Recent events at St Kilda have caused many pundits to highlight a ‘culture problem’ within the club, many quick to point out that young men running around doing stupid things is a reflection of the problems of the club, rather than a reflection of the age group of the offenders.
You walk into any nightclub, party, sports club or any other place where 18-25s congregate and get on the booze, you’ll hear unsavoury language and see ordinary behaviour and immaturity.
These issues are not restricted to footy clubs.
Young men getting on the booze and finding trouble is something that has been going on forever and will go on forever into the future as long as we have youth and alcohol.
The difference between Nick Riewoldt and former wild-child centre half forward, Paul Van Der Haar, is that in Van Der Haar’s day, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, and no patrons at the pub who had a mobile phones equipped with a camera to capture any juicy moments.
These moments make the media for two reasons.
The first being the fact the acts perpetrated are usually of gross stupidity, the second being the fact the perpetrators’ have a public profile.
If Facebook and Twitter was around when Julia Gillard, Ted Baillieu or Simon Overland (chief commissioner of Victoria Police) were in their late teens there is a chance they would face the same issues our current batch of young sports stars face today.
The fact remains that young people (and some older) do stupid things. It does not make them any lesser or people or unfit to be a role model. It makes them human, it’s part of learning, growing and developing as a person.
I’m not condoning poor behaviour. These acts deserve a rap on the knuckles and the people carrying them out need to be read the riot act as I was when I was 18, as my father was when he was 18 and so on.
The behavioural problems are a culture of youth, not of sporting clubs. Does Swimming Australia have a bad culture because Stephanie Rice unwittingly wrote homophobic remarks on her Twitter page? Her lack of life experience meant she had no real idea the connotations of the word she used had.
When today’s crop of players hit their 40s and retire away from the media spotlight, the people of their generation with the public profiles will be our politicians, police commissioners and leaders of business and industry.
I would love to bet money that many of them will come a cropper for a Facebook photo that has been sitting there on the net for 20 years. It’s not a story today because these people are yet to gain a public profile.
Will we blame the culture of the organisation then or will we accept that this behaviour is a product of youth and the fact we were all young and stupid once upon a time?
Rob McLean
Guest
Let's not be insular ourselves Redb. The AFL, which is its responsibility, engages in a code war every time it puts together an advertisement which suggests our game is bigger than any other in this country. And, I'm sure there are journos in Melbourne who salivate over a chance to report on the latest league controversy, just as there are people in Sydney doing the same for Australian rules.
Redb
Roar Guru
What Rob said.
Redb
Roar Guru
There is no code war in Melbourne against the Rebels or Heart. It is the Sydney media and insular fans that bred this rubbish.
Redb
Roar Guru
Well again your grasp of the facts of the St Kilda situation is loose and spun to suit. You have an anti AFl agenda why dont you admit it.
Rob McLean
Guest
bollocks macavity
Nathan
Guest
Except for homosexual men, in which case she arguably did.
macavity
Guest
yup, whenever it is AFL playing up, it is "universal" yet strangely when it is RL in the news, it is an "RL culture" thing very curious... seems the only time "everyone is doing it" is when AFL is caught doing it....
JVGO
Guest
One of the issues now is that noone in Sydney ever cared about the AFL or what went on in Melbourne. WHile the Sydney media was full of AFL loving trolls like J Magnay continually muckraking RL and Fitzimmons and Spiros sitting on the high ground for union noone could have cared less about the AFL. But now with the AFL aggressively targetting GWS and RL players there is a market for Melbourne AFL scandal in Sydney. It must be embarassing for all the Swannies fans who had bought the AFL line that the code was much more civilised than RL. This is just the next step in the code war. Noone in Melbourne would have ever cared about any of this or the image of the AFL if there wasn't a marketing war going on in the Northern states that they had bought into. While Sydney has been the focus of the code war for the last 15 years, the code wars have now arrived in Melbourne with the arrival of the Rebels and Heart and everyone is suddenly worried about the image of the code, whereas before it was always boys will be boys and none of this was really even news.
plugger
Guest
It's more universal than just the AFL. I don't know why drug and alcohol abuse go hand in hand with sport and athletes. You would think they'd be anathema given the discipline that high level sports requires. It seems to show that that discipline is not innate but imposed from without. In other words, the athletes are not internally mature, they are instead the product of a control system. Hence, when those controls are relaxed, even for a short time, the athletes concerned break out like wild dogs released from a cage.
macavity
Guest
The AFL's culture problems are a product of a fawning media and win at all costs administration. We don't know the half of it - and it will probably never come out fully.
punter
Guest
Bad, bad example Albert, while I agree all football codes has young men with attitude, the use of Stephanie Rice was a poor example, she has not treated men as trash nor trampled on any cars last time I looked.
db swannie
Guest
True Albert...But as i have said before ...The NRL has come a long way in trying to clean up the code ..behaviour wise. You can teach/educate/talk to,... etc young stars ,but some of them will not get the message. Its what you punish them with,or use as a deterent punishment wise that helps keep the incidents down . That is where the NRL is a long long way in front..They are not scared to punish bad behavior..& it seems to be working (incidents are way way down). The AFL is completey the opposite...One example is what punishment was handed down to the players in the schoolgirl scandal....?Zilch,zero,none... Yet these players had broken the AFL'S own code of conduct regarding children UNDER 18.. Tell me what deterent is there when you know you wont get punished for breaching company rules. & as has been shown by the weekly bad boy behaviour so far this yr....things are not improving... & will not improve as long as they dont punish the offenders.
Albert
Guest
"The behavioural problems are a culture of youth, not of sporting clubs. Does Swimming Australia have a bad culture because Stephanie Rice" How many have condemned the NRL based on half truths and media beat ups? At the moment the AFL are going through a rough period. It will pass.
OzFootballSherrin
Roar Pro
The example of Brendon Fevola is the anomoly. In the main, young kids enter the 'system' and generally come out of it better for the experience and having grown and matured. Especially those in there for a long time. Chris Tarrant returning to Collingwood has super impressed many there (inc Nathan Buckley). His time at Freo appears to have done him well. Perhaps what Fevola needed was a change of scenery several years back. One great process of any sport is to establish yourself and gain respect at a new club. Hk47 is so right though - - the ability to 'learn' from mistakes (both your own and those of your peers - - therefore on the whole role model front, some are role models to follow the positive example of, and others serve as 'warnings').
Hk47
Guest
Young people are really really stupid. I know. I'm 17. For St kilda, you can't really fault them on what they've done. They punished this years four appropriately. The photo scandal to me didn't really need anything done about it. It's only between Riewoldt, Dal and gilbo. People do stupid things. Sensible people learn from them. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.