Why SA’s first female Olympian is opposing the Crows’ bid to build a new HQ in the Park Lands
An 87-year-old South Australian sporting legend could be the Adelaide Football Club’s toughest obstacle in its bid to build a new headquarters in the Adelaide Park Lands, writes Graham Cornes.
Graham Cornes
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I met Denise Norton-Wangel this week. At 87 years of age she is one of our state’s treasures. As Denise Norton she was the first South Australian woman to compete in the Olympic Games. It was a grand adventure that took her from the shallows of Glenelg where she learned to swim, to the Empire Games in Auckland, to Buckingham Palace and the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952. Interwoven with the sports adventure is a love story that reached from Finland all the way back to Adelaide.
Denise Norton could always swim fast – faster than most of the boys against who she had to compete.
As a 16-year-old she held every state record for freestyle and backstroke and at 17 broke the Australian record for 880 yards. She was a fierce competitor – something the Adelaide Football Club is just starting to realise. For you see, the Denise Norton Park (also known as Pardipardinyilla or Park 2), which is named in her honour, is where the Crows want to establish their new headquarters and training/rehab facility.
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Denise and her family are firmly opposed to any further development in the Park Lands which of course is understandable.
However, better communication with the Adelaide Football Club may help to ease some of the obvious concerns.
It is true that the Crows have submitted preliminary plans to the Adelaide City Council to take over the Adelaide Aquatic Centre, which is in dire need of refurbishment, and establish a new state-of-the-art facility.
The club maintains the new footprint on the Park Lands will be smaller than at present, the grounds will be beautifully groomed, there will be no fences and the public will have access. In effect, the public gets a modern facility that services the wider community and the footy club will pay for it!
The issue has become a political football with the various factions of the Adelaide City Council squaring off against each other. Those of us who cherish our unique Parklands are also apprehensive about what might happen at North Adelaide.
Denise Norton has made the promise that she “will stand in front of the bulldozers if they come to knock down our aquatic centre.” She will too.
The Australian Olympic team travelled to the 1952 Olympic Games via a training camp in Townsville, then on a propeller powered plane, which could only fly during the daylight hours, to London. The trip took four days.
The star of the Australian team was Marjorie Jackson who would win gold medals in the 100 and 200 metres.
In London they were received by the Queen at Buckingham Palace but after the official ceremonies when the Queen had left, Denise and a teammate were secreted into the throne room by a mischievous palace footman who breached all palace protocol by allowing them to sit on the actual throne of England. Her eyes still sparkle when she recalls the adventure.
The length of the journey from Australia and the lack of practice facilities impacted on the Australian swimming team and they won only one medal – gold in the 200m men’s breaststroke.
John Davies equalled the world record in 2 mins 34.4 secs. (By comparison the current world record set in July by Russian Anton Chupkov, is 2.06.67).
The Australian women swimmers, eliminated in the semi-finals, were overpowered by the Hungarian team from the eastern bloc, who Denise remembers “sounded and looked like men”.
When the competitions were finished Denise was invited to go sailing with a family that her mother had met on a European tour in the 1920s. For two idyllic weeks they sailed the Baltic Sea during which time she met a young Finnish medical student called Anders Wangel. Thrust together by fate, they sailed for a whole day and then had to tearfully part the next day when his parents left.
She returned to Australia, retired from swimming and worked at the Adelaide News, but she couldn’t get the young medical student from Finland from her mind.
After four years of corresponding she went back to Finland to “meet this person again or always think about what I didn’t do.”
The affection that had flamed on that one day of sailing in 1952 had not faded. Anders, by then a fifth year medical student, as confirmation of their love, followed her back to Australia, re-sat his medical exams and married her.
Anders won a scholarship to Oxford and earned several doctorates from London, Helsinki and Adelaide. He was appointed Professor of Medicine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital but tragically was severely injured in a cycling accident and was forced to retire. Sadly, he passed away in 2012.
Denise and Anders have three children, all high-achievers with dual nationality who embrace their mother’s passion to preserve the heritage of the Park Lands and her memorial.
The lack of public information about the proposed development frustrates and infuriates Denise and her children.
“I will protect the park for future generations, and it’s not for football corporations to put large, private buildings on …. Our National Heritage Park Lands belong to the people, they are not for a large franchise …. They are not for privatisation. They are not for sale,” she says defiantly.
The conundrum for the Adelaide City Council is that the Aquatic Centre needs massive investment to restore and modernise it.
The Adelaide Football Club’s plan ensures a modern facility and promises complete public access. The cynics, however, including the Wangel family, lament any further development of the Park Lands and are suspicious that further public access will be denied once the buildings are erected.
Crows chief Andrew Fagan will need every ounce of his diplomacy skills to negotiate this project. He is acutely aware of the controversy and the emotion it evokes.
He is also aware of the significance and heritage of the Denise Norton Park and is happy to meet with the family and attempt to allay their concerns.
Despite the critics and the naysayers who predict the project will not proceed, there is every chance the Adelaide Football Club will prevail.
If the footprint of the proposed development is less than that of the current facility; if the grounds and oval are not fenced; if members of the public can be fully informed and can have the same access to the facilities that they enjoy today; and if the legacy of Denise Norton can be preserved or even enhanced, the project has a chance of proceeding.
I sense however that this feisty octogenarian Olympian will prove as formidable an opponent to the Adelaide Football Club as any AFL adversary.