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When the Brett Stewart affair blasted its way on to the radio airwaves, the television screens and the newspaper front and back pages, the immediate reaction was what did the self-styled Eagles Angels, a group of prominent women in Sydney, make of it all.
The Angels include Johanna Griggs, Sarah Murdoch (who is often photographed in a Manly jersey), Louise Sauvage, Layne Beachley, Brooke Hanson, Melinda Gainsford-Taylor, triathlete Nici Andronicus, and Wendy Harmer, the no-nonsense comedian.
Many of the Angels are mothers.
All of them, one would guess, have come up against objectionable male macho behaviour in their private and public lives. All of them, too, have passion for rugby league generally and the Manly club in particular.
Their Angels support group for the club reflects that passion and also a PR attempt to match the ‘soccer mum’ syndrome that has helped football to spread throughout the suburbs of Sydney.
The day the Stewart affair broke in the Sydney Morning Herald, Jacquelin Magnay, an award-winning sports writer, ran an article which was headlined: Angels give their vote of support.
The vote of support, amazingly, was for Stewart and not the teenager who was allegedly harassed by the Manly star.
Harmer was quoted as saying that many of the Angels would be very pleased to provide a reference for Stewart: “On a personal basis, we have found him very respectful, well-mannered and a humble person.”
My wife (who was a founder of the Women’s Electoral Lobby in New Zealand) could not believe this statement when she read it: “Where is the concern for the young women in all of this?”, she asked.
Magnay also reported that many of the Angels were too distressed about the allegation to comment.
Again, the emphasis seemed to be on protecting Stewart rather than showing even a shred of solidarity or concern for a teenager who was put through an experience that the Angels would surely not wish any of their daughters to have to go through.
Even after Stewart was charged by the police, we are still waiting for the Eagles Angels to express their outrage at what has happened to the teenager.
For that matter, we are waiting still for them to apologise to the young woman whose father (a Manly sponsor) was hit by Anthony Watmough when he tried to stop the player from pestering his daughter at the now infamous Manly 2009 season launch.
Lenin knew a thing or two about propaganda and he used the phrase the ‘useful idiots’ to describe true believers who were prepared to put the cause ahead of the any other consideration.
The Eagles Angels have been ‘useful idiots’ for the Manly Eagles club.They had stood by their man, Stewart, despite the allegations and the court charge.
Their credibility is destroyed.
Their reason for existing, which was to show how women-friendly the rugby league code really is, has been destroyed. Their judgment is appalling.
How they could defend Stewart, before the facts of the matter had been established and later by their silence after he has been charged, defies all understanding.
How can anyone take seriously what Harmer has to say about social issues, or sports matters, when she puts forward the notion that “we found him (Stewart) very respectful, well-mannered and a humble person” as an argument against him doing what he was alleged to have done to a teenager who had none of the prestige or standing in the community that she and the other Eagles Angels had.
The point about thuggish behaviour by drunken players is that it is invariably inflicted on people who do not have the power to stop it. Even the ‘useful idiots’ should have known this.