For Paul Briggs, sport in Australia is the mortar between the bricks of society.
The Shepparton local and Yorta Yorta man is at the heart of one of the most passionate, determined and important sporting clubs in Australia.
Rumbalara Football Netball Club, or Rumba as it is also known, is a club that channels the past to build a better future and Briggs was president from inception until last year.
Last week, Briggs was recognised by the AFL for his hard work, winning the Jack Titus award, an award given by the AFL for outstanding service to football across many decades.
“I’ve had mixed feelings about accepting a personal award and personal congratulations when it’s been a big community effort,” Briggs said.
“Lots of people have contributed to ensuring that Rumba Football Club has emerged.
“It has been a long journey, personal connection is into the early ’70s, so the last 50 years really, it is connected to the movement of Aboriginal people, Yorta Yorta people and the Aboriginal mission of Cummeragunja.”
Briggs was hesitant to accept any praise for the award, when in his eyes it was a result of more than 100 years of Aboriginal football teams and stories.
“The story of Aboriginal people in football has been a long one and it has been a community effort for a long, long time and Rumba is a part of that journey,” he said.
“My contribution is picking up the legacy of those past champions, people like Sir Doug Nicholls, my dad Les Briggs, the William Coopers and others, but the lesser known too.
“When I’m given an award, while I can appreciate it, it conjures up images of everyone else that has made a contribution.”
One group of people that made a major contribution was the Cummeragunja Invincibles football team, a side that between 1921 and 1931, won six premierships in 11 seasons.
“For me, the Cummeragunja Invincibles, which was a name that was attached to the football teams, and the Invincibles spirit, still lives,” Briggs said.
“We’re still working to reconcile how we carry our identity, carry our culture and traditions and live in a western world, especially a town like Shepparton or a region like the Goulburn-Murrary.
“The football club is really a symbolic gesture of being in town, being a part of the region, being a part of the culture of the region and being really proud of culture and identity and having that reciprocated.”
Briggs, who played 500 games of football in regional Victoria, said Rumbalara was a stark contrast to his playing days.
When playing, he felt a void, he had a game-time relationship with the communities and clubs and was not embedded in the social and cultural life of those clubs.
This relationship, between sport, society, the economy and culture is something Briggs spends a lot of time thinking about.
“Indigenous people, we make up approximately 11 per cent of the playing group of all of the clubs and AFL players at the elite level, but we’re so under-represented in the social and economic numbers,” he said.
As inaugural chair of the AFL Indigenous Advisory Council, Briggs praised the AFL for what it has done for First Nations people.
“I think the AFL has been an amazing vehicle,” he said.
“Amazing because of the passion of Australian society and footballing public around the country and their relationship to the AFL itself and its passions, people’s passions, it’s trying to harness people’s passions to deliver a better society really.”
Briggs believes the introduction of cultural awareness accreditation in the AFL sector would be a great step to create a culturally-safe environment in sport.
He said, while the AFL was doing good things, the league needed support, both in terms of legislation from government and support from industry.
“I think if the whole of society had movement that the AFL’s shown leadership in, it will permeate down into country footy clubs, it’ll make life a lot stronger in places like the Goulburn-Murray,” Briggs said.
“We’re doing some great work in the Goulburn-Murray and I just think the footy club’s been a fantastic stimulator really, of finding a way through the issue of race relations.
“You’re talking about the symbolisms of society and nationhood and we’re saying ‘well yeah, we want to be a part of that, but not at the expense’.
“So it’s not an assimilationist approach it’s a collaborative, inclusive approach and celebrating Indigenous peoples and Indigenous culture, that’s what I think the football club represents.”
The Jack Titus award is much deserved recognition, not only for Briggs, but Yorta Yorta people and Aboriginal people involved in football across the nation.
“I think the Jack Titus award sort of talks to a more knowledgeable, more understanding institution like the AFL now of the role Aboriginal people are playing,” Briggs said.
“Football, sport in Australia is the mortar between the bricks for society and we’re trying to find a way to engage and participate and the footy club gives us a platform to do that.”