Stories of battlers who make it are always popular. When it happens in real life we generally feel good for the battlers and for ourselves. It is like finding a five dollar note on the ground: it doesn’t add much to our livelihood, but it does make our life seem briefly blessed. And then we smile at our foolishness.
This week’s battlers are Graham Arnold and the Socceroos whom he coaches. Once an honest and reliable Socceroos player and captain, he is now their manager.
After a promising beginning to its World Cup campaign the team has struggled. Critics have blamed Arnold and the team for being too old-fashioned, too unimaginative and too lacking in talent.
They consigned manager and team to the knackers yard after their predicted elimination from the Cup. Arnold promised that he and the team would battle on as battlers do.
'Yet such stories do challenge the realistic view that crises inevitably end in doom and that battlers will always be crushed by the bright and powerful.'
And so they did. They unexpectedly defeated the UAE and were tied with Peru at full time. Before the penalty shoot-out Arnold took off his goalie captain and replaced him with a prancing dervish of a keeper who won the game for the Socceroos by his decisive save. Arnold was now a national hero, the battler who had stuck to his guns, done the battler’s thing, and beaten all odds to take his team into the Cup.
After the Cup who knows? But for now he has made many an Australian’s day.
It is easy to see such stories and even sport itself as trivial and beneath a serious person’s notice. Particularly when life is full of serious energy crises, climate change, war and inflation. Yet such stories do challenge the realistic view that crises inevitably end in doom and that battlers will always be crushed by the bright and powerful. They feed hope that for those who battle through the valley of the shadow of death their Cup may be overflowing. And don’t we all need hope?
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street, and writer at Jesuit Social Services
Main image: Graham Arnold, Manager of Australia, looks on during the national anthem prior to kick off of the International Friendly match between Jordan and Australia Socceroos at Al Janoub Stadium on 1 June, 2022 in Al Wakrah, Qatar. (Mohamed Farag/Getty Images)