When I first arrived in Australia as a child, I was astounded by the game called “footy”. I loved it from the moment I watched it and supported my team, Carlton, from the moment I saw they were called the Blues, as I was a (UK football) Chelsea supporter. I went to nearly every game and sat at then Princes Park on the splinter-filled wooden benches. I would go to the hill at Hawthorn or the stands at Collingwood, head down to South Melbourne, St Kilda and even that quagmire of a place – Waverley Park. I cheer my team, sometimes sitting in the opponent’s bay.
Here is the thing: I felt totally safe sitting with the opposition. Sure, a few were confrontational, but nothing made me feel uncomfortable or unsafe. The spirit of “mateship,” a depiction of what Australian culture was all about, showed up every time I went to the footy. But times have changed, and while some things have improved in footy, more and more is disappearing: the notion of “mateship” that defined not only Australians but also those who go to the footy and its supporters.
This view is based not only on what happened during the Finals, when Hawthorn supporters turned on a mother and child who supported the opposition, but also on how the umpires left the field when supporters threw bottles at them. The behaviour of some supporters during the season, who believed they alone were the voice of reason and experience. This also leads into the way some players behave.
The basis of this view is that, for some reason, some are trying to make our game into a game that has global support and, because of that, it is becoming more and more focused on the commercialisation of the game and therefore, eroding, in my view, what makes the game so uniquely Australian. They are trying to pamper more to them and not to the Australian public. For me, it is trying to make the game appeal more to people outside Australia. It is trying to make the game more like what American sports are renowned for.
Now, there is no issue with American sports showing their bright lights, big stadium games, and big-stadium entertainment, but that is their culture. It depicts what makes their sports uniquely theirs. It is not, and should never be, a determining factor in trying to match them for our game and our culture. We are losing what makes this game so unique in the world of sports by becoming more and more aligned with a society on the other side of the world. Identity is entwined with what is over there, not what is here.
You have to ask yourself: what is the AFL trying to prove? Do they envy the money and power that it brings to the sporting world in the USA? Do they think a country so vastly different from one on the other side of the world is one we should try to emulate? Why is it so important that a sporting code so unique has to follow a path that is popular in another country but has no real relevance to our country’s makeup?
Australian footy will never be what it is overseas simply because of several factors. One is that we don’t have the population or the sporting facilities that match the number of people in that country. We don’t incorporate sport into our education system the way the USA does across all areas of school. Whether it is a private or public school, the education system is far superior to ours in Australia, in that regard, and that is fine by me. We don’t have the population to afford this.
We must not try to compare and emulate this because it is not what Australian culture is all about. Yet we seem to be drowning in the need to become a USA-centric sporting code because we seem to be jealous of what they have and disregard what we have. We have, or used to have, a culture that embodies what makes Australia such a unique, down-to-earth society. It seems as if we are trying to become what we are not, and for some reason we are not proud of who we are anymore.
Some supporter groups are more intolerant and toxic and project their viewpoints onto others, disregarding respect and focusing on divisiveness and arrogance. Some are more interested in their viewpoints and theirs only because they deem them the right ones in our modern world, and in some cases, clubs and the AFL sit on their hands and allow this to continue instead of taking swift action. We are losing our grip on what makes our code of footy so damn unique and therefore, losing the grip on what makes Australia so Australian.
The code is caught up in trying to prove itself to the world beyond our shores, instead of focusing on proving itself to those who go to every game every week. To those who pay for their memberships and are, on the whole, a great depiction of Australian “mateship”. The commercialisation and Americanisation of our game is drowning out the proclamations of respect, tolerance, and acceptance.
Footy is part of our culture and illustrates mateship, sportsmanship, and who we are as a country. It’s a big part of what it means to be Australian. It exists alongside our environment, our history, and who we should aspire to be as a nation. If we keep going down the path of trying to prove ourselves to those beyond our shores, we will lose what makes Australia one of the best and biggest sporting countries in the world.
Footy, our brand of footy, must be preserved and not commercialised in a way that erodes who we are as a nation. Footy shows how great a culture can grow in an environment that is far too commercialised and far too toxic. Footy, our brand of footy, isn’t perfect and still has a way to go to ensure respect and tolerance, but it can reflect our society and what makes Australia so unique. Let’s not lose that.
#GOBLUES!
