‘BOOING’

There has been a lot said in recent weeks about the amount of ‘booing’ that goes on in sports these days and whether it has a place in our sporting arena.

This issue has again been topical because recently it happened when AFL great Lance Franklin was playing for the Swans against Collingwood and every time, he contested the ball he was booed. For what, we don’t know but to the average viewer like me it was distasteful because I kept thinking of the damage it did to the likes of Adam Goodes and how it hastened his retirement.

Does booing have a place in sport? I think it does when it can add to the atmosphere. You only have to be at Lang Park for an Origin match and listen to the booing when NSW come onto the field. It just would not be natural if it didn’t happen. The game is advertised as the biggest rivalry in Australian sport, and it probably is, so its only natural feelings will be strong.

When its at the other end of the equation and it’s racially based (as with the Indigenous players) then it is certainly wrong. Some individual booing can be tolerated because the said player may have committed a foul on one of your players and perhaps put him out of the game. It’s almost warranted then because you are booing the foul play as much as the perpetrator.

Sometimes too a player will be booed in an attempt to put him off his game. When I was a kid going to the footy at Kogarah or the SCG and Graeme Langlands was lining up a conversion the opposition would call out ‘longy legs’ with the hope it would distract him sufficiently. What the hell did that mean anyway. I just repeated it when their kicker was lining up (with as much effect).

The ignorant supporters often boo a special player out of jealousy. They haven’t got that skill set themselves or they resent the fact he plays for someone else. That is obvious when a particular player transfers to a new club and when he returns to his old club’s home ground, the crowd really give it to him. That’s tolerable in my opinion.

Sometimes of course booing is not always what it seems. Earlier this year at the Australian Open tennis some players (Andy Murray for one) complained about the booing that was going on. As it turned out it was not a boo but ‘suiii’ which was a derivative of the famous soccer player Rinaldo when he celebrated another goal.

I’ll finish where I started with the Franklin case. The Collingwood football club have apologised for their fans. NRL stars and Nicoh Hynes and Latrell Mitchell have supported Franklin saying they have his back. Former Collingwood star and coach Nathan Buckley summed it up best saying it was ‘bigotry and ignorance’. That’s it in a nutshell.