Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will come back to haunt you.
That's the lesson being learned by 19-year-old Clare Werbeloff, who will forever be remembered for her hilarious, politically incorrect account of a Kings Cross shooting (if you haven't yet seen it and aren't easily offended, click here).
She's hired a PR manager, signed an exclusive deal with Channel Nine, and explained her so-wrong-it's-gold eyewitness account on A Current Affair. Perhaps she's enjoying her 15 minutes of fame now, but she will-if she isn't already-come to regret her efforts as she finds that the phrases ‘fatter wog', ‘skinnier wog', ‘chk chk boom', and the smug, school-girlish ‘You're welcome' follow her forever. Because words that might have seemed like a good idea at the time have been shown through countless online replays, spoof t-shirts, and all-round derision to be, well, a little bit not okay.
His comments weren't about anything as drastic as a shooting, but Western Premier League co-ordinator Jim Auld is surely rueing his own words after the Daily Liberal newspaper recently ran the story that talented Dubbo twins Ashleigh and Nicole Sykes, who play for Canberra United and the Matildas, weren't allowed to play in the Under-18s men's football comp.
The reason?
a) They're girls.
b) It's a men's comp.
c) They might get injured.
That might be true, but the argument doesn't quite cut it when you look a little closer:
- The Sykes twins have been training and playing alongside these guys for years.
- Injuries can happen at any time.
- The ‘men only' rule would have been written when football was predominantly played by blokes.
Auld might have had the best intentions, but the subtexts of his comments - unintentional or otherwise - are:
- Girls can't play football.
- You're likely to be hacked in the men's league.
- It's okay to play with boys until you can potentially beat them. Then you're banned.
This isn't about bra-burning feminism or hating men. This is about athletes whose sex doesn't matter and whose talent needs to be nurtured. In general, girls are relatively new to football and, although they're improving quickly, most girls are still learning the basics. In order to be challenged and improve, the Sykes twins realistically need to play against bigger, stronger, having-been-playing-for-longer guys.
Regional areas are also seeing talented youth fleeing to metropolitan areas faster than you can say ‘Dubbo Zoo'. Despite the fact that these talented footballers who also happen to be girls actually want to stay and play in Dubbo for as long as possible, they're effectively being forced away - bad PR for Dubbo and its footballing community.
And these aren't just any footballers. The fleet of foot Sykes twins have proved themselves the speediest Matildas over a 20-metre sprint. Given that they're the fastest of the best Australian female footballers, it's unlikely that the Dubbo women's league is going to be able to match them in pace, fitness, or level of skill.
The Daily Liberal article also indicates that the boys are happy to train and play with the twins and that the red tape is coming from above. Either way - and encouragingly - the condemnation of the twins' ban was swift and universal, with even the FFA investigating.
So what do a fabricated witness account and a rigid no-girls-allowed rule have in common? Both are cautionary tales about making ridiculous comments to the media that will come back to bite you.
And while Werbeloff may have hired a PR manager to smooth over her infamous efforts, the Sykes twins are surely having the last word. They're letting their boots do the talking on field with the Young Matildas.
Indeed, Nicole Sykes scored a hat-trick on her Young Matildas debut as she helped the Westfield Young Matildas to an impressive 7-0 victory over the Finland U-19 Women's Team in Italy yesterday.
That's the sort of PR money can't buy...
