After 200 metres of staggering around the inside of the fence,
*spews lasange, Gatorade and bits of multi-coloured, chilli-flavoured gummy-sour jelly eels*
*snorts nose twice 'en passant' grass, rubs hands on ball-boys head*
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Jobs for the Boys
I was running down the street, half awake having broken into a cold sweat. The garbage truck had passed and wed missed the bin !
The wheelie bin lurched behind me like a run-away caravan on a mountain switchback. I puffed to the truck, amusing the garbos with my boxer shorts and although they said nothing about the gaping fly, they did mention that its lucky I wasnt playing Manly last night.
Walking back I flashed back to the memory of the garbo or milko in team guernsey working to keep fit and free up their time for afternoon training. Forwards got the garbos jobs and backs the milkos; nothing to do with the milkmans reputation for loving housewives the skinny buggers couldnt lift a full metal bin.
Until recently league players were not fully professional and were obliged to work at a variety of occupations that changed over the decades, along with global and economic circumstances. It wasnt until the 1970s and 1980s, exacerbated by the Super League war, that players had the opportunity, and that clubs and the League saw the value, in creating a player that worked less at earning a livelihood and replaced the income with professionalism in playing, training and payments.
Rugby league started as a professional code in the early 1900s, breaking away from amateur Union, and whilst those early players did receive payment, it wasnt much except for the stars of the day, and was largely to provide income to injured players. Up until the Great Depression, the players had a stable payments system of sign-on fees and match payments with largely manual work for the majority of players, including work on the wharves, construction and labouring generally.
The Depression hit hard, players travelled for work and the countryside and town outskirts saw increased numbers of men looking for work. The South Sydney club inherited its famous symbol and rallying cry of Rabbitohs due to the incomes that players earned hawking fresh-caught dressed rabbits around the inner city.
Players also found employment, even life-long occupations in the country as farmers, shearers and mining workers to the extent that players could live and work and stay in their home towns or areas and play league right through to Australian representation a far cry from the City-Country match-ups of today as an origin match.
Two World Wars broke the back of all national and state sports events with men fighting overseas, killed or wounded. Those remaining played reduced or limited competitions and were largely in occupations that kept them from travelling overseas, such as manufacturing.
The relative economic boom times of the 1950s and 60s saw players and teams become more professional but noticeably more affluent. Many players retained their essentially manual labours but new occupations came to the fore, typically local government work, roads and garbage or maintenance, supplemented manual labouring work. The return of men from the armed services saw increased participation in the Police forces but importantly the rise of the registered club, linked to the returning servicemen gave clubs the first real opportunity to generate funds to permit an increase in match payments, and also in the types of work.
New jobs arose that were club and operations related, as well as the typical service related occupations of sales and deliveries. Sales covered everything from gaming machines to alcohol and cigarettes, from cars to insurances. This trend remained strong right through the 1980s with players finding employment in related service fields.
Around the time that players were finding employment in banks and clubs, a new professionalism arrived, started by jack Gibson and the richer clubs at the time. The emphasis on multiple training sessions, skills development, recovery and managed diets all required more time and attention. The Super League war meant clubs had to get returns on their investment, but the die was cast earlier when the game became faster and more skilful through rule changes in the 1960s-80s.
The era of garbage run training and police getting time off work to play league had ground to a halt and young man being truly paid to play has arrived, with one problem players had too much money and too much time without some form of real occupation. In addition when their playing time was over, they didnt have real-world workforce skills.
The student player and time-managed learning player era has arrived and is with us now, awaiting change into the next form, and eventual review of its success...
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750 words betwix the stars
-v-
