But since last Saturday night I have had to think seriously whether the soccer is a place I should take my kids. In The Age Michael Lynch writes about it. [Notice the subtle way he steals the word "football" using it only for soccer and refers to our great game as Aussie Rules. Sorry Lynch but our footy is football and you have no right to claim exclusive use of it for soccer!!!
] Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/foot ... z2p6FPOY2AFootball's fan culture is different to the longer established Australian codes, rugby league and union and Australian rules.
It is based on chanting and taunting and delivering insults - often quite witty - to away teams and players.
Football, like other sports, encourages families and wants to hook youngsters. But the reality is that few grounds here or overseas, are kindergartens - and parents taking really young kids need to realise that.
The wider problems arise when a small minority - and it is always a minority - want to take things further and "go to war" in what they imagine is a defence of the honour of their club.
Modelling themselves on the Ultras (Europe) and Barra Bravas (Latin America), these young men have the misplaced idea that causing a disturbance on "foreign turf" (an interstate city centre) somehow enhances their status and strikes a blow for their team.
The reality, of course, is that all they do is cause problems for their club and the game in general as they provide lurid footage and the chance for the media to use emotive language evoking a war zone to describe what is often a minor skirmish.
Soccer's dirty little secret is this. Look at any game on FOX, but especially WSW games and you will see row upon row upon row of young men (their ethnicity is not relevant). I would say that at WSW home games the crowd is 95% male. For most other A-League clubs (like Victory) it is probably 85% male. All that testosterone has got to go somewhere. But I know from friends who have supported the Melbourne Knights in the past that women were told the soccer match was a no go zone for them.
Our footy on the other hand attracts men, women and children in roughly even numbers. The support of footy among women in our society is far higher than that for any other sport (bar netball).
Also I do not buy the argument that people thrown out of the footy equates to soccer violence. Most people thrown out of footy games are drunk and disorderly. Most of the soccer violence stems from highly inflamatory provocation of opposing fans, use of flares (the WSW fans let off at least half a dozen explosive flares that scared the hell out of my kids last Saturday night), and rival ethnic fights.
In short, the fact that soccer is still a masculine zone where women and children are at best tolerated leads to hooliganism that we simply do not see in Australian Football (yes, football!). Plus, there is zero ethnicity in footy.
I love soccer, but footy is my first love. But I know which place is safer for my kids and I know which game gives them more entertainment. Collingwood games!
