Saturday, July 21, 2007

Happy Little Cats Fan

How good were Geelong last night?

They were awesome!


Smashed the highly rated Western Bulldogs by 75 points for their 11th win in a row to stay very clearly on top of the ladder.

My enjoyment of the game was only marred by that unfortunate modern species, the "ugly footy fan", the sort of bloke who yells swearwords and obscenmities constantly, ompletely disregarding the feelings or sensitivities of all thos around them, in this case a family with two young children sitting in front of us. Further to the swearing was a continual stream of vitriol and invective directed towards the opposition borne out of some sort of spite or hatred. It was not enough that Geelong were winning by 10 goals, this fan had to look for every opportunity to pour scorn and derision on the Bulldogs, and the umpires too of course, and even on occasion his own team!

It was unpleasant and uncomfortable, it was ugly and aggravating and I observed many people sitting in the vicinity looking around at him and shaking their heads at the continual stream of abuse.

At the end of the game the family in front got up to leave and I apologised to the mum for having to put up with the swearing. She said "no worries, they come to the game every week and their used to it." What a shame!

Football should be a safe fun family friendly event, not one where you run the gamut of this sort of abuse and anti-social behaviour.

What a shame that it has become so common-place that people are forced to accept it as the norm instead of being able to expect not to put up with such ugly attitudes.

I am not against passion or emotion at the footy, I get as fired up as anyone at the footy, but that doesn't mean you have to become abusive or swear your head off. It took the edge off a good night for me, and I daresay for other people too.

As a Cats fan I was embarrassed, as a Dogs fan I'd have been infuriated.

C'arn the Cats.

1 comment:

Peter said...

Hi Marcus, got your surprise package today, thank you very much, it will help me become a bit more competitive with Greenie.

WV cleenn which seems to be a bit over the top.