|PIC1|M V Tronson says that he cannot remember a year when numerous motor vehicles hadn't sported streamers of their team's colours throughout the month of September. Moreover, he recalls, that he was unable to remember any motor vehicle sporting the colours of those teams that did not reach the finals!
"There is clearly a sense in which 'the colours' have played a role in our lives and this idea goes back to the ancients," M V Tronson noted.
'Showing the colours' is a term that is well recognised from military history associated with both land forces and naval engagements. In times when the 'troops' could not read, and in times before they could be contacted by radio or phone, coloured flags were an important way to show those of the same 'troop' or 'team' where they should be, and when. It was also important in showing who was 'friend' and who was 'enemy', and for the landed gentry, whose 'household' people belonged to.
These simple 'colours' later developed into flags, some with 'coats of arms' and other symbols. A further development was to create a sense of 'bravado' among like-minded groups, as if to frighten off the enemy, which we can still experience with the New Zealand Maori 'Hakka'.
Children are introduced to aligning themselves to 'the colours' through junior sports and their colourful uniforms. M V Tronson said that his junior hockey club colours (Canberra Baptist Hockey Club) were a bright red and yellow, the same shades of red and yellow as the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee had for their armies of volunteers and officials.
"In the early 1970's working as a locomotive engineman at the Port Kembla Locomotive Depot, I was worshipping at the Port Kembla Baptist Church and served as a Sunday School teacher. In order to attract more boys to Sunday School, I remembered the passion for sport during my boyhood years in Canberra, and I established a Port Kembla Baptist Junior Hockey Club," M V Tronson stated.
There were so many boys wanting to play hockey, M V Tronson recalls, that he had to hire a commercial bus every Saturday morning to transport them. One of his enginemen friends, a father of one of the lads rode 'shotgun' on the bus so as to ensure decorum.
"Obviously the same bright red and yellow of my Canberra Baptist Hockey Club boyhood years were chosen as the 'colours'. As we had two teams in each age group one team was called the 'Red and Yellows', with red and yellow checkered shirts; and the other was the 'Red with Yellow Stripes', with a red shirt with a vertical yellow stripe on the left side," M V Tronson mused.
"Those boys loved their colours as did I, and more so, they took great pride in their teams. The parents loved it as their young boys were not divided into an A team or a B team, rather by 'colours'," M V Tronson said. [Canberra Baptist had junior girls netball teams but there was not a young woman at Port Kembla Baptist who could get junior girls into netball teams].
Christians too, M V Tronson has noted, have placed an emphasis on colours, that for those within the sacramental wing of the church (Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican) there are different colours displayed for the various celebrations throughout the calendar year.
Non-Conformist Protestants (Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Salvation Army, Uniting Church, Churches of Christ and numerous other denominations) have had a very different use for 'colours', as here the emphasis was on 'Preaching of Word'!
"Since the Reformation the terminology within this tradition has been that of hyperbole, that of placing ones 'colours' to the mast of Christ. It has been a clarion call to stand tall with vigour and determination as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ," M V Tronson stated.
This has been a spiritual battle cry for the hearts and minds in each generation.