Celebrating the unique spirit of Melbourne

June 28, 2005

Community and footy came together at the Junction Oval on Sunday, writes Tracee Hutchison.

Something quite extraordinary happened in Melbourne Sunday afternoon. About 22,000 people went to the Junction Oval to watch a football match and raised more than $165,000 for charity. The game was a sell-out - even though, at times, it was a bit like watching the Dimboola thirds, with substantially less match practice.

So why all the people and why all the dosh? A little thing called community. Now in its 12th year, the Sacred Heart Mission Community Cup has become much more than the social game of kick to kick between local music luminaries and volunteer broadcasters from community radio stations 3RRR and 3PBS that it began as. The event has come to signify a profound sense of belonging.

A reason for being, at a time we need it most. And warmed by the knowledge that all proceeds from the day from the gold-coin entry, to the sales of donated hot pies and cold beer, help make the daily work of St Kilda's Sacred Heart Mission that little bit easier. The community bound by a love of live music and heartland-Melbourne radio happily hands over whatever it can afford so it can be part of it.

Much has been made of the passing of the grassroots footy feel of AFL football and, with the loss of Princes Park this year, the Cats' Kardinia Park - I just can't call it Skilled Stadium - remains the last vestige of the code's original suburban appeal. This was the very thing that founded the traditional rivalries, now known as "blockbusters", that helped propel the game to an elite national competition.

While much of what happened on this AFL split-round Sunday afternoon at Junction Oval was about restoring a sense of ownership of Australian rules football in the game's home town, it was actually staking a claim on something that goes to the heart of what sets this city apart. In its simplest terms, we do things differently in Melbourne. And, at the risk of sounding like a parochial idealist, I think that's because we are more likely to say "yes" to being part of something that means something to us first, and worry about how much, if anything, it might be worth to us financially, second.

Maybe it has something to do with the city's long history of benevolence and patronage that arrived with its founding fathers. Or maybe it's just that we have nurtured a keener sense of the strengths and rewards of collaborative effort; a realisation that there is power in the passion of the many and a willingness to carefully harness that passion and bring everyone along for the ride.

It is hard to imagine an event such as the Sacred Heart Mission Community Cup in any other capital city in this country; to imagine the subscriber-base of two community radio stations drawing crowds that rival some of those at the game's elite level; to imagine hundreds of volunteers and thousands of dollars of donated goods and services being trucked in and cleaned up to help a modest, but vital, local charity. And while it's not impossible to imagine Australian bands in other cities lining up for fund-raisers, because there is a long and proud tradition of our musicians being unfailingly generous when it comes to charity dollars in this country, it is impossible to imagine some of the biggest names in Australian music clambering over each other to play between the sirens at a charity football match. Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers, Dallas Crane, Spiderbait, Magic Dirt and a re-formed Weddings, Parties, Anything - these are some of the home-town favourites proud to say they've played the Community Cup. In our music community and our community radio stations - and I think it's important to state that the involvement of both the community radio stations and the local musicians is entirely self-funded: no government grants, no subsidies or tax concessions - we have something unique in Melbourne.

And we have men, women, kids and dogs - some with means, others with next to none - side by side and screaming wildly at a bunch of local heroes, desperately trying to will an oval-shaped leather ball between the big sticks. Part of something. Part of the spirit of this city.

Tracee Hutchison is a Triple R broadcaster and was part of the calling team at this year's Community Cup.
