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The Boxing Day derby did more than settle a local grudge match, it also marked the appearance of a frequent visitor: the anti-football nutter. What is it about this time of year that brings out the anti-A-League brigade?
It seems we can’t go a single summer without a random ‘sports fan’ arriving at the earth-shattering conclusion the sport’s best players don’t play in the A-League.
The latest in a long line of detractors is journalist Cate Swannell, who yesterday wrote a bizarre editorial for the Gold Coast Bulletin.
”FFA and Fox can tell us how good the Australian competition is as much as they like, they can’t hide the fact that our best players go where the money and the quality play is – Europe and Asia.”
Really? And to think we A-League fans had never noticed!
She went on to write, “the NRL and AFL are the best competitions in their sport in the world.”
I would have thought they were the only competitions in their sport in the world (the English Super League notwithstanding) but don’t worry, Ms Swannell assures us she has “watched more football and heckled more referees than most of you have had hot dinners,” so she obviously knows what she’s talking about.
Or does she?
Because it seems to me she’s fallen into the trap of assuming A-League fans only support the competition because they want to watch the best football in the world.
They don’t – they watch it because they want to support their local team – and I’m yet to see a single A-League detractor make this fairly obvious connection.
I felt sorry for Ms Swannell as she backtracked desperately in the online comments section of her piece, stooping so low as to cite AFL flag-waver Greg Baum’s recent piece about the LA Galaxy as vindication.
What the Galaxy have to do with the A-League I’ll never know – maybe I just haven’t had enough hot dinners – but it wasn’t the only example of bizarre logic employed in relation to the showdown between Gold Coast and Brisbane.
After the match, a Queensland Rail train driver reputedly stopped a train shortly after it departed Robina station because he was frustrated by the singing of Brisbane Roar fans.
The driver is now under some scrutiny because an eyewitness alleges the Roar fans were doing nothing more than engaging in some post-match singalongs.
Not surprisingly, Queensland Rail dispute this theory and several days after the fact have now claimed ”doors were being rattled and passengers were using foul language.”
I wasn’t on the train so I can’t comment on whether that’s true, but I can relate a personal experience from several years ago.
Before the A-League kicked off in 2005, I caught the train with several other Sydney FC fans to Gosford to watch the pre-Oceania qualifying tournament for the FIFA Club World Cup.
After the Sky Blues beat the Mariners in the final, our CityRail train driver stopped and warned Sydney fans he would ”throw them off the train” if they did not stop singing.
There was no rattling of doors, there was no foul language and there was certainly no violence.
There weren’t even any other passengers arounds us because, let’s face it, how much demand is there to catch the train from Gosford to Sydney on a Sunday afternoon?
All I saw that afternoon was another member of the anti-football brigade desperate to throw their weight around and remind football fans they are viewed as second-class citizens.
For comparison’s sake, I’ve caught public transport after State of Origins and international cricket fixtures and have never experienced such behaviour.
It’s a shame football fans are repeatedly singled out due to the bigotry of a vocal few.
As A-League supporters, all we can do is stand up, keep singing and call them out.