File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9709, message 211


Subject: Re: M-TH: "official:" new co-mod
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 97 10:56:32 -0000
From: Bill Cochrane <wrc1961-AT-midland.co.nz>


G'day Andrew

>Hey Bill, you might be on a quick sandsand with both the regulation school
>and the Warriors,!! I'm well upset about the silver tails loss last night.
>:-))

Come on the only truely progressive act was to bet the house on our 
proletarian comrades at Newcastle. Take note of the article below (from 
the PRIR-L news group).
   Knights lift Newcastle from the pits

     As Andrew and Matthew Johns approach the toughest game of their
careers, their coalmining father,
     Gary, is at another working-class battlefield - the picket line at 
Rio
Tinto's No 1 mine. MICHAEL
     KOSLOWSKI reports. 

     Cessnock coalminer Gary Johns drove to Sydney last weekend to watch 
his
two sons steer Newcastle into their first Australian Rugby League grand 
final.

     At 6am Monday, while Andrew and Matthew Johns were still dreaming 
about
next Sunday's showdown with
     bitter "silvertail" rivals Manly, their father was back at work down
the Newstan Mine at Lake Macquarie.

     By midday, when the Johns boys, professional footballers worth a
combined $1.5 million a year, were ready to sit down to an official team
lunch, Gary Johns was beginning the pilgrimage to another working- class
battlefield, lending his support to the picket line of the miners' union,
the CFMEU, outside the gates of mining giant Rio Tinto's Hunter Valley 
No1 mine.

     Johns, 47, said the success of the region's rugby league team was a
source of inspiration for a proud,
     working-class city, one which has had its share of problems, ranging
from the scheduled closure of BHP's steel works, which will add to the
city's crippling unemployment rate of nearly 17 per cent - double the
national average - to the industrial dispute with Rio Tinto, now into its
fourth month.

     "If the Knights are able to bring something home to these guys on the
picket line and the rest of Newcastle, it would be just like a gift," 
Johns
said.

     This year is the 200th anniversary of Newcastle, and the 10th that 
the
city has had its beloved team, the
     Knights, involved in the ARL competition.

     For most Novocastrians, Sunday's grand final is more than just a 
game.
As Newcastle Knights chairman
     Michael Hill said yesterday, Manly represents "big city smart arses".

     "Newcastle suffers from a terrible inferiority complex - there are 
five
or six generations of people up here who have worked for bosses they hate,
and all of a sudden they have a great football team which gives them a 
great
sense of self respect," Hill said.

     Fibros versus silvertails, country versus city.

     To Johns and his fellow coalminers, a victory would be very, very 
sweet.

     "Newcastle is home to working class people, there is nothing fancy
about us," Johns said. "We certainly have struggled through the years to
earn the right to earn a good quid, and that certainly epitomises the
Newcastle Knights."

     And two of those earning "a good quid" are Andrew Johns, 21, and
Matthew Johns, 23, along with Knights
     international forward Paul "the Chief" Harragon, as a result of
league's civil war fuelling the player wage explosion.

     "They are earning good money, but still, they didn't go cap in hand 
for
the dollars," Johns said.

     "The dollars were being thrown at them, which is very different."

     When they were of school leaving age, Johns took his two boys down 
the
mine, "to experience what it was like underground".

     "It might have shown them it was worth being footballers rather than
coalminers," he said.

     Matthew Johns, who proudly donned a CFMEU cap given to him by his
father for a team appearance at a local
     shopping centre on Monday, said yesterday that if the Rio Tinto 
dispute
had not been settled, he would take a few of the Knights out to the picket
line after the grand final in a show of faith.

     Also on the post-grand final agenda, win or lose, the Johns boys will
have to decide on their immediate future, given both are at the end of
contracts with Newcastle.

     While they have been the target of spirited bids from rival clubs,
Johns is hopeful his sons will stick with the working north.

     "It's not for me to answer, but certainly I would be very 
disappointed
if they did leave Newcastle," he said.
     "They belong here."

Now whose side should we be on?
Give us a ring and we'll have a yarn, I still working through my thoughts 
on the whole indigenous peoples rights/nationalism thing.
Cheers


Bill Cochrane
4 King St 
Ngaruawahia
New Zealand

Ph (07)8247722



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