Naughton's Disrespect

Despite the initial success of the A-League and the national team qualifying for the World Cup, the world game is still battling for respect. Phill Chadwick goes off tap on the doubters.

If you asked my friends, I think they would say I am fairly mild-mannered. It takes a lot to upset me and I am pretty tolerant of people with other opinions.

But an article by Kevin Naughton in this week's Adelaide Sunday Mail has me fuming. It has taken me three days to calm down enough to make a considered response.

He takes a heap of cheap shots at the great game of football, cheap shots that anyone with the slightest degree of fair-mindedness would see as petulant, prejudiced and just plain paranoid.

What is this man so scared of? Is he scared that a game, the number one sport in the world, might become popular in this country? Why is that so frightening? How small-minded can Naughton be if he feels the need to protect the "Aussie" sports by denigrating our game.

Typically, we hear the old chestnuts trotted out:

Hooliganism, crowd violence and so on, is somehow the fault of the game itself. If Mr Naughton had any shred of journalistic integrity, he would have discovered that such behaviour is inevitably linked to social issues.

Studies have shown that there in no correlation between crowd violence and the game being played. There is no increase in violence by winning fans, by losing fans, whether the game is high scoring or low scoring, whether the fans are at home or away from home.

Naughton and others of his ilk need to realise that football is the number one sport in more that 200 countries, world wide. Those regions where crowd violence is rife are inevitably regions with severe social problems including unemployment, hopelessness and alienation. Does Naughton blame football for the recent French riots? Probably.

Does he really think that other sports do not have similar crowd problems? What about last week's cricket test here at sleepy Adelaide Oval. In that most genteel of sports, where the crowd sportingly applauded Brian Lara, there were, allegedly, more than 100 people evicted from the ground for anti-social behaviour. Not that those numbers are publicised.

Has Naughton forgotten the disgraceful scenes at a Melbourne one-day game a few years ago when Aussie spectators were throwing bottles, cans and anything else that came to hand on to the oval? I cleary remember Shane Warne going across to the boundary, pleading with them to stop. Is that the fault of the game of cricket?

The AFL crowds are no better. Try braving a Collingwood game wearing opposition colours.

Yes, they usually stand quietly for the Last Post on Anzac day. Does Naughton think that football fans would not? That is an unforgiveable insult. I was at an AFL game where a minute's silence was observed. I can't remember what for. But in the middle of the minute, calls of "Come on the Power" could be clearly heard.

That sort of thing must be OK for Naughton, but if a football crowd does anything similar, the whole game is to blame.

He even denigrates the game by asking how many times in the last decade a full-strength Australian side has played in Adelaide. OK, that is fair enough, there have not been many. But then how many full strength Wallaby (Rugby Union) or Kangaroo (Rugby League) Tests have been played here?

Does that make those sports equally un-Australian?

"International soccer is not part of the Australian sporting fabric" says Naughton. That may be so, but it is changing. World Cup qualification and the move to Asia will bring top level international football to our TV screens and to our football grounds. Our A-League teams will be playing Asian Champions League football.

And that is what Naughton and his small-minded ilk are so scared of. When this country wakes up to the skill, glamour, passion and glory that the game of football has to offer, when the Australian public realises the global significance of this sport, Naughton can quietly curl up and cry into his AFL or Rugby jumper and dream of the good old days when the "Shielas, Wogs and Poofters" knew their place.

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