When Chris Davidson died last year, after being punched out and smashing his head on the pavement outside theSouth West Rocks Country Club, he joined a prestigious lineage of brilliant but cursed Australian male surfers who have self-destructed.

Although not everyone in this ‘club’ has died, they have all been shooting stars, if even for only a brief moment in time. The role they play in the vast narrative of the Australian surfing world is that of the archetypal rebel, crossbred with an Icarusian man-child. They live their lives at full throttle and often die tragically. Australian surfers love an out-of-control rebel. Particularly if they surf exceedingly well. We admire their free spirited, devil-may-care approach to life; both in the water and on the land. They do things in their own way, on their own time, and by their own rules, and are often motivated by a raging fire that burns deep within their damaged psyche. Initially, they’re driven to prove themselves, but ultimately, they’re driven to destroy themselves. It’s not pretty, but we can’t look away. More than anything, they capture the imagination of the masses, as they squander their hard-won opportunity to be inducted into the surfing world’s hall of fame, opting instead for the hall of infamy. If there were medals for dishonour, they would sweep the field. They surfed hard and played even harder. They are the ones who flew too close to the sun, and after their meteoric rise, burned out like fantastic Wickermen, torching their false selves. It’s a rare and fascinating flame that draws them in. Predictably, there’s a never-ending supply of sycophantica colytes who willingly keep that fire well stoked. I should know, I’m their biggest fan. I’ve known only a few of them, but those few I’ve known well. It’s from these close friendships that I’ve formed the ‘Dark Lineage’ theory and provide first-hand accounts of what I witnessed.

Bobby Brown

Little Cronulla natural-footer, Bobby Brown, was a super stylish surfer who pioneered ‘inside the curl’ pocket surfing in Australia in the mid-1960s. He surfed for the Wanda Surf Club beating Midget Farrelly to win the 1964 NSW State Titles. He went on to place sixth at the World Surfing Championships at Manly; the youngest finalist, at 18 years. Hewas also featured in Bob Evans’ surfing movies The Young Wave Hunters (1964)and A Life in the Sun (1966). Midget Farrelly wrote of him: “He was a breath of fresh air. He was a Prince of a guy. The whole southside felt that way about him.”

He was reportedly a lovely bloke. “Bobby Brown was too nice a boy to win surfing contests,” Lester Brien wrote for Surfing World. But he had a rebellious streak. If the surf was good, he sometimes abandoned where he was expected to go surfing (for contests or photo shoots) and sought out the best waves he could find elsewhere. In the 1965 National Titles, rather than surf the tiny waves of the contest at Manly, he ventured up the coast to Curl Curl, where the surf was much bigger. Midget was quoted years later assaying: “This was typical of Bobby. He was a man of action, not of words.” Bobby admitted..“[Some things] are too restrictive for a wanderer like myself.”

Graham Cassidy observed: “He was sort of an early version of Wayne Lynch. Trying new manoeuvres. Driving down the South Coast by himself looking for surf. He had so much ability. He had his own attitude, his own style. Bobby was a free thinker and spurned all the media fanfare.” Brown’s ultra-smooth radical surfing was featured alongside Kevin ‘The Head’ Brennan in Paul Witzig’s Hot Generation (1967). The sequence of Bobby and Kevin ripping up the sand-bottom break at Tallow Beach in Byron Bay became iconic. This segment was filmed only a few months before the shortboard revolution and captured the final stages of the peak of longboard surfing on the East Coast of Oz.

Bobby shaped surfboards for Gordon and Smith, who released his stringerless model in 1967. He was also engaged to be married, but on August the 19th of that year he was killed. Lester Brien covered the story for Surfing World: “He walked into the Taren Point Hotel on a rainy day in August, had a few drinks, became involved in an argument, a glass broke, a jugular vein cut. Bobby Brown died in Sutherland District Hospital 40 hours later. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in ‘Death Notices’: “Brown, Robert Eric- August 21st, 1967, at hospital, late of 31 Girrilang Road, Cronulla, dearly beloved son of Mr and Mrs John and Gladys Brown, and beloved brother of John and Terry. Aged 20 years. In God’s care.

Bobby was already a legend in the surfing world, but his violent death became even more well known than him. The Sydney newspapers had a field day with it. “SURF STAR KILLED BY GLASS;POLICE SAY” – the headlines shrieked. The story catapulted Bobby into folklore and his name became synonymous with that of the ultra-talented but untameable Australian male surfer. In fact, as a kid, all I knew of Bobby Brown was that someone had “glassed him in the jugular.” It was the first time I’d heard the terms ‘glassed’ and ‘jugular,’ and for me, both words became forever intertwined with the legend of Bobby Brown.

There was at the time an international legend of swash buckling Australian men, like Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, who were not only gifted, but loved to drink and brawl. Bobby’s untimely death resonated dramatically throughout the surfing world and as the story changed overtime, he grew to represent the archetype that would haunt Australian surf for decades to come. Andrew McKinnon surmised: “Sergeant Pepper’s was released the month Bobby died; everything was changing. Very quickly it was as though he had been from an age of innocence, another era, and you can only guess how Bobby would have turned out. In our minds he will be forever young.” I often wondered whether Bobby was the genesis of the lineage of bad boys in Australian surfing. He was not a bad boy himself, but the legend of his death intoxicated a generation, some of whom set out to emulate him. It may not be entirely coincidental that the next famous Australian surfer to die in infamy was his little mate, Kevin Brennan.