Spaces - Stephen Jolley

Sam Drummond 00:03

What makes a great space? And how does a space influence the way we live, who we interact with, and ultimately where we see ourselves in our communities? I'm Sam Drummond, and this is Spaces on Powered Media. Each episode, I'm taking our guests to their favourite place. We'll get an insight into why that space works for them, share some of the moments that have changed their lives, and hopefully learn something along the way.

Hi, I'm Sam Drummond, and you're listening to the Spaces podcast. In any conversation about Australian culture, the topic invariably turns to sport. Often we're divided on teams and colours, sometimes curds, but sport and the venues that host them can be crucial to bringing people together. In this episode of Spaces, we've come to what is sometimes described as the home of sport in Australia. It's the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the MCG, or sometimes just the G, and taking us there is Stephen Jolley. Welcome to Spaces, Stephen. 

Stephen Jolley

Thank you, Sam. It's good to be here. 

Sam Drummond

So, this is a big space with a lot of people. Why have you brought us to the MCG?

Stephen Jolley 01:33

The MCG is one of my favourite places because whether I'm there at the venue itself or whether I'm connected to it through the wonderful technology we have these days, it's covering an event that I'm interested in, that I can relax with, that I can be finding exhilaration from as well, whether it be test cricket or AFL football and what's magic to me is that I can be so close to a place which is the centre of the universe almost. I was at a World Cup match in 2015 and I could hear the TVs in the background with people like David Bumble Lloyd from the UK and Jeff Boycott and I'm thinking I'm in the same place as all these people, the world, the sporting world is focused on this place and I'm here and that's magic.

Sam Drummond 02:36

So for many people who have been to the MCG, the image of walking up to this enormous colosseum and the big stands is something that, you know, the walk from one of the train stations from Sollymont to Richmond, that is something that stands out in my mind. But you experience that differently. As someone who can't see those images, what do you experience when you're walking towards the MCG?

Stephen Jolley 03:20

The sound is magic. There's nothing at first when I'm coming from Flinders Street and then as we walk along we hear the chatter of others who are walking along, the indigenous First Nations sounds playing in the background and then as we get closer we start to hear a sort of a hum of voices in the background, it gets louder and louder, people sprucing, bring your bags over here for security checks, people with such and such ticket centre, gate whatever, see I don't pay enough attention to what gates they are, but just as it all builds up and then you know you're within the vicinity of it.

And then you go through the turnstiles and you're inside and it's a wonderful sound then, then you move up to where you're going to be stationed, sit down and sort of stretch my legs out and have a good listen to the sound around and it's never too loud at that point,
it's you know usually before the event, well before it, I can hear the PA going, maybe the toss is happening and it's really exciting, then it's time to get the radio out and put the earpiece in so I can keep in touch with what's going on exactly.

Sam Drummond 04:51

So this is the crucial bit that people would want to try and understand, I suppose, about your experience of going to a sporting event and how you experience the people who might be 100 metres away playing a ball sport. How do you know what's going on when that siren sounds or after the umpire says Play and they're bowling that first ball of the day? How do you experience what's going on?

Stephen Jolley 05:33

Through the radio commentary, which is very good. People listen to radio commentaries or they hear radio commentaries at different levels. Some people just have it going in the background and they get the score and they hear Jim Maxwell or somebody else sort of droning away. I'm paying a lot more attention to what they're telling me, what end the bowlers are bowling from, which way the wind is blowing, the placement of the field, all those sorts of things. And if it's a venue that I don't know very well, I'd like to hear their description of the geography around the ground, what the major stands are, et cetera.

The radio, it pumps out lots of really good informing information. So that's the way I do it. I've been to AFL or even VFL matches where there's very few people there because it might even be a reserves game and you hear the voices of the players as they move around the ground. Once it fills up for the main game, you don't hear those sorts of things, but you do hear the ball, you hear the umpires whistle, et cetera, and you hear the commentary telling you exactly what's happening.

Sam Drummond 06:47

Are there Dos and Don'ts for commentators? You mentioned Jim Maxwell. And I think you might have done that deliberately because he's a standout and his longevity in that commentating of cricket is just about unmatched. But are there things that, say, a Jim Maxwell will do that makes your experience better? And are there things that some commentators have sort of started doing that make it harder for you?

Stephen Jolley 07:26

There are some commentators, particularly on commercial radio and I won't name the FM station, who think they're doing a television commentary and they chatter away and they'll comment on the ball if it's interesting to them. Whereas a proper radio commentary will have lots of conversation but they put enough space around the delivery to give you an adequate account of what happened. A reminder maybe of who was bowling but you don't need to say that six times and over but you need to say it a few times because people are dropping in and out.

How the ball is played, who fields it, etc. That sort of information is very important because that's what everybody else is getting and I'm more interested in that than what a good time they had in the pub last night or whatever. That can be entertaining as well but what's going on in the game has always got to be upfront even if it doesn't seem over exciting at the time.

Sam Drummond 08:31

Hmm, so what was the first game first time you went to the MCG? 

Stephen Jolley 08:38

I was six years old. It was Australia v West Indies and we went there, I think it was about the fourth day and it was the day that Australia ended up winning. They had a lead of 310 on the first innings. They got the West Indies out for about 200. I think the pitch was a bit miserable on the first day. Australia made 510 and then we got the West Indies out for just under 300 and won the match. Now I don't remember every Test cricket match like that, but some of, you... stay in your mind.

Sam Drummond 09:21

I'm gonna have to go off after this and fact-check that to work out exactly what year it was and how old you are.

Stephen Jolley 09:30

[?] year old and it was in the 68-69 series. So that was the first time when a family friend gave my brother and I a treat, my brother's also blind, and took us to the MCG and the first of many times that I've visited the MCG over the years and that was the first time I was there with my radio Alan Mcgilvery and other commentators of the past who were the Jim Maxwells of today and to be able to be in that venue and hear their voice over my radio telling me what was going on for a kid, that's a real treat.

Sam Drummond 10:16

So that you're in '68 there. Yeah. My maths is a bit scratchy, but that's over 50 years ago. Yeah. There have been a few matches of cricket and football since then. And some some other things as well. Some other sports. What are the standouts?

Stephen Jolley 10:37

It's funny you say other sports. I did get to the Australia-Iran World Cup, a tie, and all Australia had to do was win to go to Paris in 1998, they scored early, some clown invaded the pitch and we all got distracted and Iran kicked a couple of goals and won the match. And that was probably one of the most dramatic occasions I've been to, even though it was football and it wasn't AFL and it wasn't Australian football and it wasn't cricket. But I've been there for, my Hawks lost, they won the Premiership in '71 and they lost it in '75, that was very dramatic, it was North Melbourne's first Premiership.

I was at the World Cup final in 1992, I think it was, yeah that's right, and there in 2015, so you remember Brendan McCullum leaving early because of the way Mitchell Starc bowled in the first over. But that was all very dramatic, yeah lots of occasions, big occasions, spread over 50 years, it's not like I go all the time but we do try and get there on Boxing Day every year, it's sort of like a time of renewal because you're in the ground, you're hearing it directly, the bull on bat, a push is very different to a drive but by the time it's processed by radio or television there's not quite the same difference but it makes a difference when you're listening to it with the naked ear.

Sam Drummond 12:29

What is the time difference when you're listening to it live? 

Stephen Jolley 12:36

On AM radio, the radio is only probably half a second to a second behind, it's very close, and that's just sort of satellite processing. In the old days, the AM radio was right up with actuality.

Sam Drummond 12:55

Yeah, it's just bouncing is that was a bouncing off the tower, you know 20 kilometres away or something.

Stephen Jolley 13:03

Well, yeah, it was just being transmitted locally and it didn't have to go up via satellite. Now everything's networked, it doesn't matter where it's played, it goes through, you know, the network headquarters certainly of the ABC and this is AM radio, digital, there's more of a delay. But I used to have to be careful because at the football sometimes, in a close finish, I would actually hear the siren before people around me, about half a second before, and I would react and then they would react when they hear it because the sound takes longer to travel naturally than it does over the radio because it's picked up by microphone close to it and it's electronically transmitted etc. 

So that's a little piece of trivia, but it was a strange thing.

Sam Drummond 13:56

Now, when that stadium is full and something big happens, and I haven't been here often enough to feel it much, but I have felt it shake. When the crowd is screaming at the top of their lungs, and I think maybe a football game or a world game is a bit different because you have, you might have 100,000 people who are supporting the same team, but is that a good experience for you or is that a bit off-putting because you can't hear what's going on often?

Stephen Jolley 14:38

Oh, look, I do miss some of the detail, but you pick that up later, when a wicket falls or something like that. And yeah, I sort of noticed that a bit. The first VFL match actually I attended was before that 1968 thing, it was in about 1965. And that was an interesting experience because it's very loud when a goal is scored, but, you know, pluses and minuses. You pick it up very quickly, you get the summary of what's happened and you don't miss much. You know that a wicket's gone. You'll capture them saying he's caught, he's bold or whatever, and then get the rest of it very quickly.

Sam Drummond 15:26

How does the MCG compare to some of the other grounds you've been to around the world?

Stephen Jolley 15:33

I've been to Sydney and I've been to Adelaide. I haven't been to a game at Adelaide. I haven't been to a lot of games around the world when events have been on. I had the privilege of visiting Lords last year and doing a nice tour of Lords. I was able to put my hand on the cabinet containing the ashes, so of course on Facebook I said I was doing my bit to hold on to the Ashes, and we did hold on to them. So that was special. But I have been at some other grounds and you notice it's sort of a bit, often it's a lot closer than, sounds a lot closer than what the MCG does. And you even pick that up through the radio actually, that the acoustics of the ground vary a lot around the world. 

Some of the grounds in the UK it's, I can imagine it's quite a much closer, more picnic type atmosphere a lot of the time.

Sam Drummond 16:45

Hmm, and maybe with Adelaide on that hill it might be similar. 

Stephen Jolley 16:50

Yeah, that's true. Adelaide, it would be a great ground to go to. There's so much there with the Hill. It's now got the stands as well, a great atmosphere. I visited that ground a few years ago and it was very interesting.

Sam Drummond

Why was it interesting? 

Stephen Jolley

Just to see the places that I'd heard about, like the scoreboard, to go up the end around there is where the fig trees were. And years ago, the fig trees, you'd hear them dropping down on the roof of the commentary box. So that brought back memories of that. Now the commentary is up the other end, up the southern end of the ground. But there's been a lot of development there and it's very different to what it was years ago.

Sam Drummond 17:40

You've talked about the evolution of radio in this time that you've been using it to watch sport and experience sport. And one of the other hats that you have apart from sport lover is radio enthusiast. And maybe the reason's obvious, but how does, what role does radio play in your life? Just for your, in your day to day interactions.

Stephen Jolley 18:13

From when I was a toddler, radio was one of the first inputs that came into my head. You know, I used to wonder how all those people could get in that little box. How they could be in there? So it's been there all the time. I was even fascinated by things like you'd hear somebody on a particular station and another time of the week you'd hear the same voice on another station. How did that happen? It's where I got my background in news, pop music, sport. I started to dabble with listening to shortwave radio when I was about 12 or 13. That was exciting because it wasn't sort of Australian supervised radio, it was the world. 

And I got the BBC, their overseas services, they used to call it, the Voice of America, which had regular programs about the news that was happening around the world, like the Vietnam War. It captured my imagination with its coverage of the space missions, the manned space missions. Then I could hear the very strong signals of Radio Peking as they tried to tell us that there was the preferred way of living rather than what was going on in the West around the time of the Cultural Revolution.

Radio Moscow, always very friendly, they were. And to a little kid, that's just fascinating to being able to hear all those voices in their different programs. So while others watched television and there were some television programs I tuned into, radio, there was so much there. And now of course it's exploded with the internet.

Sam Drummond 20:31

Yeah and the internet seems to, it's obviously all around us and has a large impact on society and is central to a lot of people's lives. But what you've just described seems like an internet before it was invented.

Stephen Jolly 20:53

Yeah, it sort of is in a way, isn't it? Because it was stepping outside our familiar territory to all these things that were going on in other parts of the world. I used to use shortwave radio to chase cricket commentaries, by the way.

Sam Drummond 21:14

How do you chase that? That's a cricket commentary.

Stephen Jollwy 21:17

Well, a friend will tell you that All India Radio broadcast on shortwave, and you can hear their test matches. And when Australia were in India in 1969, Bill Laurie's team, they played a series of I think five test matches. And I used to listen to the commentary on All India Radio. Sometimes it was clear, sometimes it was sort of faint, but you'd struggle through and listen to it. And I was tuned in at the time. There was a very famous riot, because the umpires gave a wrong decision, as it turns out. It was a good decision at the time, because the Indian batsman was given out caught. And Venkat it was, it later became very well known as an umpire and a manager, and the crowd reacted. 

So Australia were happy that they got the wicket, but it actually killed the game because of the riot that happened afterwards. But I heard that on the radio, and I could explain to people what actually happened, what the commentators had told us about it. So that was pretty good. But yeah, now, going back to what you're asking me about, the internet radio streaming, and then the podcasting, where you can listen in your own time to content, has just been terrific for those of us who use radio or use audio as our source of input, just as for people who like to watch stuff, it means they can get a lot more content through YouTube in other ways. Some of the stuff would be better off if it wasn't around, but gee, there's a lot of good stuff that's not talked about that is there.

Sam Drummond 23:15

And sometimes some of that technology and, you know, audio descriptions that you might use or closed captioning are just part of now, I think, the everyday consumption that a lot of people, a lot of people use and how they consume their media is changed by these, by these functions that were first made for people with disability, whether they be vision impaired or hearing impaired or another form of disability. The risk is then that they leave people behind. Is there technology that makes it harder for you to do, to get around every day?

Stephen Jolley 24:11

Ah, nothing's jumping out at me, but there could be something I've overlooked. Can I just comment very quickly, though, on about how advancements for people who are blind can make a difference for everyone? And a good example is with the traffic signals that only from around the late 1970s, early 1980s, had the audible component in them and the tactile component, you know, you can put your hand on the pole and feel it vibrating. But it ticks. And a lot of people don't even realise that they're sort of relying on that tick, tick, tick sound, even though they look at the lights, but it sort of reinforces it for them.

Sam Drummond 24:55

That is something that I never thought about until I went outside of Australia and realised that it's not a universal thing. Ah, yes, yeah. And probably only until recently started putting my thumb on the thing just to feel it by breath. That's a fantastic little invention.

Stephen Jolley 25:22

But getting back to what... and that was brought about by the way by advocacy from blind people themselves saying this is possible and it'll really make a difference for us. It's a good example of how it can make a difference for everyone. But look, there's a lot of stuff that you have to do online these days which can make it harder for people who can't see what's on the screen. We talk about computer accessibility and the need for websites to be developed in a way that makes them usable by everyone or accessible by everyone. And sometimes that doesn't happen. And it can be very easy for somebody with sight to order something online to look up a menu to do their travel planning. And though it's getting better it's not sort of automatic for people who are blind. 

And sometimes you need to do that sort of thing more now because it's expected to be done that way whereas it wasn't of course when it didn't exist. Form filling is a good example of that. You're expected to do something online. And even a simple thing like registering to go into hospital before you go into hospital is a significant process that might take somebody who can see 20 minutes half an hour but for someone who uses a screen enlargement or a screen reader which is technology that speaks up what's on the screen might take two hours to do that if you get it right. So those sorts of things where technology can leave people behind.

Sam Drummond 27:27

What about sport? Is there, if you were talking to the heads of the AFL or Cricket Australia, I mean, I don't think you're going to get much joy from going to see the Hawks this year, but is there something apart from make the Hawks better? The time is getting closer. That would make your experience easier and are the things that they're doing that's making it harder for you.

Stephen Jolley 27:59

Oh look, I think their apps and their websites are patchy and sometimes they start off well, have them nice and accessible and then new people are in the role and they forget about the accessibility when they do updates and so it slips back. So it's not properly ingrained in their culture that you've got to do it this way, you've got to include everyone. So what can happen is that on a website maybe the fixtures aren't very readable or there's lots of buttons that aren't properly labeled so you don't know what they are and you hit them and then you discover what they are but that's a long way around.

So those sorts of things happen and we've got to keep track of that and speak up whenever it's not right but you get sick of doing that after a while and you shouldn't have to do it, it should just be right like lots of other things are.

Sam Drummond 29:13

And so take me to this coming Boxing Day, Australia is playing India and you're walking from Flinders Street Station. Yep, with my son. What is the perfect day? Does the result matter or is it just the experience of it all?

Stephen Jolley 29:35

The results are very important, but the experience is really good, but if Australia got rolled for 96 or something like they did against England in 2010, that's a downside to it. I think if I was at an event that was really close and we lost, I would still have enjoyed that event, but there'd be something lacking because we didn't win. But that's a bit immature of me really, isn't it, to be placing so much emphasis on the outcome that you just naturally do. But to be there when there are some really outstanding performances that are going to live into history, I find that very satisfying to think that I was living in a time when I could be so close to that action, and that's really good.

Sam Drummond 30:37

Why do you think that sport is essential to so many lives of Australians?

Stephen Jolley 30:47

I've thought about that a lot over the years and I've thought at times when our swimmers are doing very well, whether they'd be Dawn Fraser in 1964 or somebody else in, Emma McKee in Tokyo, why is that so important to us? Because I'm sure they're not thinking about us when they're arriving at the pool at five o 'clock in the morning and training away. You know, we're not really relevant then. It's like somebody having to do music practice day in, day out. But I think we just enjoy the achievements of people and of teams and it's quite irrational in a lot of ways that we invest so much in it because we don't actually have any influence really. Well, not very much, but we still do. You mind?

Sam Drummond 31:48

If you shout enough, maybe it'll egg them up.

Stephen Jolley 31:52

Yeah, that doesn't really work from your lounge room at home, but it seems to, you still seem to do it. It's a very interesting human behaviour, isn't it? And it's worldwide, but our sporting teams, for so many of us, they're really important to us, what they do. Just a memory of the MCG, but I wasn't there, because nobody was, was in 2020, the AFL Grand Final, and Mike Brady sang up there, Kazali, to an empty MCG, or from an empty MCG, and it was sort of ghostly and sad. Grand Final Day, the MCG, stripped of what it needs for its glory. So it was great when it was filled up again in a couple of years after that. Do you remember the moment? I do.

Sam Drummond 32:55

And it seemed like that image was really a portrayal of where we were as a community right then. And that you talk about sometimes, you know, Australians live vicariously through their sporting stars and maybe we're all also living through a stadium as well and we were in that moment. Yeah. Then we went to Brisbane.

Stephen Jolley 33:28

Yes, that's right, it was in Brisbane that year. The Commonwealth Games was a great experience too in 2006, so it's so much that that stadium's done. '56 Olympics were a bit before my time, I was only four.

Sam Drummond 33:43

I don't think we're gonna see the Commonwealth Games there again. No.

Stephen Jolley 33:47

I know, well, they've lost a little bit of their gloss, haven't they?

Sam Drummond 33:50

Well, Stephen Jolley, thanks for joining us and taking us to your favourite space, the MCG. 

Stephen Jolley

Great to be with you, Sam. Thank you. 

Sam Drummond

Spaces was recorded on Wurundri, Jara and Bunurong land. Spaces was produced by Humdinger for Powered Media. The series was created by Sam Drummond with support from Emma Sharp and Lucy Griffin at Humdinger. Field audio recording by Matthew Hoffman. Editing by Simon McCulloch.