Currie: 'The day a young Allan Langer found my brother'
New book Maroon Mentality explores the challenges, inspirations and hidden history that forged the resolve of all 203 Queensland State of Origin players. This exclusive extract tells the story of just one of those players - Tony Currie.
TONY CURRIE
FOG #31
1982, 84-85, 87-89
A teenage Allan ‘Alfie’ Langer helped Tony Currie reconnect with a brother he’d never met.
“I’d always been told growing up by relatives ‘Don’t be surprised if another sibling pops up’,” Currie revealed to Maroon Mentality.
“When Allan Langer (FOG #50) was going to school out Ipswich way he used to say to this other kid ‘Gee you look like that footballer from Wests, Tony Currie’.
“So, this kid did his research and sure enough, turns out he’s my younger brother Brett who was adopted out as a baby. He got in touch and yes, we do look incredibly similar.”
Currie had a disjointed family as a child, but you’d expect he might bristle at the suggestion it was a ‘broken’ home.
“Look, I understand my Mum’s decision,” Currie affirmed.
“You can imagine what it would have been like for a young Aboriginal woman in the 1960s to be raising five children on her own.
“Those were tough times. She did her best. Mum worked day and night.”
Currie did not know his real father until just before his 50th birthday, instead growing up with his step-father Mike from the age of five.
“It was Christmas Day one year and my mum said to my wife Moira that I wasn’t myself…that I’d been quite distant,” Currie recalls.
“And Moira replied that I was missing that other half to my life (his father’s side).
“I’d already gone to bed, but that night Mum revealed the name ‘Dale Cecil’. Mum never wanted to talk about it with me and I’d grown up thinking I was perhaps the result of a sexual assault, so I never pushed too far for an answer. But once I had that name, I began a quest.
“I ended up finding just one person with the same surname in the Wynnum area, where we thought they might be. I rang up and said ‘Hi, I’m Tony Currie, do you know who I am?’. The voice at the other end of the phone line just said ‘Of course, you’re my nephew’. They knew exactly who I was all along.
“Dad called me the next year and, I don’t know if it was spiritual, but it was definitely comforting hearing his voice. We’ve kept in touch.”
Tony did plenty of moving house as a child, and had attended five primary schools by the time he was 12. He started out living in Housing Commission and attending Inala State School, but also went to West End State School, Holland Park State School, Dutton Park State School, all in Brisbane, as well as Granville State School in Maryborough.
The move to Maryborough was to be closer to Tony’s inspirational grandfather Stokel Currie, who grew up on Fingal Aboriginal Reserve in northern New South Wales, played representative football against the leading lights of his era, then moved to Hervey Bay.
“Jack Reardon the former Australian five-eighth and rugby league reporter for The Courier-Mail once asked me if I was Stokel’s grandson,” Currie revealed.
“He said ‘I marked your grandfather in a game once and he was lightning. I didn’t mind being beaten, but it was the fact he wore no boots…that hurt me’.
“My grandfather was also a great cricketer and fisherman. People say he was one of the best rugby league players to come out of the Northern Rivers.
“Unfortunately, he passed away in the 1970s while fishing off Hervey Bay. There’s a monument at Urangan dedicated to all those lost at sea, and his name is there.”
“Jack Reardon sent money up to go towards the funeral.”
Tony’s other strong male role model was uncle Alan Currie who played for Easts Tigers. Tony used to watch every game of his uncle’s and even worked as his offsider on a brewery truck.
He said he modelled his life on Alan’s and noted his enduring marriage, work ethic and feats in winning the Rothman’s Medal ran an eerie parallel.
“I grew up in Easts territory, followed Easts all my life, then strangely decided at age nine I wanted to play for Wests Panthers, which I did all the way through to seniors,” Currie laughed.
“I liked their flamboyant style. They were kind of the rock star team back then. So, I used to get driven across town just to train at Gilbert Park, where Broncos Leagues Club is now.”
With the lasting switch to the colours of red-and-black, Currie eventually moved house to Red Hill and attended Kelvin Grove State High, where he was a high achiever in both scholastics and sports.
“We won a metropolitan schools title with Joe Kilroy (FOG #55) playing hooker and me as the halfback,” said Currie.
“Kelvin Grove was at the forefront of multiculturalism as a school and there were lots of students from China, Korea and throughout Europe, so racism wasn’t a big problem for me.
“I have to say I wouldn’t be where I am today without the peer groups I’ve had. I’ve had long-lasting, true friends who always supported me and didn’t pull me towards any crap.
“My advice to any kids is that it’s crucial you surround yourself with the right people. As they say: Lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”
Currie said he didn’t do drugs or smoke, and didn’t drink much alcohol before 24 “aside from a few Normy Carr (FOG #14) pushed into me”.
