Why is mainstream Australia scared of active fans?

Apples and oranges.

"I think what’s sadder is that Australian society accepts the banning of those dangerous beach balls." Accepts it? Where? I'm a frequent visitor at all the Melbourne Big Bash games and got out to days 1 and 3 of the Boxing Day Test this year and it didn't seem like many were accepting it. I still see beach balls at every game and any security guard that confiscates one is always subjected to a raucous chant of "you are a w*nker!" from some of the nearby fans.

I'd love to weigh in on this issue with my own experiences at the football, but I haven't been able to go to a game because most of my friends are afraid of being trampled/burned/assaulted by the "rabid, psychotic" football fans they've heard about on the news.

Or look at the dramas on FTA telly. Packed to the Rafters (set in Sydney not Melbourne like its wilder cousin Winners and Losers) Channel 7...yet we have only Rugby Union where Rugby League should be (the sport that in the real world appeals to the bogan etc) and a family of enlightened AFL fans who we're supposed to identify with. And that's not to say the constant underhanded compliments the show gives about Rugby, even though 7 used to show Bledisloe tests: the signs of a reluctant partnership, anyone? And then look at Tricky Business (Channel 9) set in Wollongong, with its commonsense acceptance that the only meaningful footballers there are the ones who play for the Rugby League team, with not even one raised eye brow by the fiery-headed lady who is otherwise rather smarter than the blonde haired surfer dude (usually) that her father's choice of football code is anything but the right code for the exuberant male. Despite TV ratings suggesting otherwise. Or the strong tradition of Rugby Union in the Gong. Or the strong grassroots support for Wollongong A-league team. I.e none of women's criticisms about the code and the attempt to promote its Southern (and thus more charming) rival. And this is a show that philosophises the notion that appearances can be deceiving! The thing is: these shows are not just for entertainment they are for advertising space...and not just actual ads, but also selling people what (and what isn't) their cultural identity. Now you can talk about people separating fact from fiction, but why would these shows do this unless they had an agenda to push?

Are you just deliberately not listening to not one thing those who disagree with you are saying? You might have a passion for a crusade to eradicate all challengers to the world game on the dusty continent, but you're not putting forward one thing that converts people to your way of thinking...maybe you're holding out hope for some kind of sporting genocide, I'm really not sure :P

That old muffin. Sport may be a catharsis but it doesn't compare to the arts which were originally designed to be the perfect form of catharsis. Sport is surely about sitting next to people (literally or metaphorically) and experiencing the opposite of anti-sociality?

Is ibika some kind of guru who lives on the Himalayas dude? Sound reasoning of course, but by the token of what you just talked about the collapse of religion/politics etc, these things were always divisive but also unifying (and still are for those who still haven't become Atheists/Apoliticals). Also diversions themselves are divisive probably because they are things we recite...constantly remembering what happened which resembles how we approach language...which is divisive but necessary in order for there to be any possibility of unity.

Again with the 'we're on the edge of the world because of geography/economics' argument. Except we're actually on the edge of the world because the British colonisers whose descendants now make up the power-brokers in government in contemporary parliaments decided along time ago and continue to do so to remain faithful to the British but really WASP way of life. It was a choice. It seems the rest of the world chose to become increasingly marginalised by the metropole that is Europe. Again their choice. In Argentinian culture WASPs obviously don't really exist and certainly don't have much relevance and yet they do have European settlers/creoles who chose to effectively align themselves back to their continent of origin, in a sense giving up their choice on the matter.

No it's not fair enough, dude ;) There's surely plenty of people who watch sports but could never play them, why else is the gaming industry booming brighter than Hollywood these days. Equally people play sport for a variety of reasons: usually to have fun, which likely means if you have the right people anything will do and if you don't you're probably the one with egg on your face. Rational choices do not always come into it...the reality often is that soccer is good enough for enough people to give you a thousand different degrees of enthusiasm. I'd say you missed the boat with regard to realising world football resembles very often the world church.

An issue that's probably worthy of further discussion is the basic idea that Soccer tends to be popular in far more countries that aren't free or wealthy or have one but not the other than the ones where freedom and wealth are guaranteed. Thus it's quite likely as a code it appeals to not just a genuinely global audience but also as a kind of opiate of peoples who are denied the best things the world has to offer. Countries where these good things are on offer to a firm majority of its people tend to love the game as passionately but in order to get those good things or to keep them they are prohibited from excessive activity, meaning football's a social contract of sorts...do the right thing and you won't lose your benefits.

Did you pick that argument for the legitimacy-perspective from me AR? It's rather like a point I made some time earlier this year. At a Sociological or Historical level, legitimacy is the be all and end all. The problem is Australia isn't on the margins of the globe because of its refusal to do what the rest of the world mostly does, it's on the margins because it was intended that way...in a similar vein to why Soccer didn't get here before other codes had developed, because it was about screening out 'continental' influences to a continent of British colonies.

And yet who makes up the government Australian Rules? Power does not equal representation. And equally relevant is the families/characters that are the protagonists in pop culture TV shows/films. They're all WASPS and that is Australian identity, even celtics have been continuously marginalised and that's not getting to the 'rioting' groups who only make the media when they're done something wrong.

And yet much of this so-called 'healthy' outlets for fandom are actually antagonistic and frankly only appeal to aggressive-lunatic (I could've said saddists but I didn't) types who revel in the agony of the defeated. Flares are an example of positive devotion...the issue is to come up with a less potentially harmful equivalent, perhaps?

The problem is that Australia and I consider New Zealand in this to some extent is actually really good at sport, but not at the one that matters the most in the world (but I'm not sure to the world even with the popularity of the World Cup etc). And that was never going to happen if Soccer wasn't the prime form of football as history has shown that no country is good at the one code to rule them all if they're also good at other football codes. The US may be an exception but something in them (probably the sense of not needing to prove themselves to anybody else) stops them from truly putting steps in place to get the best athletes playing the game. I mean you can't tell me that the US mentality doesn't suit Soccer, as it fairly closely resembles Basketball without all the time outs.

Is it a co-incidence though, that Soccer is massive in the same places where Roman Catholicism is even Massiver? There is something for strength in numbers...except if you happen to be from a culture where this is seen as a weakness at least at the level of good conscience/the soul. People don't want to really admit it but in Australasia there is still more 'fear' of Catholics than there is of Fundamentalist Protestants, largely because secularism only curbs one of them.

Well if the laws suit an increasingly powerful minority and an increasingly powerful majority think it suits them but are wrong there'll always be those who see it for what it is. Good but it could do with a lick of paint!

And how do you think law changes man! People break the law to change it. The above comment about not batting an eyelid to homeless people is pretty much what the New World's supposed to be about. America blew it...so it falls to the NEW New World to carry it on.

Yeah one of the more ridiculous trolling-attempts bro. I often disagree with some of this mentality stuff you talk about and quite often with Fuss, but it's usually because many Soccer fans reckon their code should have always been the number one. That something had to have gone wrong to lead Australasia down this path. And that the one to blame are the mentality of the ones who arrived before you guys. The problem is Australia was always going to be more of a Protestant nation than a Catholic one. So the fact we have both is actually a more than worthwhile compromise. But as with Catholicism in general you can have both local (usually not as good) and global (usually the very best there is on offer) without too much effort.

What about the umpires in AFL whose careers/lives even are put at threat by shouting idiots...who they can't see, but definitely can hear. I very much doubt they get caught out by the guards as this is seen as a 'healthy' outlet for aggression. And that's not dealing with the issue which is a culture of sledgers who want to see more sledging or they'll take their hard earned to the pub and put their own lives at risk potentially.

I just realised (that the media's been conning me ;)...no I knew that already) flares can be perceived as a form of positive devotion to one's team/code a celebration as others have said. Vs the Australian Football (RL and possibly RU fan too) who shouts at the referee and tries to reach their daily cap of swearwords and other expletives., who are negative devotees. Yet the media often praises them, making a joke-song (using a famous piece of classical music to do it which is godawful in its offensiveness really) out of it. But I don't think it's all about fear/ignorance I also think there's something of a civil war happening in a very uncivil civilisation these days which is largely being led by the Americans...but is coming across to our shores and is making the past seem much crude/uncivil than it likely really was.