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Right, let’s start this with saying in no way do I advocate any form of racism. Instead, this article is about the crowd’s right to boo.
Whose decision was it to hijack the term ‘racism’ and slap it on the act of booing a footy player, and thus render a crowd tactic that while benign, has been a part of nearly every sport since the dawn of time, useless?
As a young 10-year-old at the ‘Gabba I encountered Adam Goodes, and I mustered up all my might and let him know I didn’t like that he played for Sydney. I also let Ryan O’Keefe, Adam Schneider, Amon Buchanon and Jarrad Sundqvist know of my dislike of their jersey colour at other times throughout the game.
That’s not to say I spent the entire game booing, I cheered loudly for my heros Michael Voss and Alistair Lynch, I appreciated the ferocity of the Scott brothers, and I cheered when Justin Leppitsch would take a mark at halfback to stop a Swans foray.
But sadly, if 10-year-old me went to the footy today and booed, I would be shunned, frowned upon, and spoken ill of because I dared to boo Adam Goodes.
Apparently Jim Wilson has said he has noticed that the booing of Adam Goodes has increased since last year.
His kid asked, ‘Why they are booing him?’
Is it possibly because of incidents where Goodes hasn’t been suspended for foul play?
Is it because he’s a good player and some fans still subscribe to the school of thought that booing a team’s best player will hopefully put him off?
Nup, must be racism!
And why is it that only when Adam Goodes gets booed that it’s suddenly racism?
I didn’t see anyone saying that booing Lance Franklin was racist, everyone just accepted it because he jumped ship for some extra cash.
It seems that we openly accept booing some players but not others. But aren’t all footballers equal?
That’s where we are now. We can’t boo.
The select few have spoken, and like one of my English teachers, they have taken a hidden meaning or theme from this and announced it as reality and an issue.
So what next, where do we draw the line? Am I allowed to say that I don’t like the Swans anymore?
Am I to hide my dislike for Collingwood or Port?
What about if a fan goes to a game and doesn’t like Luke Hodge? Can they boo him or is that too much?
Surely we should be more concerned with the frivolity that the racism card has been tossed around. If we use it for this, then it de-values serious offences like the weekend gone or like the Essendon fan earlier in the year, and it means people turn off.
Stop me if I step too far.
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