Darren Lockyer Road, Mal Meninga Drive, Arthur Beetson Way… either the game has really taken off in Juba, or someone’s having a laugh. We launched an investigation to find out
This incongruous road nomenclature, half a world away from Queensland in Australia, where the rugby league great is a household name, first came to my attention via a tweet. Not just any tweet – an official government tweet.
The Bulletin had even reached out to Miles himself, a former Broncos captain, who had no explanation. “Maybe it’s just an Australian ex-pat who is a town planner there,” Miles said at the time. “I’m not sure I want to rush over there and drive down the streets, though”. “As my travel budget is limited, health not what it used to be and many places would be rather risky to visit, I zoom in to locations currently in the news,” McQuinn had said. “South Sudan and Juba are in the news … So I thought I should familiarise myself with the area. I looked for the base and airport where fighting was reported and up popped the league player streets.”Having identified the source, I set off for Juba – or at least, satellite images of the city on Google Earth.
It was a disheartening finding. Perhaps far from being an unlikely tale of international admiration for Maroons greats, there was a more straightforward explanation: a Google Earth vandal, whose work had spread across to Google Maps. Over time the invented street names had been removed, but Darren Lockyer Road lived on for the hotel and commercial centre – a fake street name with meaning only for rugby fans on the other side of the world.
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