Fred Brophy on his last day at Birdsville Races and how country Qld has changed

As he contemplates his last day at the Birdsville Races, true showman Fred Brophy reflects on his boxing life and the changes in regional Australia, writes Michael Madigan.

Fred Brophy's famous boxing tent. Picture: Marc Robertson

Fred Brophy remembers a time when Queensland working class men were so proud they would refuse to drink with “dole bludgers”.

“And that is true,’’ Brophy says from his Bribie Island home as he prepares for his last hurrah at the Birdsville Cup.

“You had railway fettlers and ringers and blokes working for the local garage or whatever in those small Queensland towns and if you came to town and didn’t work, those blokes would refuse to drink with you in the pub.

“They’d say – ‘go and get a job ya bastard, there’s plenty of work around here if you look for it’.”

Today such men would be censored for failing to empathise with the “unwaged”.

Brophy, now 73, is better placed than most to provide a commentary on the cultural transformation of regional Queenslanders, and regional Australians for that matter, over the past half century.

But while he accepts the state and the nation must move with the times, he’s deeply grateful he was born in the 1950s.

“I can’t complain, and I don’t complain, because I have had the best of it,’’ he says.

The last of the great Australian showmen, a man who called Slim Dusty and Chad Morgan mates, is not quite folding his tent and hanging up his gloves.

Fred Brophy of Fred Brophy's Boxing Troupe, pictured with wife Sandi at Bribie Island. Picture: Peter Wallis.

But he has made what must be a momentous decision for both himself and his wife, Sandi.

This September, he’ll make his last trek out to the Diamantina Shire as a boxing tent spruiker, marking a pivotal point in the gradual disappearance of the Australian boxing tent – which was once a fixture of regional shows and a training ground for Australian fighters such as Lionel Rose and Tony Mundine (senior).

Brophy’s crew will set up the tent a few metres from the Birdsville pub, light a cooking fire in the centre of a circle of caravans and keep a stew bubbling away for a week.

Brophy, the born raconteur, will open his first can of XXXX Gold about 10am and start yarning to his cronies and anyone who happens by, providing a “show’’ before the show.

Every night he’ll don his red silk shirt, akubra, jeans and work boots and begin the drum-rolling and spruiking, daring locals to take on his fighters, whose backgrounds are as elaborate as they are implausible.

With a humour with its roots in British vaudeville, Brophy will boast of the “Cowboy”, “Chopstix” and the “Beaver’’ – one of the few female fighters in his crew who allegedly has “hairs on her legs so sharp they can spear a rat”.

A long-time favourite, the “Masked Marauder”, will once again be billed as a one-time Foreign Legionnaire who, in the midst of a Middle Eastern desert, had stopped to light a cigarette and instead set his bushy beard aflame, prompting the sergeant to put the blaze out with a shovel.

Fred Brophy and his Boxing Troupe fighters Adam Ant and Ranger in 2006. Picture: Peter Wallis

Badly disfigured, the Masked Marauder must now fight with his face covered to prevent the “ladies’’ in the crowd fainting in fright if they glimpse his hideous visage.

Ageing Australians heard it all before as kids in mid-20th century agricultural shows. Yet young Birdsville racegoers often seem to instinctively grasp the spirit of the evening and yell encouragement to the heroes, a boo for the villains.

And Brophy, the referee, will monitor each fight closely, closing down a contest swiftly if someone looks like getting injured.

Brophy first arrived at the Birdsville Races in the 1970s, got pinched by the cops for playing two-up, and found himself locked up in the watch-house: “The cops thought it was funny and they let me out after a few hours.’’

Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, building on a rising sense of Australian nationalism which probably had more to do with the administration of his predecessor Gough Whitlam, turned up at the Birdsville Cup in 1978 followed by television cameras.

The publicity turned the outback race meeting into a symbol of Australian nationalism and in the following decades thousands drove out in four-wheel-drives while the wealthy turned up in private jets which always crowded the runway.

Since the early 1980s, Brophy has made the Birdsville Cup something of a pilgrimage, turning up for the past 43 years, Covid cancellations excepted.

Action inside the Fred Brophy Boxing Tent. Picture: Jimmy McLeod

When he started, regional Australia was roaring.

Brophy’s rambunctious, brawling, hard-drinking lifestyle – which led to a few brief stints in prison – was not merely tolerated, but often admired, given it was tempered by his affable nature.

He remembers a vastly different world west of the Great Divide, often awash with money when the weather was kind and commodity prices high, and filled with the sort of people he still most admires: “Hard workers!” he exclaims.

“You’d go into Barcaldine and couldn’t get a room there, and there were probably six pubs in the town.

“All the rooms were taken by shearers.

“Small town life was completely different then.’’

Fred Brophy and his Boxing Troupe fighters Ranger, Adam Ant, Kid Valentine and Kid Goanna. Picture: Peter Wallis

With the role of primary industry declining in the economy, the drift to the cities accelerated as the new century dawned, taking away much of the vibrancy of the bush.

David Brook, Birdsville Race Club president, is sorry to see Brophy go, but deeply grateful for the memories.

“We have a long history, and we feel privileged to have had both he and Sandi as such an important part of the growth of the races,’’ Brook says.

“It won’t be the same without Fred’s rally ringing out across Birdsville each night after the races.’’

Yet Brook hopes Brophy, who intends enjoying a few ship cruises with Sandi, spending more time with the grandkids, and even continuing his tent shows in a few regional centres closer to home, will get out to Birdsville as a “civilian’’ in the years ahead.

“Our hope is that, while the boxing tent won’t return, Fred and Sandi will, and that they’ll then be able to join us for a red around the fire after a day at the races.’’

Originally published as Fred Brophy on his last day at Birdsville Races and how country Qld has changed