Lest We Forget : Footy Fans Against Mass Murder

Lest we forget . . . on The Day, ANZAC Day, we remember the beginnings of a disastrous military campaign, and The Black & White Army (extra-parliamentary movement of the oppressed) looks forward to the dismantling of The Bombers (military-industrial-sporting complex):

1. Anzac sport celebrates a unity that didn’t exist, Ian Syson, The Age, April 25, 2013

“Opponents to conscription came from many quarters. Catholics, republicans, the Irish, socialists, unionists and pacifists all had reason to be anti-war and anti-conscription. And they came together as a united force.

Nowhere does the myth as it stands acknowledge that at the time of the Gallipoli landing many Collingwood supporters (and supporters from many of the Catholic inner-city football clubs in Melbourne and Sydney) would have been very strongly against what they saw as the British imperialist war. Nor does the myth reveal the fact that the Australian Imperial Force was largely made up of Protestant soldiers. The embarkation lists in 1914-15 indicate that a small percentage were Catholic. In the three nominal rolls I looked at, about 12 per cent of the initial enlistments were Catholics.”

2. Footy Fans Against Mass Murder

Footy Fans Against Mass Murder call on all supporters to…

TACKLE GLOBAL POVERTY AND BOOT OUT THE WEF!
END THE CORPORATE CONTROL OF SPORT!
JOIN THE S11 PROTESTS!
SHOW YOUR COLOURS SEPTEMBER 11-13 AT CROWN CASINO!
THE SEASON IS OVER, BUT THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!

Numbered amongst the multi billionaires and faceless technocrats attending the WEF will be many of the people who have also come to control Australian Rules Football. Clowns and sleazebags like McGuire, Jackson, Gutnick and Elliot. People whose true interest in football stems not from a love of the game itself, but from a hunger for the power and prestige that comes from controlling its future.

The term “globalisation” is just a cover for a process that increases corporate control over our daily lives. The detrimental effects of such control can be seen as much in what has happened to football in recent years as anywhere else. Over the past decade we have seen the smaller leagues and teams bankrupted, relocated or forcibly merged as part
of what we are told is an inevitable evolution towards the “modern” game. Long loved grounds such as Waverly and those belonging to North Melbourne and Collingwood have been phased out in favour of monuments to advertisers like the disastrous Colonial Stadium.

With club managements increasingly reliant on the patronage of big business we have seen stadiums and players renamed on a short and long term basis after sponsors. Collingwood management indicated this year that they would not even be adverse to renaming whole teams. Advertising at grounds is ever present, whether on scoreboards, jumpers, the turf, fan banners, the ball, trainers, little league players, tickets, water bottles, etc. Wherever you may look whilst at a game you cannot escape it.

So where do the fans and members fit into all of this? Only as passive sheep to be sold merchandising and herded into whichever expensive, crap ground the AFL decides is good to make a buck off. Did we at any stage request that our beloved teams and grounds be destroyed? That entrance costs and food and drinks at games become ever more expensive? That our new ground should be more like a TV studio that a footy field? That news about AFL financial double dealing and arguments over TV rights take equal place in the sports pages with that about the actual games and players? That club boards vote themselves ever higher salaries? That the 2000 season be rescheduled to suit the needs of the Olympics and Channel 7? Has the game really improved as a result of all this?

Supporters have not taken all of this lying down, but resistance has largely been passive. The response of the AFL and club managements to declining memberships and game attendances has been predictable- ignore the views of the fans and instead scramble for a bigger share of television royalities and the corporate dollar. The problem for management is that at some point the majority of fans will finally give up and just switch off altogether.

However all is not yet lost. The rare exceptions in which supporters and players have really voiced their anger have seen managements make concessions or back down. This was seen earlier this year when Colonial Stadium was forced to allow general admission to empty seating originally allocated for corporate sponsors and in the Fremantle Dockers opting to retain training at South Fremantle Oval after 1000s demonstrated against a proposed move in 1999.

In the spirit of such protest and in the knowledge that corporate control of our lives, be it over football or the workplace, does no one any good we call on all concerned footy fans to join the S11 protests around the country. Wear your team colours and let your best barracking voice be heard!

For more info and a history of troublemaking within footy check out our website at www.geocities.com/footyfans2000