I am a football lover. I love the game, and used to play the game, until I broke my nose. Now I watch the game. By football of course I am speaking of Australian rules (as if there's any other kind). I love fotty more than any of my other friends, and consequently know a lot about the game. Various other friends of mine have passing interest in fottball or in soccer, but mainly the name of the game is Video for my friends, thus I have no one to vent my football anger to.
One of the things I hate at the football is fighting. Football is an agressive game, it is one of the few games that actually requires strategy and a range of different skills while still allowing tackling and bumping. Sometimes this combination makes the crowd think that they are equally as tough as the fottballers, which leads to swearing, snide remarks and sometimes fighting. The most common supporters to start fights are Collingwood supporters, but I guess when you have the biggest supporter base you also have the biggest annoying supporter base.
The other week though, the supporter was an Adelaide Crow, at the showdown, who was understandably upset that his team, the clear favourites, where not performing to standard. In his anger, he grabbed the flag of an elderly port power supporter and snapped it over his leg. Completely out of the blue. The man was furious and tried to run at the man, but my father and another man held him back and called security, who promptly threw the crows supporter out of the grounds.
It irritates me that these people give a bad reputation to all footy supporters. I am very level headed, and the only time I lose my cool is when the umpires make a dangerous mistake. This happened in the most recent game I attended, Port Power V Hawthorn. As a supporter who sits on the less popular attacking wing (for some reason one wing at Aami is heavily favoured over the other) I had a clear view of a violent fight which broke out between what seemed to me to be Cyril Rioli of Hawthorn and Paul Stewart of Port Adelaide.
Now when I say, 'a fight broke out' it implies reciprocity, but this fight was more awful as it was only Cyril Rioli holding Stewart on the ground and punching him repeatedly in the stomach as he tried to get away. None of the umpires noticed this, even after the crowd near us began screaming and pointing to draw attention. Even then, in the time that it took between Cyril Rioli's first hit and the umpires' subsequent noticing of the fight, Hawthorn had take the ball from centre half forward and moved gradually forward to score a goal (around 1.5 mins). The umpires only noticed after several players had joined the fight, with Port players attempting to pull off Rioli and Hawthawn players attempting to pull of Port Players. None of the initial fight was seen by umpires or caught on camera.
Later in the fight, it is my understanding that Cyril Rioli hit Nick Salter, which resulted in him being offered a one match ban. One match. Because the umpires didn't notice the start of the fight and the cameras didn't catch it. What a disgrace. About 5 years ago, Port Power player Byron Pickett scored a SIX MATCH BAN for a dangerous bump, a bump that was perfectly within the rules, but which was deemed 'dangerous.' Cyril Rioli, for beating another player, got one match, because the umpires weren't paying attention, and the AFL didn't wish to draw attention to the incident.
I have a great deal of respect for the umpires, but out of six, ONE should have noticed the fight. After noticing the fight, the goal should have been discounted. There were many other poor umpiring decisions, including the failure to pay a mark OR call a head high bump, when a Port player marked the ball and then was forced to drop it after a Hawthorn player collided dangerously with his head.
It's things like this, more than anything, that make me feel disgust at the AFL system. If they won't protect the players, football will quickly become a violent, violent game, and what we love about it, will become what we hate about it.
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