Murray Cods’ centennial year begins with hall of fame induction

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A century ago, a working-class rowing team from a tiny river town made it all the way to the Olympic Games.

Depleted by World War I, doubted by the elite rowing clubs in Sydney and Melbourne, denied funding by national authorities, they made it all the way from the bush to Paris anyway.

The Murray Cods were perhaps the original Australian underdogs.

No, they didn’t win the gold medal – their story is more Cool Runnings than Miracle.

But they did create a legend that has been told and re-told since 1924.

Now, in their centennial year, the Murray Bridge rowing crew is being celebrated anew, starting with their induction to the South Australian Sport Hall of Fame on Friday night.

“This is an extraordinary story,” filmmaker Wayne Groom said at the induction.

“The underdog beats everybody in Australia and goes to the Olympics, and it’s Murray Bridge versus Italy … you can’t believe that that could happen in real life.”

“They were (full of) the Australian spirit, prepared to have a go,” Murray Bridge Rowing Club’s Peter Newell said.

“Bugger what anyone else thinks, they’d just go and do it.”

The secret to their success was coach Teddy Higgs, who introduced them to a new style of rowing: less stiff and upright than the style used by the upper-class toffs in the big cities.

“They called them the raggedy eight, but (Higgs) knew: mileage makes champions,” Mr Groom said.

They won the King’s Cup, Australia’s premier rowing race, three times in the lead-up to the Olympics, earning them the right to represent the nation in Paris; but the selection committee decided teams from interstate should have the right to challenge them in a test race at Port Adelaide, held 100 years ago this Friday.

Murray Bridge proved better than the rest again.

Even then, they faced more adversity before they ever reached Paris.

“After winning the test race, they were told ‘you’ll have to fund yourself’,” Mr Newell recounted.

“The town got behind them, Rowing SA got behind them, the Governor and Sir (Sidney) Kidman all backed them, and they got the funds to go.”

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They faced more adversity when they reached France, playing music in dance halls to make a living, rowing their boat across Paris on the day before the race, and enduring dysentery.

They wound up losing to Italy in their heat, then finished third in a repechage, leaving them to wonder what might have been.

They defeated the gold medal-winning Americans at the Tailteann Games in Ireland only a few weeks later.

Almost 50 Murray Bridge supporters made it to Friday night’s induction ceremony at Adelaide Oval, including – from around the country – descendants of several of the original crew members.

John Sullivan OAM, one of Mr Higgs’ grandsons, said the Cods’ story felt “very, very personal” to him – he spent his early childhood in his grandparents’ care in Murray Bridge.

“It’s an incredible story,” he said.

“The Cods proved that the working class could compete with the elitists in Australian sport.”

Peter Higgs, another grandson, said it had been about time the rowers were recognised.

Their story had been told before: by Mike Sexton in a 2005 book about South Australian sporting history, by Mr Groom and Carolyn Bilsborow in their 2016 documentary film Paris or the Bush, and even by Breaker Morant playwright Kenneth Ross in an as-yet unmade screenplay.

But the hall of fame induction means their achievements will be remembered around the state for years to come.

It won’t be the last celebration of the Murray Cods in 2024, either.

Rowing club secretary Stacy Seidel hoped to commemorate the Cods’ Olympic trip with an event of some kind in Murray Bridge in July.

The date would coincide not only with the centenary of the 1924 games, but also with the rowing events at this year’s Paris Olympics.

“We’d like to light up the town hall with pictures of the Cods and rename Bridge Street for a week, with flags down the main street,” she said, noting that it was just an idea at this stage.

The club’s annual regatta in November will be another opportunity to celebrate, perhaps with commemorative programs and a brass band – though probably not with a rifle salute, like they would have had at races 100 years ago.

The rowing club plans to release a set of commemorative memorabilia, too, and Murray Bridge News is planning its own tribute.

When those eight rowers set out on the River Murray a century ago, they couldn’t have known what they were starting.

• Watch Paris or the Bush in full: www.youtube.com/@austintpic.