Scheduling footy on Good Friday just another loss of once-valued traditions | David Penberthy

The scheduling of football on Good Friday – including at the precise time of Christ’s death – says two things about how Australia has changed, writes David Penberthy.

It is believed that Jesus died at 3pm on what’s now know as Good Friday following his crucifixion at Calvary on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

To put that time in its football context, 3pm was the 10-minute mark of Friday’s North Melbourne-Carlton clash at Marvel Stadium and half an hour before the Bulldogs went head to head with the Rabbitohs at Stadium Australia. Two SANFL games were underway at the same time Jesus died.

Apologies if this weird parallel reads as a blasphemy. It is meant in the opposite way.

The scheduling of football on Good Friday – including at the precise time of Christ’s death – says two things about how Australia has changed and continues to change.

It says we are a society that can no longer bear even the briefest moment of mandated reflection, and demand that entertainment and stimulation fill our every waking hour.

It also says that we are doing a poor job, possibly a deliberately poor job, of defending the traditions of those who founded modern Australia while bending over backwards to keep everyone else happy.

The fact that no-one even raises an eyebrow about the scheduling of footy at 3pm on a Good Friday shows that this battle has largely been lost. I don’t think it even occurs to the clubs or codes or the broadcasters or anyone, nor to the many fans who want to get along or watch from home.

It’s just another day.

For the record, I am not writing this in a religious capacity. I am not religious at all, even though I do observe the fish and no booze rule on Good Friday, in no small part because my body can really do with a day off once in a while. But I do think there should be something called respect, and it feels that respect in the West has become a one-way street when it comes to showing respect towards traditional Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.

Back in the late 1990s when John Howard was Prime Minister my newspaper was in the process of converting from a broadsheet to a tabloid. A group of us hungrier journos had our own private competition to see who could land the first “splash”, the first page one story in the new tabloid edition. I got pipped on day one by a more senior colleague but jagged it on day two with a piece headed PM’S ART ATTACK. I’d sought an interview with the PM about an obscure little story that was causing a localised kerfuffle in South Australia, where the poster for that year’s Adelaide Festival featured a mocked-up Orthodox icon of the Virgin Mary which had been repainted to have her playing a piano accordion. It was on the face of it harmless enough but the Orthodox community, be they Greeks, Russians, Serbians, did not see the funny side, and were outraged that some trendy had randomly picked this most venerated and holy figure as the vehicle for a cheap laugh.

Carlton plays North Melbourne on Good Friday. Picture: Mark Stewart

To my delight Howard fired up big time over it, and made the broader point that he saw it as symptomatic of the modern capacity for “sneering” (his word) at traditional Christian traditions, while showing nothing but respect to every other faith.

I noticed the other day at the end of Ramadan how the national broadcaster SBS (which I love) was throwing massive effort and energy at its coverage of the end of Ramadan, the period of fasting for Muslims in the lead up to Eid. They have created a special portal online to aggregate all their Ramadan/Eid news and are also running recipes on their excellent food website. Good on them for doing that.

Where’s the effort and energy though when it comes to Easter? I spent a while trawling through the SBS site and its Easter section does not appear to have had any news content added to it since Easter of last year, and features the very old news story about King Charles making “his first public appearance” since his cancer diagnosis – 12 months ago.

Even if you’re not in the job of broadcasting for Anglos, I would have thought that for all your Latin American and Vietnamese and African viewers for whom Easter is a big deal, you might put a bit more effort in.

As I said, I’ve got no issue with SBS. It plays a really important role, especially for those of us with a keen interest in two of the best things in life, namely soccer and food.

But the discrepancy goes to a question of priorities.

It’s the same with the incredibly thorough job we now do respecting Indigenous heritage. Barely anyone calls Uluru its old name of Ayers Rock anymore and no-one would dream of climbing it. These cultural bans are also extending – to the Grampians in Victoria last year, to Lake Eyre in my home state this year, and it’s all being done out of respect.

In that same vein – respect – I checked the Easter What’s On and What’s Open section of a local entertainment app this week to see what Good Friday in Australia now looks like.

“As for bottle shops, there’s more than you’d expect as well, given only a few years ago none were allowed to trade!” the website enthuses before listing the drive-throughs and bottle-os on standby to satiate our national need for a constant flow of booze.

Aptly, the website is also advertising something called an “epic sunrise disco” on Good Friday, which is a wellness-inspired dance party at Glenelg Beach promising “the sound of euphoric house beats and the subtle hum of the wave hitting the shore”. It is surely an event for the times, where you can worship at the new cult of the self, in a society which regards a trip to Ubud or Nepal as a spiritual awakening, shows nothing but respect for Indigenous heritage and multicultural festivals, and regards Good Friday as just another day when you can watch some footy and get on the turps.

Originally published as Scheduling footy on Good Friday just another loss of once-valued traditions | David Penberthy