December 1998 Volume 79 Number 12 "serving the protectors"
Police Work? Not For KG
By Brett Williams

Channel Nine’s veteran sports presenter, Ken “KG” Cunningham, fears that police officers’ involvement in sports’ elite levels may soon end. It’s a prospect which saddens KG: in 32 years of sports commentary, he’s enjoyed watching some “very talented” SA police sportspeople.

But the increasing demands of both police work and big-business sports are, he believes, making their participation near impossible.

“It’s very tough,” he says. “We’re seeing clubs train at 3:00 o’clock of an afternoon (while) some clubs train at midday - and they’re training five or six days a week.

“So, it would be a very difficult job to be a member of the police force and try to play elite sport, because the demands are so strong from clubs. They just demand players be at the club, be at training and do all sorts of things.

“(And) today, there’s so much emphasis on fitness at the AFL level - football’s almost a full-time job.

“In my day you could play footy in winter and cricket in summer, but now that’s just ‘out of here’ because the seasons overlap.”

And the “my day” to which KG refers was when he played over 100 State cricket matches for South Australia from 1961. When his time with the State side was up in 1974, he had been captain eight times and scored over 5,000 runs. He also toured New Zealand with the Australian second eleven in 1965-66.

During two decades of district cricket with Adelaide, KG enjoyed two premierships as captain. He also played with the Sturt Cricket Club for six years and captain-coached its ’77 premiership team.

Because of an injury, his football career didn’t advance beyond junior level with West Adelaide. So, to maintain his fitness in the winter-sport season, KG took up football umpiring on the advice of his father, who was himself an umpire.

KG umpired 145 SANFL games - including four grand finals - between 1963 and 1966.

He discovered the art of sports commentary in 1968 and began a new career at Channel Nine, where he’s now worked for over 30 years. His media workload increased with a radio drive-time sports show which he introduced to the airwaves in 1977.

His highlights have been Channel Nine’s Sunday Footy Show of the late ’60s and his own KG’s Footy Show which ran through the ’70s and ’80s.

For his contribution to sport, KG was awarded an AM (Australian Medal) in 1990.

Of his life as both a competitor and commentator, KG, now 59, says he’s been blessed. “I just couldn’t imagine my life without it (sports commentary),” he says. “I just thank the Lord upstairs for giving me what’s been a wonderful lifestyle. I’ve been so lucky.”

But while KG regards himself as “blessed”, he sees practitioners of the police occupation as not so lucky.

“I wouldn’t do their job for all the money in the world,” he says. “I admire the police for what they do, because they’re protecting you and me.

“What we’re seeing now in our community - which really worries me - is this drug scene. It’s one thing that I hate.

“And when police are confronted with people who are affected with drugs, I don’t envy them at all.

“You get criticisms in the public where a policeman has shot a person coming at him with a knife. I don’t blame them at all. If a person was coming at me with a knife and I was the policeman, of course I’d shoot them.”

KG also welcomes the police presence at the many sporting events he attends and on which he comments. He says the way police officers deal with drunk and boisterous patrons is “terrific”.

“I’d like to see more police,” he says, “particularly at Crows’ games. You’ve crowds of nearly 50,000 people, and you hear of ‘dust-ups’ among the spectators themselves.”

But should police ever move to contain violence among footballers on the field? KG says that such intervention is appropriate when players are fighting beyond the boundary line, or anywhere near spectators.

“I think the police do have a role to play there,” he says, “because we’d hate to see those players get involved in a scuffle and then have it erupt into the spectators.

“(But) I don’t think the police should get involved if there’s a dust-up on the ground. That should be controlled by the men out there umpiring the game.”

Himself once embroiled in an off-field incident, KG was greatly relieved to see the police. He’d publicly denounced Port Adelaide’s attempt to join the AFL in 1990, and was the following Saturday calling a game at Alberton oval.

“I had to leave the game early,” he says. “As I walked down from the commentary area into the terrace, people were kicking and pushing me. Thankfully, the police got involved - and I was lucky they were there.”

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