We’ve pretty much all done it; so don’t pretend for a second that you haven’t.

It simply might be an expletive uttered as a result of frustration. It might be because someone made a stupid error. Perhaps it’s down to you being in a crabby mood at that time. Or maybe you think they’re keeping one of your favourite players out of the side. It might, just might, even be because they previously slept with your girlfriend. 

I am of course talking about the phenomenon of taunting, booing, or otherwise abusing one’s own players. It’s never politically correct, occasionally quite funny, and always a point of controversy. Some situations are very clear-cut; the recently reported ejection of an Adelaide patron for racially abusing Bruce Djite met with universal support on these very forums. Other cases are not so straightforward. For instance, when Simon Colosimo announced he was leaving Perth Glory prior to the season actually finishing, some fans felt that this was acceptable and thanked him for his service.

Others though saw this as a betrayal; his continual game-time and match payments coming at the expense of other players with a possible future at the club. The result? A split fanbase, with some factions booing their own player and others jeering the ‘boo-boys’ themselves. Another good example would be the criticism hurled at one-time Glory coach Ron Smith whilst he was still leading the club. ‘Sack Smith’ chants, shirts and catcalls abounded from a small group of fans, whilst others felt that this was completely out of order for a team’s supporters.

So where do you draw the line when it comes to this sort of action? Certainly players, coaches and club staffers all have regular lives like you or I. They have pride, ego, and emotion – and they also have families, friends and colleagues who would share in any offence the abuse potentially causes. One pertinent, if not amusing, example that I have witnessed is one shed patron pulling up another at a Perth Glory match for continual abuse of Jamie Coyne. The conversation went along the following lines, sans expletives:

Accuser: “Oi, quit it! How would you feel if that was you playing badly out there and your parents were here to listen to someone shouting that crap?”

Abuser: “Mate, if my parents were here to see me play that badly, I’d hope they’d be abusing me too.”

But this is the thing – in a world in which coverage of football players and their performances is no longer limited to newspapers, but also spreads to social networks and public websites, is it acceptable to call someone “shit” if their mum, dad, wife and kids can see it too? In a way, I suppose this has always been a problem for entertainers of any kind; be they football players or actors and artists, reviews have always been present in papers and radio whether they be good or bad. The internet simply gives the seething masses of the public an opportunity to voice their own opinions in a way less… refined than those of the professional sports media.

Feeling something akin to a sense of guilt about my own prior vocal judgements of certain Perth players, I asked fellow FourFourTwo blogger, PFA writer, and current Arbroath FC central defender Beau Busch for a perspective from the player’s side of the fence. In his mind, the stick players give themselves is often far worse than anything yelled by a home fan:

“Footballers are more than aware of when we are playing poorly and often most footballers are harder on themselves than any fan could be… after all it is their ability to earn a wage from football that is on the line if they continue to underperform. I would be lying if I said that what is written on fan forums and the like doesn't hurt, because sometimes it does; every player wants to be one of the fans’ favourites and wants to be valued. I think sometimes though that people think that we are fair game and they can say whatever they want.

I can see that they pay their money and are entitled to their opinion, and to express it, but there is a line that can be crossed. I think when it comes to abusing your own team this happens when it is something you wouldn't want your kids to hear. I think in Australia football is such a family activity and it is in everyone’s interest to keep it that way. Having played in the UK for a while now I appreciate this a lot more as there have been plenty of games over here that I have played in and watched where I would not want to take my family, simply because of the abuse and aggression towards both players and refs.”

So where then does Beau’s line sit? Surely since people are so different, with a variety of views, values and upbringings, it’s impossible to say for sure where “acceptable to your kids” sits. There are families in my street who scream abuse at each other with language I wouldn’t hear on a Friday night in my old Nottingham pub – and yet there are others who would find that the very idea of swearing makes them nauseous. How do we as fans know when we’ve crossed the line? Let’s have a look at some examples.

Race, Colour, or Creed
One thing all fans can surely agree on is that racism, homophobia, and religious discrimination have no place in football. If you think otherwise, I worry about how you function in our society. Considering we have laws that govern such things in our daily lives, it hardly seems a great leap to imagine that we’d want to behave the same way in a football arena too. Sadly, as the aforementioned Djite case shows, this doesn’t always happen. I have also found that Australia’s move into the AFC has brought with it a nasty habit of flaring up the old ‘yellow peril’ syndrome, where for some reason it seems justifiable to have so-called banter using the words ‘gook’ or ‘raghead’. Funnily enough, that sort of ‘support’ doesn’t seem to come from Australians of Asian origin, nor those who follow Islam. I wonder why that is? Building to a funny stereotype is one thing – outright racism and xenophobia is quite another. Calling New Zealanders or Welshmen sheep-shaggers might be politically incorrect, if not somewhat amusing, banter but abusing someone for the colour of the skin they were born in is just plain wrong.

Private Lives… Not So Private
“Posh Spice is a slapper, she wears a big fat jewel – but when she’s shagging Beckham, she thinks of Harry Kewell! Oh, Harry Kewell, Harry Kewell, Harry Kewell…”

Now if I walked up to you in the street and called your wife a bit of a whore, chances are you’d probably soon be up on charges of grievous bodily harm. But if I do it at a football match, it’s just plain funny. This is one of those things that makes the atmosphere at a football game – you’re throwing out (hopefully) witty and funny chants that put the opposition off and aim to give your team an advantage. As professionals, all football players should expect this and know how to deal with it. If they don’t, they’re lacking important mental characteristics needed to make it in the game. If their wife or girlfriend is at the game, I’d go as far as to suggest they should expect it too.

But what if I got so angry with a player at my own club that I posted “Bob Smith’s wife is a slut!” on the team’s facebook page? Or tweeted it to his Twitter account? Surely now, this ‘banter’ has turned into something else altogether? As the online world draws more and more personal information out of people’s lives, and the news media becomes more interested in who you’re sleeping with rather than the children’s hospital that’s not being built, questions like this will become more and more relevant. Several footballers have already found themselves mired in a twitterverse of abuse, in many cases due to their own personal views on world events and current affairs, and this won’t be an issue that goes away anytime soon.

Performance Anxiety
Perhaps the most easily justified form of home abuse is that which comes when a player is not giving his best. Managers facing this situation are known to throw a few teacups around – so why not the fans, who have to pay for the privilege of watching these professionals? A consistent string of poor passes, bad games, or an absence of effort is a sure-fire way to get fans on your back. Granted, fans need to spare a bit of abuse for the manager who keeps picking the poor player, but let’s face it – you won’t get a tip for providing bad service in a restaurant, so why should you be cheered for a shoddy job on the field? Of course, there is also the school of thought that supporters should actually support players – never boo the shirts, so to speak. You should cheer the lads, because booing never made anyone play better.

Beau tends to agree with this sentiment, pointing out to me that for some players at least, hearing negative comments will only be counterproductive to the team’s chances of winning. But then again, even the biggest and best clubs around the world have walked off to a chorus of boos at one time or another – perhaps even more often than we see in the A-League due to the high standards expected of them. So should we, as fans of teams in a salary-capped competition that should (theoretically) see all teams equal to one another, expect any less from our own players? It’s a tough call.

At the end of the day, it can be pretty easy to forget that the players we’re so frustrated with at times are often guys with families who are putting food on the table, in many cases as the sole provider with mum looking after a couple of young kids. Sure, there are some very financially successful players who one could accuse of ‘chasing the cash’ or ‘cruising into retirement’ – but you have to remember that in a league like ours it’s not uncommon for a first team player to be earning $100,000 a year – and when you consider that they might only play for ten years at that level, it starts to make you wonder if their situation is more similar to us than we’d like to admit.

We’re all going to have to vent frustrations online at times. Fan forums will always call for the sacking of a fat keeper, an ageing winger, or a misfiring striker. Likewise you will never be without some fans heckling players at a game, especially when they or the team are on a bad run. But as Beau suggests, there is a line that can be crossed – and I think it would pay for every fan to have a good think about where they are in relation to it before they open their mouth, click reply on a post, or send that tweet. 

Food for thought, in any case.