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It’s time to admit it: footy is dead.
Now, there’s a risk of being seen as the boy who cried wolf here.
In that old story, a young shepherd cried “wolf” so many times when there was no wolf, that when there actually was a wolf, nobody came to his aid.
The wolf was therefore able to suspend the boy for five weeks for tripping.
We don’t want that situation here.
I know that the cry “footy is dead” is one frequently made in the so-called media, especially since 2002 when the AFL Commission implemented a statutory requirement for it to be said annually. But this time, I fear, it really is.
You may have been following the Jack Viney situation, a case in which a young man was brought down by the malign forces of prejudice and political correctness, much like the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. Sadly, Viney had no Atticus Finch to defend him, and so injustice, in this case, was allowed to reign.
And so, the AFL tribunal made an incorrect decision, and thus did football perish.
I admit my complicity in this tragedy, as should we all. We were too complacent. We ignored the warning signs. When the AFL cracked down on head-high contact, we shrugged and let it slide, so willing to abandon the principles of head trauma on which Tom Wills founded the game.
When the AFL officially declared the bump ‘worse than child murder’, we just laughed it off.
‘We can still have football without bumps,’ we said, totally ignoring the fact that until 1906, football was only bumps. It was that year that the VFL introduced the concept of the ‘ball’, which was only ever meant to be an adjunct to the main business of football: the bump.
And now those nefarious administrators, intoxicated by the power our apathy has granted them, have outlawed accidentally crashing into people, or whatever it was Viney is supposed to have done. What next, outlawing kicking? Just in case you mistake another player’s head for the ball and accidentally kick his head off and then it’s a goal and a grand final is decided by a decapitation?
Almost certainly.
It’s impossible to overstate the impact the Viney decision will have on our great footballing culture. But I will try.
Essentially, the history of our great Indigenous game, which stretches back to when sailors on the First Fleet would take ‘speccies’ by standing on each other’s shoulders to catch seagulls for dinner, has been ground into dust by this decision. It is not only wrong, but evil.
That’s why, when I say “footy is dead”, I am in deadly earnest: the upcoming round must not take place. It will be a sad farce if this zombie sport is allowed to continue, with players sadly prancing around the field, terrified of physical contact, tears streaming from their hollow eyes.
So often it is said, ‘football is not netball’. Can we really even say that anymore? Maybe now, finally, football is netball. If we turn up on Friday night will we see everyone wearing skirts, being restricted to designated zones, and waving their hands manically in Irene van Dyk’s face? A few years ago I’d have said this was madness. But these days, who knows?
It can’t happen. The AFL has killed football: the least it can do is provide a decent burial.
Every game this weekend must be replaced by a tasteful memorial service, where the ashes of football are placed in a tasteful vase and placed on a ceremonial mantelpiece to be installed in the centre of each major football venue around the country. A statue of Jack Viney will be erected outside the MCG, with the plaque ‘the last footballer’ beneath.
For the rest of the season, every previously-scheduled AFL fixture will be replaced by a public screening of Cirque Du Soleil’s Saltimbanco.
Look, I know it’s hard to take. I know it hurts. But we can’t continue to look reality in the face and pretend it’s Miranda Kerr: we need to accept the facts.
The tribunal stuffed up, and our great game is dead. Time to stop the denial, and move on with our lives.