Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise today to add my remarks to this motion of condolence at the passing of Les James Murray, AM, previously known as Laszlo Urge. I want to join the remarks made by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and my colleagues who have also spoken at this sad passing. For myself, my experience is not one of having some intricate involvement in the world game or having some intricate and detailed involvement or past history with Les, other than this: when I was a young child my dad introduced me to the great sport, as we called in the very early eighties: soccer. Dad used to play that sport. I started to play down at Armadale City with my friends from primary school. We would watch the world game on television. I still have a particular recollection of staying up really late one night to watch the FIFA 1990 World Cup. Every weekend, or as many as I could muster, I would have to specially tune the television so that we could get channel 28 reception. It was grainy—it would usually only come through in black and white—in the hills area around Perth. We couldn't get good SBS reception when I was growing up, but we could delicately tune the television and eventually bring it onto SBS and watch the world game. That is where I learnt not just about soccer, but came to know Les Murray.

To me, to all my friends and I'm sure to many people in this country, he was not only the voice but the image of soccer. He was synonymous with the world game for all of us growing up and now, more recently, watching the game on television and learning about it. That's where I moved from being a child who loved running out on the park on the weekend. I'm not saying I was very good, but I was definitely enthusiastic. It was much like my dancing, as my wife would say. From an interest in playing the world game, in running out with my mates on to a pitch, it took me into a love and a joy of understanding the game, of understanding how the game was played around the world, seeing the differences and being able to observe and understand it. It is Les who brought that to Australian television screens and to my generation. It's how we learned to play the game, because it was the only show going around that brought that to us.

Of course, I love AFL, I love rugby, I love rugby league. In fact, if there is a sport and a ball and you have to get it from one end of a field to another, I will play it and love it. But the elegance of the world game is undeniable. Les taught that to me and to so many others in this country. It took me through high school, playing football there. I even graced the senior team as the goalkeeper. It's something that has then turned into a joint love for my wife and myself. One of our first trips abroad was to Europe. We got to watch the Socceroos play Brazil in the 2006 World Cup. On further trips through Europe we have watched football games, including on our honeymoon in Barcelona.

Those unique experiences, that love and understanding of the game, was brought to me, as it was to so many, by Les. There's so much more that can be said and has been said. I don't think I can do any more justice than those comments that have already been made. So I won't try and repeat them with a litany of Les's history and individual contributions to the game, other than to make this observation, which I think has not been made hitherto. Not only was Les Murray the master of the world game and the voice and image of the world game in Australia; he was also featured in the Vaudeville Smash song Zinedine Zidane, which everyone should google on Youtube and watch to see just how eloquently he can pronounce so many difficult to pronounce—for Australians—footballers' names. It's a beautiful piece of music. It's elegant and I think it's often over looked in the discussion of Les's contribution.

In closing I pass on my condolences, and the condolences of the people of Burt and all of my friends, the people that I grew up playing soccer with. Les was such a big part of our lives growing up. Our condolences to his family. Vale Les Murray.

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