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I was sitting in a pub last Saturday evening with my mate, Richard. We were watching the Mariners – Roar final on the telly. After watching the end of another typically fluent Brisbane Roar move, I turned to Richard and told him about, my partner’s friend, Nicole.
Like the great majority of Melbourne’s population, Nicole has never attended an A-League game, or even watched a game as she does not have pay TV.
Not being a football fan, the only information Nicole has ever received in regards to football is when it makes it to the news section of the papers or when it appears on TV news services.
My partner, I told Richard, invited Nicole to an A-League game last month. This was her response.
“Is it safe?”
Yes, you heard correctly. “Is it safe?” was the very first thing Nicole asked my partner. Richard chuckled and then reminded me of the famous scene in The Marathon Man.
In the scene, Dustin Hoffman plays an A-League fan. Laurence Olivier, with an uncanny resemblance to our ex-PM, John Howard, represents….well… I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
Please watch the clip below. You won’t regret it. It goes for 3 minutes and 36 seconds.
“Is it safe?”
Last Friday, Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper tried to answer the question.
You didn’t need to open up the paper to find the answer.
In fact, you did not even need to buy the paper. All you needed was to take a cursory glance at the front page. For example, on the morning commute to work, or waiting to make a payment at the petrol station or convenience store.
On the front page in big, bold tabloid letters the headline screamed out “SOCCER FANS” are the most “VIOLENT”.
The Herald Sun sells around half a million copies a day. Its readership would be close to a million. The headline would have been seen by most of the adult population of Melbourne.
Taken in this context, Nicole’s response last month was perfectly understandable.
“Is it safe?”
The Herald Sun could not present any facts to substantiate the alarming headline. In an editorial, the following day I read the following -“This newspaper stands by its story, just as it stands up for soccer”
The damage was done.
In July 2006, Americans were asked in a poll if it was true or not true that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S invaded in 2003 – 50% answered TRUE.
Again, the damage was done.
Who needs facts to shape perceptions and opinions? In both these cases, George Orwell’s observation rings true.
“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed….” (1984)
Fortunately, I am just bemused football fan in Australia and not a victim of war.
“Is it safe?”
P.S Nicole did agree to come to a game. The Melbourne Heart v Mariners match. Flash flooding in Melbourne that night stopped her from attending. Well, there’s always next season.
Art Sapphire is the pseudonym for Athas Zafiris and he can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/ArtSapphire
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