Why perpetuating the ‘anti-football’ conspiracy will hold the sport back
For as long as I’ve been following football in Australia, the issue of whether the sport gets a ‘fair go’ from the mainstream media has never been far from public consciousness.
Over many decades, the sport has faced a struggle for acceptance, which has been largely won with the introduction of the A-League and the Socceroos’ qualification for two straight World Cups.
There’s no doubt the ‘sheilas, wogs and poofters’ mentality to football, so wonderfully described by Johnny Warren in his memoirs, has been in place for a long time in Australia – as any post-war migrant who played the game would attest. Arguably, the last vestiges of this mentality are still evident (hello Rebecca Wilson).
After Johnny’s death in 2004, his colleagues at SBS, most notably his legendary ‘partner in crime’ Les Murray, have done their utmost to remind us of the struggle for acceptance Warren and players of his era faced, and reinforce it regularly to ensure fans keep ‘fighting the good fight’.
Which brings me to a column Les Murray wrote for The World Game website on Friday, where he declared a “new attitude of contentment and complacency” was growing among football fans.
