AFL king Adam Goodes’link to South Australian royalty and riches

SYDNEY Swans great Adam Goodes, who is tracing his family tree, will be forever connected to South Australia through his rich ancestral heritage.

ADAM Goodes will be on the enemy side when his Swans take on the Power at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday night, but he’ll be forever connected to South Australia through his rich ancestral heritage.

The dual Brownlow medallist, who was born in Wallaroo on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, appears in the SBS family tree series Who Do You Think You Are? on Tuesday night, in an episode which reveals his links to the founder of the University of Adelaide, Sir Walter Hughes and King Tommy, the Aboriginal leader of the Yorke Peninsula’s Narungga people.

Tracing his aboriginal bloodlines has filled a hole that football had occupied, says Goodes, who may well be playing his last AFL game in his home state on Saturday night.

“I think the whole reason I wanted to go on this journey was I knew that my ancestry was Adnyamathanha but I had no idea how or what part of the family got us to that point,” he said.

Goodes’s family history includes the story of his mother Lisa – who designed the jumper this year for the AFL’s indigenous round – being forcibly removed from her family by the state when she was five.

Goodes also finds he’s related to Sir Walter Watson Hughes, a Scottish copper mining millionaire, who founded the Wallaroo and Moonta copper mines in the 1860s.

Sir Walter, who donated 20,000 pounds to help establish the University of Adelaide and whose statue adorns one of the university’s buildings on North Tce, fathered an illegitimate son, John Sansbury, with an Aboriginal woman from Moonta called Mary.

Sansbury, who is Goodes’s ancestor, was raised by King Tommy, a man much revered by the Aboriginal people on the Yorke Peninsula.

“What you see on the TV show is actually 20 per cent of the stuff they actually find,” Goodes said.

“Once this airs next Tuesday, I then get the rest of the 80 per cent that they’ve found, and I get to learn so much more about other bits of my family history and ancestry, and there’s another part of my aboriginal ancestry that they didn’t even go into that shows how I’m related to (former AFL star) Michael O’Loughlin.

“I think also for me I’m hanging on for this show to actually air so I can start talking about it.

“I’ve obviously had a viewing for the family a couple of months ago in Adelaide, we had about 80 of our family there it’s been really great for them to see that and watch it all together but we haven’t really been able to talk about it together ’til the show airs.”

The episode culminates in Goodes travelling to the Flinders Ranges for the first time and meeting Cliff Coulthard, a renowned elder, who talks to him about his life after football.

“There’s definitely a plan to go back to there at the end of this football season,” Goodes said.

“I think it’s part of my role as an older member in my family to take all the boys back there and Uncle Clifford has already told us we all need to be back there and away from the cameras and film crew and to really experience being back home again.”

Speculation around Goodes’ future as a player has been intense, given his age of 34 and salary of $650,000, but he said it would be his decision. “It’s not with the football club, the medical department, it is all on my terms,” he said.

At the start of the show Goodes describes the Swans as his culture, and with his missing ancestry now clear he may not feel the same drive to keep playing. But he says he is still motivated.

“I love what I’m doing. I strive to get the absolute best out of myself and the people around me. And I want to keep winning premierships. I think my decision might be a bit easier to make if we were sitting in the bottom four.”

Goodes, the Australian of the Year, says he is satisfied with what he’s done in the role.

“I’m definitely doing exactly what I want to do. I think the whole year for me was about raising more awareness around the three campaigns that I’ve supported over the years, and that’s White Ribbon to eliminate domestic violence towards women, the Recognise campaign, to get constitutional recognition for aboriginal people, and the Racism It Stops With Me Campaign.”

He concedes, however, that racism will never be stamped out. “Look, we’re not robots, that’s for sure. But I think like-minded people is what you want to be able to deal with, and when things happen that aren’t right and are offensive and hurt people’s feelings then I think it’s up to all of us to support that person who’s the victim.”

But when it’s put to him that the day might come that the AFL could ideally stop its Indigenous Round, and indeed its Multicultural Round, that one day singling people out on the basis of race won’t need to happen, Goodes is something close to indignant.

“Oh look I don’t think that’s really a question or answer that needs to be thought of.

“I think we have it at the moment, I think it’s really significant the timing of Indigenous Round, I think it really gives us the opportunity at individual clubs what our indigenous people have contributed to the game in the past and the present.”

You wouldn’t see it at the World Cup though…

“I think that’s the difference in AFL,” Goodes said.

“It’s so inclusive. It is about recognising the contributions of people to our great game, and to have these rounds where we showcase these contributions it makes the people feel very special about those rounds.”