Those darn soccer hooligans are a menace, aren't they? They are a threat to our society, our casual Brisbane way of life and, most importantly, to our children, right?
What's that, I hear you say? You don't agree with that sentiment? Well then obviously you haven't read the latest hatchet job by Brisbane's only metropolitan daily newspaper.
Published yesterday in their online edition, The Courier-Mail is carrying a story of a young lad who at Saturday night's match received a cut to the knee requiring stiches from a shot glass recklessly thrown by an as yet unidentified member of the crowd.
You can read it here - "Soccer hooligan hits boy with shotglass at Brisbane Roar match".
To add extra sensationalist pathos to this unpleasant incident, the youngster and his family were attending the match in part to celebrate his ninth birthday. As Homer Simpson might say, "What are the chances of that? One in a million."
Now of course I am not going to defend anyone that has decided to flaunt not only stadium rules but also the rules of civilised society by throwing a glass that has in turn injured a child. This is because I, like the rest of you I hope, am a decent human being.
I am also not going to attack the victim as is fashionable in some circles. I sincerely hope the club goes out of their way to make amends by offering this lad and his family free tickets to the semi-final, some free merchandise, a meet-and-greet with the players and a big birthday hug from Roary.
I am also not going to smear the Campbell Street published newspaper as a whole, since their sports coverage of Roar for the past few years, especially by Marco Monteverde, has been constant and critical in the best journalistic tradition.
What I am going to take issue with is the use of the term "soccer hooligan" in the headline to the offending article. And not just because they couldn't use the term football despite that being how they reference our beautiful game in their own sports section.
My issue is that whoever committed this anti-social act is not a football hooligan. He or she is simply a dickhead and I would feel confident betting they have been a dickhead their whole lives, not just at the football.
They are likely the sort of inconsiderate car park dickhead that parks in handicapped spaces, the office dickhead that wastes your time with a barrage of tasteless joke emails or the speech ruining dickhead that yells something blatantly unfunny at weddings, birthdays and even funerals.
In short, their behaviour has absolutely nothing to do with our game directly and if the writer of the article believes that this particular incident is in any way indicative of hooliganism then I think it is fair to say they would soil their knickers if they ever have the misfortune to see the real thing up close.
The real football hooligans, the type that Frodo inexplicably joined in that Green Street movie, are a blight on the beautiful game. However, they have never really been a problem in Australia and are certainly not a problem in sleepy old Brisbane town.
I have attended football games at all levels in this city for more than two decades and have never once encountered something that I consider crosses the line from the general loutish, drunken behaviour that you can find in any pub or house party to outright football hooliganism.
I have seen some reports of isolated incidents at matches in Sydney and Melbourne in that same time frame, but nothing that has ever required police escorts to and from stadiums or the deployment of a riot squad and water cannons.
So with that in mind I am calling shenanigans on this particular article's attempt to misrepresent our game and its loyal supporters based on the actions of just one person.
There are no hooligans at Brisbane Roar FC no matter how much the article in question would like there to be.
We might have our fair share of drunken dickheads but that is also true of the supporters of every other code in this sport-obsessed country.
That in itself though, is hardly a sensational headline, is it? In fact, I would go so far as to say that it's not even newsworthy at all.
PS: I feel obligated to point out that if you feel compelled to identify the particular dickhead in question to the authorities that the telephone number for Crimestoppers is 1800 333 000.
