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Bernie Vince taking a diving mark during the Round 3 AFL match between Port Adelaide Power and the Adelaide Crows at AAMI Stadium. GSP Images
Switching on the TV on Easter Monday, I found myself watching parts of Geelong’s blockbuster AFL clash with Hawthorn at the MCG. I had little idea of what was going on, but one thing that caught my eye was how long players from each side spent prostrate on the turf.
Since I originally hail from western Sydney – where AFL penetration ranks somewhere between zero to non-existent – I wouldn’t know my fullback from my full-forward.
Needless to say, my interest in the game was minimal, but it didn’t stop Channel Ten’s commentators from breathlessly announcing just how much the “traditional” clash was part of the fabric of Australian culture.
This came as news to me – since I don’t think I’ve ever taken notice of an Aussie Rules match before – and I’d have thought nothing more of my dabble in this strangely foreign sport were it not for a couple of articles by Roar reader Luc Knight last week.
If Luc was looking to stir up the masses, he certainly managed to do just that with a piece entitled “Why football struggles for support in Australia.”
His contention was a noble one – that diving is a blight on the round-ball game.
However, many readers took Luc’s claim that diving was holding back football in Australia as a thinly-veiled attack on the game.
He followed it up with another piece called “Diving in football the best advertisement for other sports,” and this time he quoted Melbourne Victory skipper Kevin Muscat for good measure.
Now, I think it’s great that Luc has shared his personal thoughts on football, and just like Kevin Muscat, he’s certainly entitled to his opinions.
But I don’t agree with his assertion that diving is what’s holding back potential supporters from pouring through A-League turnstiles.
If Australians find going to ground so culturally offensive, I wonder why there were around 70,000 fans inside the MCG on Easter Monday when both Geelong and Hawthorn players seemed to tumble over with dizzying frequency.
And of the many problems currently plaguing the A-League, diving would have to rate somewhere between lousy weather and the lack of hot pies at the concession stands as a genuine concern for Football Federation Australia.
None of this would bother me if it weren’t for the fact that so many within the AFL – from the likes of Andrew Demetriou to the most casual of supporters – seem to consider it their personal duty to lecture football fans on why the round-ball code will “never be the Number 1 sport in Australia.”
Most A-League fans couldn’t care less whether football is the Number 1 code or not, but I can guarantee that it gets incredibly tiresome to hear from folks who have little interest in football about what it should do to attract more fans.
If a few Brazilian prima-donnas trying to milk fouls in the Asian Champions League is enough to put some Australians off ever watching the round-ball game, I can’t help but point out that football will go on without them.
Far from football needing to change to suit the sensibilities of a few disgruntled Australian hold-outs, it’s certain Australians who need to come to grips with the fact that the game is already pretty popular around the globe – with or without their support.
And those who claim that they won’t watch the A-League because of diving are probably being a bit disingenous – I’m Australian, I dislike diving, but the sheer drama of an average football match far outweighs the occasional instances of play-acting.
With the World Cup finals just over fifty days away, long-suffering football fans can expect another flood of barely disguised anti-football rhetoric to hit our media.
But personally, I’d rather see some so-called “divers” go around than watch another game of Aussie Rules.