Local police officer kicking goals in effort to keep the peace at Wadeye

Updated

Keeping the peace in one of the most troubled communities in Australia is not an easy job. For the cop at the Northern Territory remote community of Wadeye, one of the best ways to do this is to pull on the boots and play in the local footy league, among the young men he is trying to keep on the straight and narrow.

It is hot. Bloody hot. Northern Territory build-up season hot, on one of the biggest days of the year for the mostly-Aboriginal community of Wadeye.

Two teams and about 500 people are expected at the Wadeye oval for the local footy grand final.

For Scott Rose, the police officer-in-charge at Wadeye, it is going to be a big day.

Much has been written about the trouble at Wadeye, formerly known as Port Keats.

The legend of the warrior is strong in the region, with Nemarluk, the Aboriginal resistance leader, noted in police records as vowing to "kill all those who intruded on his country".

When a crew of Japanese fishermen anchored in waters near Wadeye's current location in 1931, Nemarluk kept his word, killing them to a man.

NT Police records state in 1934 that "following the arrest and trial of Nemarluk and his companions, the government asked NT Catholic Bishop Gsell to start a mission at Port Keats".

After four years the mission site was moved, in part so as to be "central to all Aboriginal tribes", and renamed Wadeye.

But even with the missionaries doing their best to spread the word of God, the many tribes of the area would engage in battle as they had done for generations.

In later times, the rise of gang violence in the town would be the subject of media reports, television documentaries and university research.

Police outnumbered in remote region

An Australian Institute of Criminology report from 2013 said the gangs of Wadeye, comprising mostly males aged between 15 and 25, "appear to have emerged in the early 1980s and are generally defined through youth aligning themselves along cultural, clan and family affiliations into groups with contemporary Americanised gang characteristics, symbolic links with heavy metal music, and clearly defined turf boundaries".

In 2007, violence erupted between two of the major groups, the Judas Priest gang [named after the British heavy metal band], and the Evil Warriors, with spears, machetes, bladed weapons and rocks among the tools used.

The small police contingent at Wadeye — which is about 230km by air and 400km by road from Darwin — have sometimes been overwhelmed by the violence.

The usual factors have been blamed for the gravitation of the region's young men towards the gangs — family and social dislocation, drugs and alcohol, peer pressure, exacerbated by the obligations of kin and long-time feuds between clan groups.

The local AFL competition, seen as an outlet for male energies, collapsed in 2013 after many players left or were imprisoned.

But in 2014, the local football league was restarted in an attempt to help stop the violence. For the most part, it seems to have worked.

Fast and furious action on and off the field

Similar to the way the gangs of Wadeye took their names and symbols from heavy metal bands, the town's footy teams go by the names and colours of AFL clubs.

The Saints, Demons, Blues and Bombers all feature, with players wearing the guernseys of the AFL teams and the supporters painted up in team colours, even going so far as singing the official anthem of each club.

The Dockers fans happily shout "Go Freo" in encouragement of their team, despite the town of Fremantle being 2,420 kilometres away.

The finalists this year are the [Wudupulli Nama] Dockers and the [Yirrminhirnu] Crows.

Fans arrive at the oval on foot or in cars smeared in team colours, with flags, balloons, streamers, umbrellas and the occasional painted dog lining up at the boundary line for the event.

Both teams have some non-Indigenous players, but most are made up of Aboriginal teenagers and men in their twenties.

The Dockers, watched by a couple of police officers, roar their battle cry in Aboriginal language, and stride towards the ground fiercely.

The Crows, however, have a secret weapon in their ranks: 52-year-old NT Police sergeant Scott Rose.

Area has a 'bad rap' for violence

"I first came here as a connie [constable] in '93", Sergeant Rose told the ABC, wearing his team's coloured socks, football shorts, a Crows guernsey and police cap.

He stayed for two years, later returning several times before arriving again in 2014 for his latest stint, this time in charge of the station.

Sergeant Rose said he "loved the people and the country", saying the area had a "bad rap" for unrest.

"When you get over 20 clans in the same place, that is what you'll get. I don't know of anywhere else where that happens," he said.

The game begins

After midday, in 32 degree Celsius heat with humidity hovering around 70 per cent, the teams gather under trees about 30 metres apart, watched closely by police officers, whose numbers have been boosted for the day.

Sergeant Rose gets in tight among the Aboriginal men of his team, and it is clear he is well liked and respected.

The ball is thrown up to get the game underway, with Sergeant Rose on the sidelines watching the action, but also scanning the crowd.

On the field, the players go in hard, with the aggression mostly contained as hard contesting for the ball.

With a few short-lived exceptions, the aggression rarely blossoms into full-blown fighting.

The supporter groups barrack loudly from the boundary line, with children and adults roaring with approval any time their team takes possession of the ball.

With 20 minutes to go, it is the Crows ahead on the scoreboard, but not by much.

Sergeant Rose takes off his police cap and begins to stretch his legs for his big moment.

Police officers ring the ground, with some acting as the official goal umpires.

Asked about Sergeant Rose, one of them laughs.

"He goes in hard, the big fella. I've got a lot of time for him," the officer, in his twenties, says.

Then, it happens. Sergeant Rose runs on to the field and takes up a position near the goal line.

"Here we go," another officer says excitedly.

'How the f*** did you do that?'

Within seconds of play being restarted, the ball is kicked towards Sergeant Rose and his Aboriginal opponent, who is about half Rose's age and weight.

Sergeant Rose, his skin already turning pink and a compression bandage on his thigh, positions himself well and, despite a flurry of arms, marks the ball, clutching it tightly to his chest.

The officers on the boundary erupt in a mixture of jubilation and surprise.

"Rosie! You bloody champion, how the f*** did you do that?" one yells.

Sergeant Rose walks back, clearly within kicking range of goal, but looks right and handballs off to another player, who scores.

After about another two minutes of play, in which Sergeant Rose is taken down in a clash and hits the ground in a cloud of dust, he stands up slowly and walks from the field.

"Is that it?" one officer yells from the boundary line.

Sergeant Rose continues to watch the action on the ground, but also takes control when tempers flare, pulling Crows supporters away from the enemy camp several times.

Action continues after final siren

The final siren blasts and the Dockers win, 16.12.108 to 14.7.91.

"I thought we had it there, but it slipped away," Sergeant Rose said, as he walked on to the ground congratulating Dockers players and fans, who have rushed on to the oval in their hundreds.

As the fan groups and players from both teams come together, passions boil over into clashes, with one police officer producing capsicum spray but not using it.

Sergeant Rose begins to jog towards a woman who is swinging a large stick at people and screaming abuse. The officers are soon following his lead, running to where he is.

The fans of both teams begin to leave the ground and head back into town where the partying is expected to go well into the night.

For Sergeant Rose and his officers, the game has only just begun.

Topics: sport, community-and-society, police, wadeye-0822

First posted