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Something struck me this weekend, as I sat, eyes flitting back and forth lazily like summer flies, from the oddly hypnotic bags under Ned Zelic’s eyes, to the airbrushed part in Mark Bosnich’s smoothed-down assemblage of gossamer scalp fibres he calls hair.
Like a limp slap from a stubbly Uruguayan, I was roused suddenly by the thought; this is all a bit much, isn’t it?
Jade North and the Brisbane Roar came out yesterday, issuing a joint statement like some adulterous politician and his stoic peroxide wife, apologising for the defender’s actions in the match against Melbourne City this weekend.
In case you aren’t already aware, in that match a brief scuffle between North and City’s Bruno Fornaroli ended in North writhing around on the floor in agony. What could Fornaroli have done, you might ask, to cause such grievous harm?
Perhaps he had reached in and plucked out one of North’s teeth? Perhaps he had gouged an eye, karate-chopped a trachea, or fish-hooked a cheek? He might even, heaven forbid, have moistened a finger and inflicted a dreaded wet-willy!
No, he’d lightly brushed his fingers over North’s head, a half-slap, more of a caress that slipped almost lovingly down the Roar defender’s face. At this point, with such a heady cocktail of available options, North had to make a decision. Before him, jutting out his chin and backing away slowly was the league’s best player, the most fouled attacker in the competition, who himself has very little aversion to a spot of embellishment, often following what was clearly a glancing blow off an armoured shin with a reaction that would more suit a David Cronenberg death scene, or a Evangelical exorcism.
Perhaps, North thought, he had seen him do just that earlier in this very game, screaming too loud at too little contact, flying too far from too little a nudge. Yes, yes, North concluded, this is the sort of player I hate, that makes my job so very hard, and, joy of joys, he’s just touched my face in a naughty way. Oh my, this is rich; I’ll give him a taste of his own medicine. Down I go!
Unfortunately for North, the referee didn’t see Fornaroli’s hand. Even worse, his entire inner monologue was captured in perfect slow-motion clarity by the cameras, the clanking of his cerebral gears, the brief turn toward the referee before the agonised collapse, every embarrassment was recorded.
The final indignity exacted was that, as the ball was still actually in play, Melbourne City promptly went and scored their equaliser. It was, both personally and professionally for North, a car crash of a sequence.
But, let’s hasten to add, not something that warrants the fallout that has followed. Yes, North’s acting was awful, and the intent behind his histrionics was indeed distasteful. But the manner in which he has been scorned, as words like disgraceful and appalling are bandied about casually, betrays a certain anxiety Australian football holds.
Firstly, very few people have mentioned that touching another person’s face, however lightly, is not something a footballer should do. As much as North’s farcical response has drowned it out, Fornaroli’s action is also worthy of a tut or two.
But more pertinently, this sort of incident is commonplace in football leagues around the world, and would not linger in the headlines – let alone warrant a club statement – in Europe or South America, even in England. But here, surrounded as it is by other more established sporting codes that revel in their concussive combat and sneer at football’s comparatively limited contact, our game and the voices in it have developed something of a complex.
A siege mentality, developed over years having to defend ourselves from bigoted ‘poofter-ball’ cat-callers has made us even more critical of the players inside the citadel who let the team down, gurning and parping until red in the face just to prove to everyone that we hate it even more than they do.
A friend of mine said he had been watching the match – which ended 1-1 – with a troop of his AFL-loving chums. Knowing looks were exchanged as North crumpled, and a deep blush spread across my pal’s face.
Of course this particular incident has been intensified, because North’s play-acting caused his teammates to stop defending – which, in truth, isn’t really his fault – as City waltzed through to score.
The fact it involved Fornaroli also has spiced the issue. Make no mistake, if retroactive yellow cards were possible, North would fully deserve one. But it all seems a little hysterical, especially when John van’t Schip is heard pouring scorn on North, accusing him of trying to get Fornaroli sent off, when in week four of this season, against Adelaide, Neil Kilkenny did this. The difference between the two situations is minimal, one could argue, as hypocrisy rises like a choking mist.
Is North’s acting as worthy of contempt as, say, this Brendon Santalab tackle, or any other act with bone-snapping intent? Or are we reeling from it as a sort of culturally imposed reflex, assuring our bigger, more muscular cousins that we’re not the wimps they think we are.