Palman Qui Meruit Ferat
Footy will rise above these ugly incidents
We must remember the good that comes out of Melbourne's game.
In Melbourne, summer is simply the time of year between one football season and the next. The sport holds an important place in our culture — you cannot tell the story of Melbourne without telling the story of football.
Clubs such as Collingwood and Carlton were shaped by their suburbs and the communities they represented. Football dominates talk on factory floors, in offices and in cafes and pubs. A philosopher, a lawyer and a plumber walk into a bar … and talk will turn to footy.
To me it also serves as a reminder that to remain a part of a culture, you must reflect it. Yet media saturation of our game too often looks at football outside its cultural context and ignores its connection to community. On TV, too much of football is dressed as entertainment and has undertones of misogyny and hedonism, making it seem that football is little more than a "boys' club".
This mainstream portrayal of football bears little resemblance to the clubs we follow, and in which many of us are involved. But more than that, it does football a massive disservice.
North Melbourne, in the media gun earlier this year over the "chook video", does some amazing community work through its partnership with Melbourne Aboriginal Youth, Sport and Recreation, developing and establishing an Aboriginal Youth Community and Sports Program.
Clubs at every level are doing more work than ever to not only reflect community attitudes but to play an important role in defining what is acceptable behaviour for many young men.
Football teaches young men to take responsibility for their behaviour and introduces them to a cross-section of society they otherwise might not meet. I doubt there is a football club in Australia that does not teach its players to represent their club in the best possible light.
At the heart of this is respect for others. Look at the work the Essendon club has done with reconciliation and stamping out racial vilification, and at what it is doing now within the local Muslim community
Go to a junior game at just about any community oval and see the diverse range of nationalities and cultures united through football. No institution in this city is better placed to break down racial and religious barriers than the local footy club.
In difficult economic times, football also plays a vital support role for young men — clubs help them find employment and provide a valuable outlet for those who cannot. I have seen the important role football can play in holding together broken families.
But goodwill is not always enough. Our club, Fitzroy, plays against Prahran — the latest club to attract the headlines for all the wrong reasons after a stripper was hired for "pre-game motivation". Like all the clubs we come up against, Prahran runs on the spirit of good people, many of whom will be distraught that this has happened. While much Monday morning banter would have dismissed the incident as merely a "bit of harmless fun", the reality is that it perpetuates the boys' club perception and will rightly offend many — not all of them women.
Football clubs cannot survive without the crucial role women play. They are on our boards and committees, they drive their children to games, they provide much-needed and hard to find off-field support, and they barrack. If any club were to revert to a boys' club mentality, they would be out of business before season's end.
Our junior club at Fitzroy has more than 600 members. They represent the future of a club that is more than 125 years old.
With this comes a responsibility to represent and nurture our great game. Representing community values and engendering respect for others is at the heart of this responsibility.
That this latest indiscretion comes from within the Victorian Amateur Football Association upsets many of us.
The VAFA has led the way in making our game more appealing to families and the community in general. As one example, consider the fact that at this year's season launch association president Nicholas Burke stated that the banning of alcohol during games was the best thing VAFA had done.
To go to an amateur game and see the number of families who support the game and the spirit in which it is played is to see the true role football plays in our culture and understand why it is at Melbourne's heart.
Craig Little - Opinion, The Age, Tuesday 19th May
Craig Little is president of the Fitzroy Football Club, which this year resumed playing in the Victorian Amateur Football Association.
