In A League Of Their Own follows the fortunes of the Tiwi Bombers
CAPTURING the true essence and definition of what a football club means to Indigenous communities was the goal director Steven McGregor sought to attain in a documentary on Tiwi Islands football club, the Tiwi Bombers.
The documentary, called
In A League Of Their Own, will be aired in three parts and will have its first airing on ABC1 this Sunday at 1.30pm. It follows the trials, triumphs and tribulations of the Bombers, the first Indigenous Australian football club admitted to a senior State or Territory football league, in their first season in the Northern Territory Football League.
"You would define the Tiwi Islanders as having an unquantifiable passion for the game; they live and breathe football," McGregor said in Melbourne last night. "What the Bombers are doing is laying the platform for kids (on the islands). The Bombers inspire kids to want wear that guernsey and this film will show them that they can make it.
"Sure, there's the AFL (to look at), but for kids on the islands, they can look up to their cousins, uncles, brotherboys ... all playing for the Bombers. The Tiwis were predestined to have a team in the NTFL. It was talked about for years and years, now they're living that dream."
Filming for the documentary began mid-way through the Bombers' first season in the NTFL: 2007/08. Executive producer, Mark Bowling, ABC Director Northern Territory, said a film of the footy team was just asking to be shot.
"This was too good a story to let drift down the river into the sea," he said. "The story is for everybody because it is footy. Tiwi footballers are famous, they have a huge football pedigree with names like David Kantilla, Michael Long, Maurice Rioli.
"The question was how will they go playing in the big league? There were a whole lot of other things at play: adapting to a different style of footy, the isolation of the players on the islands, and then the issues that plague communities there, with their high youth suicide rates. All of those things were the challenges the players had to confront and this is what we learn early on in the documentary."
Broadcast dates for In A League Of Their Own
Episode 1:
Sunday, March 22 at 1.30pm on ABC1 (replays: Monday, March 23 at 5pm on ABC2; Friday, March 27 at 6pm on ABC1).
Episode 2:
Sunday, March 29 at 1.30pm on ABC1 (replays: Monday, March 30 at 5pm on ABC2; Friday, April 3 at 6pm on ABC1).
Episode3:
Sunday, April 5 at 1.30pm on ABC1 (replays: Monday, April 6 at 5pm on ABC2; Friday, April 10 at 6pm on ABC1).
DARREN MONCRIEFF
Darren@AboriginalFootball.com.au
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Last Modified on 18/03/2009 08:33