Marngrook Aboriginal Footy Show

Friday 11 am - 12pm

In English.

An Aboriginal perspective on an Aboriginal game. This AFL national Indigenous football show also features on the National Indigenous Radio Satellite.

Presented by Grant Hansen, Terry Wheeler, Derek Kickett and Jay Estorninho are joined by regular guests Ronnie Burns, Stephen Michaels and Colin Minson.

CRAM Article November 2005: Marngrook Footy Show

No it’s not the mongrel footy show, as many people think, a tribute to the infamous mongrel punt.

It’s the Marngrook footy show, although anyone attempting to understand the meaning of the title would have learned little from the explanations offered when Sydney and Essendon played for the Marngrook Trophy in late August this year.

The telly commentators somehow couldn’t elucidate that marngrook was the Indigenous game played for centuries – a game that the Aboriginal community argues whites honed into modern Australian rules.

With the influx of Aboriginal players in the past 20 years it might be argued they’re taking it back again. (I won’t waste time here pointing out that the corporate sector has already successfully stolen it from all of us and converted a leisure sport into big business.)

3CR’s Marngrook footy show celebrates the game, its Indigenous base, and the fact that the influx of Aborigines have brought a special excitement to footy.

The Marngrook footy show is the best footy show on radio or telly. No bias in saying that. The others exist as entertainment first and second, as an ego trip for some presenters whose hubris far exceeds their talent. Football, the show’s supposed raison d’etre, runs a long last.

The Marngrook Show talks footy. Regulars Terry Wheeler and Derek Kickett are still involved in the AFL’s youth development program, Derek concentrating on the young aboriginal kids.

Presenter Grant Hanson, who has been with the show since it began six years ago, loves the game, loves his Bulldogs, and like all lovers can be bitter when they fall. And given their failure rate…..

Hanson started the show to provide a voice for that growing band of Indigenous players. ‘How often do you see Aboriginal players on the footy show or on other programs,’ he asks. ‘Aboriginal players are underrepresented in the media. We started Marngrook to give them a voice, and to give them media experience.’

Guests are not exclusively Indigenous players, although Brisbane’s triple premiership hero Chris Johnson and Sydney’s Michael O’Loughlin and other prominent players are regular commentators.

Sam Pang, the other regular panellist, plays the devil’s advocate, the iconoclast, a two edged role which either succeeds in intensifying the discussion- or diverting it altogether. He represents the majority of supporters, the lay point of view, lovers of the game.

The last regular is Colin Minson, the Western Australian commentator whose inside information about the WA teams often includes predictions and scoops about ins, outs, comings and goings boasting a high accuracy rate.

Together the Marngrook team provides an entertaining but serious and informative analysis. They are entertaining because they do regard the game as the program’s prime responsibility and not as some tertiary trifle interrupting an ego driven form of so-called entertainment.

Even when Grant spends an inordinate time bemoaning the eternal inadequacies of his beloved Bulldogs!

Marngrook is a must for all footy fans.

By Kevin Healey.