaps conflicted, before determining that he could reconcile yelling antisemitic abuse at one team-member while urging on the other twelve to carry out acts of unusual barbarity on their opponents. I understand the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney has a strong Jewish community and that possibly more players have featured in first-grade football. Can anyone shed any light on the Jewish RL comp that existed in Sydney during the 1920's?

 

[Willow]

Ross May? lol.. yeah, I know him Who doesn't?
The Skull has for a long time been a well known serial pest at sporting events. He's pretty old now and can hardly see. But he still shows up at most places.

His reputation as a Nazi was put to the test when in the early 80s, the Nazis themselves disowned him and threatened him with violence should he ever make such a claim again.

Ross May has been banned from a lot of venues and clubs, including Kogarah Jubilee and St George Leagues. This being mainly because of his 'reputation'. The sight of 'the Skull' and his bald scone on top of milk crates, trying to steal a look over the eastern fence at Jubilee, is still vivid in my mind... but I doubt his eye-sight would allow for even that now.

The last story I heard about Ross May was that he was being overly affectionate to young girls during a social function in a park two weeks ago... a bit of a dirty old man.

The Australian Govt have a huge file on himbut I have it on good authority that the file was only full of stuff about his personal habits, likes and dislikes. This from someone who was invited by Ross May to read the file that he had paid for (under the freedom of information) act to have released to him.

Ross May is an enigma. If he is listed as being anti-Jew... then maybe he is - but it would have been to shock people. Its May's unpredictable nature that led to him being banned by the St George club and disowned by the Nazis.
Krusty the Clown has more credibility.

 

[Willow]

"Can anyone shed any light on the Jewish RL comp that existed in Sydney during the 1920's? " I'll see what I can find mate. It'll take a day or two. Its the first I've heard of it.

 

[Willow]

Tony Collins
Research Fellow - International Centre for Sports History &amp; Culture
RFL Archivist

As a matter of interest, where is Tony Collins based?

 

[Gav-bt]

I've seen mention of this Skull character on numerous occasions, I was surprised he was around so long ago.

Someone mentioned that Easts had a lot of Jewish supporters.

 

[Willow]

"I've seen mention of this Skull character on numerous occasions, I was surprised he was around so long ago."
The first time I saw him was at the Royal Easter Show (Syd) in the early 1970sat an exhibition motor race between Australian andAmerican V8s. During the victory lap, the Skull jumped the fence and hopped on the bonnet of the winning car... waving an Australian flag at the crowd. I always thought he was some extrovert who liked the attention.

 

[Gav-bt]

As far as I know, Tony Collins is based in the UK. He's probably most famous forthe book "Rugby's Great Split".

The Sydney based Jewish Rugby League competition I mentioned ran from 1924 to 1927.

 

[imported_kier]

Tony Collins is based in the UK - and "Rugby's Great Split" is a fantastic book.....I recommend it to any fans of RL.

Gav - good to see you back here!

 

[Stalin]

As far as Australia is concerned, the big Jewish club of the Sydney competition is Eastern Suburbs, although most League fans would not be aware of this. Sydney's Jewry is concentrated mainly in the Eastern Suburbs area and has been since the end of WW2 (and possibly beforehand).
Anti Jewish crowd behaviour at Sydney Rugby League games is almost entirely restricted to games between Eastern Suburbs and Canterbury Bankstown, who are heavily supported by Sydney's Arab community.
Canterbury Bankstown's supporter base has a well earned reputation for being highly volatile and fixtures against Eastern Suburbs do bring out a great deal of emotion due almost entirely to Easts' standing as a Jewish club.
Canterbury fans can often be heard singing that charming little ditty "Ayri bil Yahood", which is Arabic for 'F*** the Jews'.
Eastern Suburbs' derby rivals, South Sydney have also flown Palestinian flags at Souths v Easts games. Its difficult to tell the motivation behind this, it could be a solidarity gesture, it could be an insult directed at Easts Jewish fan base or it could be that the colours on the Palestinian flag closely resemble South Sydney's colours.
My personal belief is that it is a combination of the three.
The other aspect of note is the attendance of Neo Nazis at Australian Rugby League groups.
Ross "Skull" May is League's most infamous skinhead and has been going to St.George games for over 40 years. He was surrounded by followers who openly shared his ideology at St.George games for many years, but in the last 15-20 years, this following has died off completely.
Strangely enough, there is a pocket of suspender wearing skin heads that follow Easts around these days.

 

[imported_Tonyp]

Nice post Stalin. Here's something I found on neo nazi Ross Cameron. He I was told was a Saints supporter who went to games in the late 70s, including at least one, where he was said to carry a gun.
From:-
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/hilton.html
On June 11, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the police were keeping an eye on the Ananada Marga, an Indian religious organisation (always referred to as 'cult' or 'sect' in the Australian media, but never a religion, society or organisation). Few Australians had ever heard of it before.
Four days later, the Ananda Marga Three were arrested. However, it wasn't for the Hilton bombing, but for conspiracy to murder a man named Robert Cameron, the leader of a neo-Nazi organization, the National Front.
But everyone knew the "Hilton bombers" had been collared.

 

[Willow]

Gav, after surfing around, I found that there's apublication called Sporting Traditions
http://www.sporthistory.org/STindex/vol13.html
Its puts together by the Australian Society of Sports History, a mob I've hadn't heard of before. It has a number of writers involvedand there's a section called: Muscular Judaism and the Jewish Rugby League Competition in Sydney, 1924-1927, by Anthony Hughes


Better still... as I'm typing, Google has even found the section in PDF format.
You can read all about it here:
http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/SportingTraditions/1996/st1301/st1301h.pdf

 

[imported_midas]

stalin
I don,t know about Easts having any "standing as a Jewish Club".
Certainly Sydney,s Jewish community is centred around Bondi,Dover Heights,Rose Bay,Bellevue Hill etc.but their main sporting involvement has been with soccer via the Hakoah Club and to a lesser extent Easts RU club.
The administation of Easts doesn,t have any Jewish influence ,certainly Politis and Packer aren,t fourbies and I can remember a time in the 60,s (yes,Im that old) when the joint was chronically Catholic-Gibson,Fearnley,Heffernan,Landers etc.
willow ,as for that anti-catholic selection thing-that was related to cricket and I didn,t think it ever held water .In the 30,s O,Reilly and McCabe had no trouble gaining selection,nor Lindwall in the 40,s and 50,s.
It,s just that the Catholic school system has always given priority to football.I can,t think of the last Catholic school product to play for NSW (yes,I can-Dave Gilbert)
It,s a bit different in Qld with Hayden,McDermott etc but certainly in NSW the system simply hasn,t produced cricketers,whereas it,been producing footballers in huge numbers.
It was rumoured in the 60,s that the Freemasons had control of NSW cricket and control was supposedly centred on the St George club.However the only players of that era that I thought were hard done by were from the St George club-Warren Saunders,Bill Watson and Ray Flockton.So that theory didn,t hold water ,either.
Anyway ,the only Jewish influence I can see at Easts is their ability to fit more quality players under the salary cap than anyone else-talk about value for money.Maybe they get them wholesale.

 

[Gav-bt]

Thanks for those links Willow. I found the first one a couple of days ago, the second one looks quite interesting. The word Maccabi seems common within the Jewish community and to a lesser extent, Happoel. I presume they're both Hebrew -anyone know what they mean?

Someone mentioned an Easts fan wearing a Roosters yarmulka at a game.

In the UK, football clubs don't have large numbers of Muslims yelling anti-semetic abuse at fans of Spurs, it's white racists instead.

 

[Willow]

midas: 'willow ,as for that anti-catholic selection thing-that was related to cricket and I didn,t think it ever held water'

It used to be in RL as well. Like I said, that all seems to be in the past now.

The most imfamous anti-catholic episode involved an Easts player called Len Smith who was captain-coach of the Australian side in 1948.

Smith was a catholic and the selectors were mainly protestant Masons. He had an impeccable record which included serving as an Army Captain in WWII and was a well respected and well liked player and skipper. In 1948, the same year that he was inexcusably dropped as from the Australian side,Len Smith was named NSW player of the year. By all accounts was at the peak of form.

The player who took Smith's place was a reserve grader because according to reports, the selectors had some difficulty finding another centre who was willing to be tainted with having any association with the whole affair.

After that, Len Smith would have nothing to do with RL.

 

[Stalin]

midas,
You are correct in that Easts have never had any Jewish representation within their management or playing ranks and that the club was not formed by or for Jews.
It would also be correct to say that only a minority of their supporters are actually Jewish.
However, the fact that they are the most popular Rugby League team amoung Sydney's Jewry is what sees them get tagged as "The Jewish Club".
Other "Jewish Clubs" such as Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax Amsterdam and AS Roma have similar stories to Easts.
With regard to gav-bt's point regarding the perpetrators of anti Jewish abuse; I'd imagine that the reason British Muslisms don't tend to come out with the Auchwitz shit is because most of them are of Pakistani origin and the Israel thing isn't as prevalent an issue. Is this a fair comment to make?
Canterbury Bankstown's large Arab fan base are mostly Lebanese - half are Christian half are Muslim and all join in the afore mentioned chant. I also remember seeing a Hizbollah flag flying in the middle of the Bulldog Army at some point.
Re: Catholic/Masons in Rugby League. To my knowledge, the Catholic Mason thing was mainly a committee thing and rarely affected team selections. It certainly never reached the proportions of Scottish Soccer or pre 1960's English soccer.
I always understood that the "Catholic" League teams were Souths, Balmain, Canterbury and St.George while the "Masons" were/are Manly, Parramatta and Easts.
If true, it would certainly explain some of the ARL's antics and treatment of teams after the outbreak of the Super League war.

 

[Gav-bt]

"With regard to gav-bt's point regarding the perpetrators of anti Jewish abuse; I'd imagine that the reason British Muslisms don't tend to come out with the Auchwitz shit is because most of them are of Pakistani origin and the Israel thing isn't as prevalent an issue. Is this a fair comment to make?"

I'm not sure Stalin. There's definately a strong anti-zionist mindset within the UK's muslim population and let's not forget, the recent suicide attack in Tel Aviv which was carried out by two British (Of Pakistani origin) muslims from Derby. What's stopping them from being seen in numbers at football stadia throughout the UK is the fear of attacks from white fans. Burnley has a large South Asian population many of whom are football fans, hardly any would dare set foot inside Turf Moor.

 

[imported_kier]

I'd agree with that Gav - sadly most of the UK asians see soccer terraces as a "no-go-zone".

It has to be said however, that the same was also true of black supporters a few generations ago so maybe it will not always be true that asians don't go to the football.