Graham Cornes: Why tennis and footy are polls apart
DESPITE flashy plans for a Memorial Drive redevelopment, Graham Cornes writes that tennis should expect to stand in line behind the Crows, soccer, athletics and basketball for any government-assisted new facilities.
- Plan for $150m Memorial Drive redevelopment
- Oval reveals lighting and sound show
- Football Park seats snapped up
- Adelaide United’s future at Hindmarsh Stadium in doubt
“TELL ’em they’re dreaming”. Tennis SA’s desire for a fully enclosed 6000 seat redevelopment of our historic Memorial Drive tennis centre is understandable. However, it’s unlikely to happen.
The Premier, Jay Weatherill, virtually dismissed the plans announced earlier this week in The Advertiser.
“They are exciting plans. We think they are a bit underdone in terms of price. We think that the price-tag for such a redevelopment would be many hundreds of millions of dollars, not the $150 million that’s been suggested,” the Premier said.
“It’s a nice idea. Where it fits in with our priorities, you’ll see as we make our election commitments,” he added.
You see, it’s all about politics and it’s unlikely that the sport of tennis can stimulate enough votes. There are far more effective ways to spend two or three hundred million dollars leading into a state election.
You have to feel for tennis. It’s a sport that is constricted by its history and hasn’t been able to leap into the 21st century. The glorious record of Australian heroes — Laver, Rosewall, Newcombe, Cash, Rafter, Court, Goolagong — is largely unknown to the younger generation who is more interested in a computer screen than a tennis racquet.
Even our last true tennis hero, Lleyton Hewitt, can walk down Rundle Mall these days without being harassed by fans imitating his trademark “C’mon”. Whereas most sports have recognised the need for modernisation and innovation, tennis is still the same traditional sport that they played in the 1950s.
Sure the racquets are bigger and there is a Hawk-Eye system to aid the umpires but the sport is sooo last century.
Nothing illustrates the sport’s malaise more than the conservative folly that decrees the players can only wear white at Wimbledon.
A younger generation that is seduced by colour, action and instant gratification hasn’t got the attention span to sit through five sets of hardcourt tennis. The sport doesn’t inspire kids to pick up a racquet and hit a ball.
The contrast between the sport’s last century and 2018 was never more evident than on Tuesday night when the Big Bash cricket match between the Strikers and the Stars went head to head with the World Tennis Challenge in adjoining venues. Parents and their kids — 42,000 of them — streamed into Adelaide Oval and energised the stadium with colour, action and participation. There weren’t too many kids streaming into the tennis stadium.
There is one other problem that tennis has, and it shares it with golf. It’s such a hard sport to play. Australians all think we can hit a tennis ball but it’s not as simple as that.
Besides, in a modern world of shrinking back yards and high-intensity housing developments, where can you hit a ball these days?
No the 150, 200 or 300 million dollars won’t be spent on tennis and its shrinking market. There are much more pressing sporting needs. Like, where can the Adelaide Football Club move its headquarters and training facilities to? As the demolition teams are about to take the wrecking ball to the old stadium at West Lakes, the Crows have to seriously think about moving and a State Government has to help them find a new home.
Our state’s leaders may love Port Adelaide but even they recognise the appeal of the Crows at the polling booth.
Rob Chapman and Andrew Fagan will never admit publicly that they need to move away from West Lakes into the city. They have such a good deal at West Lakes. For a start, that 30-plus year rent-free lease will be hard to beat, even though they indirectly pay for it with the $400,000 fee to put their reserve team in SANFL. And of course they have to position themselves commercially by playing hard to get. They will wait for an offer they can’t refuse.
However, West Lakes is no longer big enough for them. With its new AFLW team and its SANFL team, the club has three teams to cater for these days and there is only one oval left at the old Football Park, which no longer will be enclosed. (No more secret training sessions).
The Crows once had the best training facilities in the AFL. As well as a ground in the main stadium with the best surface, it had two other grounds outside the stadium. Plus the offices, gym and high-performance facilities were once state-of-the-art, league leaders.
It’s no longer the case. Fremantle’s new facilities at the Cockburn Aquatic Recreation Centre, which are integrated into a commercial, local government and sporting precinct, are now the benchmark.
Essendons’ new facility, the best in Victoria, stands alone near the wind-swept Tullamarine Airport with two full size outdoor ovals and an indoor oval under a “hangar”.
It’s inevitable the Crows will have to move, and as the state’s biggest tourist attraction they will need and deserve government money to help them.
Tennis, and to a lesser degree, soccer, have been victims of the success and popularity of football and cricket. The Memorial Drive tennis centre should have been redeveloped when Adelaide Oval was rebuilt. On contemplation now, it is ridiculous that it didn’t happen. Unfortunately it’s too late.
Tennis will have to stand in line behind the Crows, soccer, athletics and basketball for any government-assisted new facilities.
It’s contrived, it’s gimmicky, it’s magic
I TOOK the kids to the cricket on Tuesday night. Grandsons, daughter and friends, we were an unlikely group.
However, the magic and the reasons for the perplexing success of the Big Bash League were immediately evident. It’s a great night out for the kids, even if they know nothing about cricket. Most of all it’s fun. It’s fun for the kids dressing up in those crazy blue wigs. It’s fun putting a bucket on their heads. It’s definitely fun waving those signs, cheering, and dancing and trying to get their images on the big screen. It’s fun watching them having fun.
There are those of us who resent the Big Bash League for its sheer superficiality. It is contrived, gimmicky detritus — an affront to the heritage and the traditions of a great game steeped in history, records and heroics. The reality is, it has shrugged off the shackles of its history and traditions, which would otherwise alienate anyone born in the 21st century. Letting the kids in for $5 is a masterstroke. I’m still not really sure which city the Stars are from, but an eight-year-old daughter can tell me they’re from Melbourne. She doesn’t know who Steve Smith is but knows that Travis Head is the captain of the Strikers.
Somehow, the result didn’t matter. It should be an indictment of any sport when the result doesn’t matter but as the old saying goes, the enjoyment is in the journey, not the destination.
Travis Head was the man of the match in a thrilling Strikers victory, but it was all too predictable. He’s a star, albeit an understated, modest star. His was a dynamic, predictable T20 innings. He scored 53 off 32 balls before slashing wildly and being brilliantly caught by James Faulkner.
But the memorable cricketing moments came from the hapless Glenn Maxwell, the Stars’ “Big Show”. He reverse-swept Rashid Khan for a boundary, which is not such a big deal. Rashid, a great addition to the Strikers line-up is after all a leg-spinner. But when he reverse swept Peter Siddle a former Test opening fast bowler to the boundary for four, the crowd was stunned.
However, they recovered and cheered every Strikers boundary.
Amazingly, the players then didn’t depart as soon as they could. For at least an hour after the game, the Strikers’ players stopped at the fence patiently signing autographs and posing for selfies.
Not all of them are household names but they are invested heavily in this competition that has seen some of them become international stars. The kids couldn’t care: they were happy for the autographs. The great Ricky Ponting and Graeme Swann obliged as soon as they were off-camera.
There is magic in this Big Bash T20 competition. It’s hard to describe why but I think it’s in the laughter.
That’s probably why the real highlight for the kids was the persistent efforts of the bloke at the southern end to get the Mexican wave started. His truly man-of-the-match efforts ultimately failed because the members were too stuffy to keep it going. But gee he was funny!
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