While I had a really nice afternoon, some of the bad sportsmanship I saw there really shocked me. I have gone to games before, and I was even a member of the Fremantle Dockers for a year, however since I've been writing more, I've tended to have a bit of a blogger mindset and whenever I see something interesting, a little part of my brain goes "mmm, good material for a post". Don't get me wrong, I actually really enjoy going to the football. I think it's a great day out, it's fun to spend time with my family and a good, healthy dose of cheering never hurt anyone.
So, let's start with the bad news. Some people are pretty disgusting when it comes to sport. I witnessed drunkness, swearing with complete disregard for the children who were seated in our area, abuse at the umpires, booing, and god, I really could go on.
So, for umpires. Yes, I understand that bad calls are made sometimes - but don't we all make mistakes? Umpires are out there doing their best. As a player (for netball, at least), complete respect is demanded and received by umpires - one wrong move in language towards an umpire - not necessarily swearing, just sarcasm and rudeness, and you're saddled with a warning: take it too much further, and you're off for the game. So why can't the crowd offer a similar level of respect? The insults I was hearing were so completely unoriginal as well - if you're going to be rude, at least be a little more creative than "**** ****ing ****s". I can understand a little bit of heckling if a wrong call is made - we're only human after all - however the language that some people used was horrendous.
There were two occasions in the game when the crowd's reactions to what an umpire was doing surprised me. First was when an umpire called for a review of a goal, to see if it was touched (or something like that) before it went over the line. Second was when an umpire took back the ball after a centre bounce (once again, really sorry for my lack of knowledge about football terms) to redo it, as he wasn't satisfied with the first one. Both times the crowd was jeering and insulting the umpires. Both times the umpires were making sure they were making the correct call or fixing a past error. So basically, if the umpire makes a call that the crowd deems incorrect, they are jeered at. If they try to fix something or make sure they are doing the right thing, they are also insulted. To be honest, it seemed as though the majority of spectators would only be satisfied if the umpire took the ball off the opposing team, gave it to the home side, and let them score goal after goal.
That brings me onto booing. Bad sportsmanship doesn't get much worse than this, does it? Booing is so average, so stupid, and I sort of fail to see the point. Wouldn't you rather your team win because they had superior skill, rather than because the crowd was booing the other team to such an extent that they were distracted when trying to kick a goal? Maybe I'm completely missing the point here, but if my team won after an honest game, I think I would be much more satisfied than if dishonesty was occurring in terms of umpiring and booing.
Players understand that umpires make bad calls, but that they are trying their best. In netball, the majority of times an umpire made a call against me, I thought "yep, fair call, I was too close/ bumped into my player/ took an extra step". If I didn't think that, I shut my mouth, kept playing, and tried to win the ball back for my side. That's what the AFL players do as well. They know the rules inside out (more than the majority of spectators can say - honestly, I have no clue with football, but some of the people sitting around me who were bagging the umpires seemed to have less of an idea than me) and so they cop free kicks against them on the chin, and play on.
At the end of the day, the majority of sports are basically advanced games of fetch (sorry, but it's true), and I really think people need to stop taking them to the point of what I mentioned above. I'm not saying that sport is important - I personally love to play sport (even though my hand eye/ foot eye coordination is poor at best) and I think that playing a sport is really fun. It's fine to take it seriously, it's fine to cheer for your team, it's fine to get frustrated with umpires (hey, it happens), but the extent of bad sportsmanship from the crowd (bad crowdsmanship?) I witnessed really, really appalled me. It's meant to be a fun day out to go to the football, however people are so disgusting sometimes that it turned into me sitting there thinking about how odd some people really are. I can imagine it's quite uncomfortable for parents who bring their children along, only to have them asking "mum, what does that word that the lady keeps saying mean?"
As for the good news? When one of the players from the opposing team had a bad fall (I think he ended up tearing his ACL) and was taken off from the ground in a stretcher, everyone in the crowd applauded him as he was taken off. I'm 99.9% sure it was a move of sympathy and respect. People were hugging after the game and the little boy in front of me was smiling a huge grin, and there was a general good mood because the home team had won. Mum brought along some chocolate (bonus) and the whole crowd was belting the Dockers' team song. It's lovely how the people around us get on so well as well - people are asking how each others' kids and grandkids are, talking about their week, asking about holidays coming up - it is definitely a little community, and I think that that is really nice. The crowd cheering the victorious State Under 18s Girls Team as they ran around the ground before the game too was pretty cool - that would have been such a buzz.
However, I think the ultimate highlight for me was watching the little kids play at half time. With jerseys down to their knees, kids chatting to their opponents and parents cheering from the side, the kids were having a great time. And with everyone in the crowd watching, cheering and laughing as well, it was taken much less seriously than the real game, everyone was much happier, and above all, all the spectators were having fun.
And at the end of the day, isn't fun why we play and watch sport in the first place?
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