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Post by Adz on Oct 12, 2007 21:29:08 GMT 10
I hope we get a roof
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Post by Adz on Oct 12, 2007 21:29:32 GMT 10
and a portable beer stand thing so we dont have to walk around to the side
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Post by yellowcake on Oct 14, 2007 11:53:37 GMT 10
Back to topic. Some reasonable sense in today's Sun Herald... Crowd trouble? You should go to a one-dayer
Richard Hinds
October 14, 2007
THE most frightened I've ever been among a crowd of so-called sports fans I wasn't even at the game. I was on an Underground train in central London having wedged myself into a packed carriage before realising it was filled with some rather angry fans of a northern football club who had just seen their team humiliated by a hated rival.
To this day, I'm still not sure what I did to deserve having a pair of prison-tattooed knuckles wrapped around my throat. I might have accidentally bumped one of the shaved-headed morons as I scrambled aboard or just looked at them "funny like".
Whatever it was, I'm certain it was only the neutrality of an Australian accent and some rather grovelling compliments about the skills of their club's star striker that saved me from a frightful beating - and probably condemned the next innocent, pasty-faced commuter to that fate.
This happened in 1990, just after the so-called glory days of English football hooliganism. About the time of the crackdown on fan violence, the mandatory installation of all-seater stadiums and the gradual increase in ticket prices ensured the once-feral world of the old English first division gave way to the relatively genteel world of the Premier League.
However, even then, on my regular visits to watch some less popular and threatening top-flight clubs - and they didn't come much less popular or threatening than my club, Queens Park Rangers - there was still enough argy-bargy from visiting fans and hint of "bovver" in the air to make you realise just how lucky Australian football fans of all descriptions were to enjoy their non-segregated, trouble-free football lives.
Which, via the cape, brings us to the supposed trouble that allegedly marred the A-League match between Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory last Saturday night.
The crowd disturbances that, according to the most hysterical accounts, supposedly exposed the threat of violent troublemakers among soccer fans and featured violence that harked back to the worst excesses of the old NSL.
However, from some independent reports of what took place at Sydney Football Stadium, what the incidents really harked back to was the (very recent) days when any minor crowd issue at a football match was magnified by those who want to condemn the game for the sins of its past - or just condemn it anyway.
What happened? An idiotic Victory fan ran into the Sydney fans. A flare was lit before he was ejected. Some plastic cups were thrown at referee Mark Shield, who had sent off Sydney's Steve Corica. Certainly not what the family-friendly A-League wants. But hardly the sort of thing that eventually forced Maggie Thatcher to give hooliganism the old Falkland Islands treatment.
But as the football officials who were forced by the negative publicity to make contrite remarks about taking a "tough stance" are well aware, Australian football has a target on its back. Because of past sins, both real and imagined, the behaviour of its fans will always be held to a much higher account than those in other sports.
The best example of that came last summer in the home of big sporting crowds, Melbourne, when, within the space of a few days, 190 people were expelled from a crowd of 79,000 at a one-day international and three of the 50,000 at a Melbourne Victory game were tossed out.
I was at both games and felt far more threatened at the one-dayer by the bored, liquored-up teenagers whose sole purpose seemed to be inflating beach balls and abusing cops than at the Victory game where, apart from a few idiots, the focus and energy of the crowd was centred on the play. But no prizes for guessing which sport was accused by the editorialists of harbouring hooligans and thugs.
Which is not to say football is blameless. One area in which the sport continually lets itself down is its failure to adequately protect the referee. Not from the fans, but from the players who are allowed to touch and jostle officials after controversial decisions.
No wonder, then, fans feel emboldened. Even more so when Sydney coach Branko Culina uses the crowd's reaction to vindicate his own attack on Shield's performance.
FFA chief executive Ben Buckley came from the AFL, where there is a zero tolerance approach to the manhandling and criticism of officials. That is the one thing that should have been emphasised after the Sydney-Melbourne game. Otherwise, I've had more frightening train trips. |
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Post by greenpoleffc on Oct 14, 2007 13:32:47 GMT 10
Great article, balanced and objective.
Couple of slight errors though.
1) Branko (as part of SFC) is above the rules that govern us mere mortals
2) The FFA happily allows assaults on officials to go unpunished (Griffiths).
Quite right about QPR mind, horrible place to visit
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