In Tennant Creek, a town in Australia’s Northern Territory, halfway across the continent from Sydney, there are no marked football pitches. So one morning last week, before nearly 100 kids arrived for a round robin tournament, three fields had to be laid out on a large oval of grass with pins, flags and portable goals.
The children were bussed from schools across the Barkly region, a vast swath of outback about the size of Finland but home to only about 8,000 people. For some, the journey meant tackling long stretches of rutted country lanes. One school brought 12 students, about a third of all students. Another didn’t bring enough to field a team, so he borrowed two players from a nearby community whose families belong to the same Aboriginal language group.
Boys and girls of all ages played games together. For two days, the sport, which can be practiced anywhere, revitalized a community more than thousands of miles from the main stage of the Women’s World Cup.
“It’s a real football carnival,” said Annastashia August, an 11-year-old from Tennant Creek whose name isWarungu and are the traditional custodians of the land where the city is located today.
Soccer is Annastashia’s favorite sport, but this was only the second soccer carnival in her city. Both events came at the initiative of John Moriarty, the first Australian Aborigine selected for a national football team, who hopes to use the sport to improve the outcomes of Indigenous children in remote communities.
The rights of indigenous peoples were one of the social concerns FIFA wanted to highlight at this year’s World Cup. The tournament organizers have recognized indigenous communities in Australia and New Zealand, the two host countries, through measures that include the use of traditional place names alongside the more common English for each host city; raising tribal flags in stadiums; and the conduct of “Welcome to Country” ceremonies by representatives of the country’s traditional owners wherever events are held.
Moriarty, 86, a Yanyuwa man who was first called up to an Australian national team in 1960, said the gestures were appreciated but there had to be “content” behind them. He and the other members of Indigenous Football Australia, a council supporting his John Moriarty Football initiative, have called for meaningful support for indigenous grassroots programs from Australian and global football associations. John Moriarty Football claims to have received less than A$20,000, or about US$13,000, from his country’s football association, Football Australia, since Moriarty started the program in 2012.
“Without programs like JMF, there would be no way for kids in Tennant Creek to get into top-flight football, let alone a World Cup tournament — an impossible dream,” Moriarty wrote in an email. “But football talent in the bush is great and the potential for football to break the cycle of generational disadvantage is enormous.”
Citing the formation of its National Indigenous Advisory Group two years ago, which includes Australian striker Kyah Simon, who is of Aboriginal descent, Football Australia said its Legacy ’23 plan, created to follow the sport of the World Cup includes funding a First Nations competition in New South Wales. Courtney Fewquandie, a Butchulla and Gubbi Gubbi woman who serves as First Nations general manager at Football Australia, said the advisory group had agreed to a post-World Cup meeting with Indigenous Football Australia, which she hopes will be “the first step.” to move forward together” will be .”
Far from this back and forth at the highest level of the sport, the grassroots work promoted by Moriarty goes on. He only got involved in the sport when he was separated from his mother at the age of four and placed in boys’ homes in other parts of the country. Policy at the time allowed the state to separate tens of thousands of children from their Aboriginal mothers. The indigenous children displaced during this period are referred to as the “stolen generations”. Now, as many communities continue to suffer the aftermath of colonial policies, Moriarty is turning his resources and attention back to remote, primarily indigenous areas like the one he was brought from.
Last week’s football tournament in Tennant Creek, in partnership with the territory’s education department, brought together young players from across the area. But John Moriarty Football has a daily presence in Tennant Creek, where it has an office in the elementary school and works weekly with more than 300 Indigenous children in the town and surrounding communities.
Each week, classes have a block in their timetable called “John Moriarty time,” where they learn and practice soccer skills and do breathing exercises that can help students regulate their behavior. The period ends with a fresh fruit snack, which can be prohibitively expensive in remote parts of the Northern Territory. In recent weeks, classes have also been watching clips of the Australian team known as Matildas. They have garnered the nation’s attention and support on their way to the World Cup semi-finals where they will face England in Sydney on Wednesday.
“When I was little, we didn’t have anything like it,” said Dwight Hayes, 23, a Warlpiri man who grew up in Tennant Creek and is now an assistant teacher at the elementary school. “The children love sports. They will do anything to play.”
This was evident on the sun-drenched pitches, where children, playing in shoes, socks or barefoot, rarely took a break between games, instead practicing dribbling or corner kicks. They tirelessly support each other and give three cheers to their opponents, even after a hard defeat.
Attending school is one of Tennant Creek’s greatest challenges. About 350 students are enrolled in the elementary school, but generally no more than 200 attend it per week, school officials said. At high school, the numbers are even lower. The educational level and employment status of caregivers affect school attendance, and in Tennant Creek the unemployment rate for adult Aboriginal people is more than 60 percent and only about 10 percent of people over the age of 15 have completed high school, according to census data.
Teachers say football helps. Pupils who attended school at least four days a week were selected for the football carnival. Children struggling with their behavior in the classroom are sometimes given the opportunity to take a break and participate in Moriarty time in another class. Ethan Holt, a 15-year-old Jungsu, headlined the football carnival last week as part of a personal learning plan that allows him to gain work experience. Other teenagers work for John Moriarty Football as an alternative way to earn a college degree.
At the end of each school day, Stewart Willey, the program’s community coordinator in Tennant Creek, volunteers to drive the school bus. He chats to students about the goals they’ve scored as he meanders through the community housing areas on the outskirts of the city, where extended families crowd the limited public housing. During the school holidays, he returns with a soccer ball and the kids rush to the nearest available piece of ground, eager to keep practicing their new skills.
“We knew from the start that JMF had to be more than just a children’s football program,” said Moriarty. “Football had to be the vehicle to unlock their potential, encourage them to go to school, help them live healthier lives and build their resilience.”
The pilot program in Moriarty’s hometown of Borroloola ministered to about 120 children, almost every child in town. Today, John Moriarty Football reaches more than 2,000 Indigenous children in 19 communities in three states or territories. One player who began taking classes in Borroloola, Shadeene Evans, proved so talented that a scholarship program was created that allowed her to attend a top sports school in Sydney. She then played for the Young Matildas, the U20 national team.
Ros Moriarty, John’s partner and co-founder of her non-profit organization, said Football Australia expressed an interest in her work a few years ago. Those talks have not come to fruition, she said, as the federation seems only interested in taking her initiatives under its umbrella. (Fewquandie, the Football Australia official, said those talks took place before she joined the federation.)
“It feels like it’s an almost forgotten area within Football Australia,” said Allira Toby, a Kanolu and Gangulu woman who has played in Australia’s top professional women’s league and is part of the Indigenous Football Australia Council. “There could be so much talent in rural communities in Australia that they never get a chance to play sport or football in that area in Australia because there just aren’t the avenues that should be there.”
As the Tennant Creek Football Carnival drew to a close, members of the community gathered around the grassy oval. Oldest. The principal. A nurse and a policeman. The cousin Annastashia calls her big sister.
Tennant Creek High School, whose students have been in the John Moriarty program for four years, won the trophy. The makeshift soccer fields were full, but not for long. The John Moriarty football van with the Aboriginal flag on the dashboard would be back on the road the next morning, heading to the Ali Curung community to ensure the sport was being played and could be played anywhere.
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