HAD Ben Buckley not felt compelled to respond to Rebecca Wilson’s ill-conceived, ill-executed, lame duck of an article via a lengthy email to football fans, I — and I’m guessing a fair proportion of others — would have remained blissfully ignorant of it.

(Click here if you are the only one not to have read it, but be warned that it’s two minutes of your life that you won’t get back...)

Instead, I’ve spent a week poring over the hundreds of comments on the Telegraph website and agonising over whether to dignify her bollocks with a blog (my head says no — and yet here we are).

I’m not going to go into how and why she’s wrong—the telltale she’s-just-shown-herself-to-be-a-goose-by-referring-to-Gamba-Osaka-as-‘Japan’-and-football-as-‘soccer’ efforts of her article alone combined with the swift and unanimous condemnation from all levels of football fans tell us that her article is without merit.

But I am going to talk about the two things that have absolutely incensed me: in just a few hundred words, Rebecca Wilson has sullied the reputations of both football and chicks writing about football in Australia.

I work hard to be taken seriously as someone who understands the nuances of the beautiful game. The response I get is resoundingly positive, but I am aware that my writing and my appearance are held up to a level of scrutiny that a guy’s wouldn’t be.

Wilson’s ‘article’ has unwittingly reinforced the stereotype that girls don’t know about football and has unfairly — but not entirely unexpectedly — drawn disparaging comments about her appearance.

The less articulate forum responses dubbed her article a ‘brain fart’ and ‘muppet’ journalism, she was declared the ‘Sarah Palin of journalism’, and Les Murray himself couldn’t help but take a swipe at her looks, even if he has since removed the offending remarks.

It’s clear that Wilson’s entire opinion is based on watching — at most — two matches. Had she written the article after witnessing a Roar home game, I’d almost have understood her sentiment.

But declaring that there’s a ‘crisis’ (a buzz word easily applied to all fields, be they climate, financial, or otherwise, but which in any instance is guaranteed to whip the masses into a frenzy) in Australian football and that there’s no ‘culture’ is a bit like claiming that someone has no ‘ticker’: it’s a vague, below-the-belt attack that can never be definitively refuted.

I’m still confused by Wilson’s ‘lack of culture’ statement. My guess is that she watched the matches from her lounge room — if at all — where she couldn’t possibly get a sense of it.

I doubt that she’s attended a W-League match.

If she had, she’d have witnessed the grassroots community spirit of a league of undeniably talented women.

She’d have seen the large number and generations of fans in the crowd cheering on girls they admire for sticking with and succeeding in a traditionally non-female sport—and, in the case of Ballymore’s hill on Saturday, braving some seriously giant and bloodthirsty ants to do so.

She’d have been impressed by the no-nonsense approach to the game where instead of milking penalties, the girls get tackled and get straight back up to attempt to win back the ball.

She’d have been amused by the random guy with the air horn.

She’d have been touched by the willingness to help up injured players, regardless of which team they’re on.

And she’d have had the cockles of her heart warmed by the genuine smiles and thank-yous issued by the players to the ball girls who pass them the ball for throw-ins which leave the ball girls — the next generation of this female footballing culture — absolutely beaming.

I suspect that after a week of explosive kick back Wilson knows that she’s wrong. Yet her you’d ‘be pleased to read that you remain unread’ jibe has again demonstrated that she isn’t man — or woman — enough to admit it.

But even if she hasn’t learned that she needs to understand something before she comments on it and that ignoring such a lesson will invoke the ire of football’s ‘sleeping giant’ of a football fan base, there’s plenty for football fans to celebrate. The myriad considered responses demonstrate that Australian football fans are no longer going to cop such untruths.

And, while sports don’t need to be mutually exclusive and I should make it clear that I am not being unpatriotic, it’s fair to say that many football fans experienced a priceless, schadenfreude-is-sweet moment when New Zealand trounced Australia in Wilson’s beloved league.

Crisis in Australian league, anyone?