We're Off To See The Wizard

You either love it or loath it, but as Phill Chadwick reports many Australians just don't respect and appreciate the World game of Football.

This week in that serious and respected Melbourne newspaper, "The Age", a chap by the name of Greg Baum has taken a mighty swing at Nationalism, sport and, particularly offensively, Football.

Why do the Football-haters feel the need to find spurious correlations between anything bad that happens in the community and the sport of Association Football. I mean, I have seen some pretty long bows drawn in my time, but this, at the risk of mixing a metaphor, takes the cake.

Let's look at some of his claims...

There may be a link between the Cronulla riots and the World Cup qualifier. How is that again? You heard me. Baum implies that 80-thousand Australians of all creeds, colours, ethnicities and cultures can come together in a glorious night of pride and passion, singing our National Anthem as one, then beat the living bejesus out of each other just a few weeks later, and the two are connected.

Somehow, getting together in a stadium, united in a patriotic cause can lead to those same people viscously attacking each other. That stretch of logic is beyond belief!

If I am not mistaken, Cronulla is an NRL stronghold. I did not see one Football jersey on the news footage, yet Baum still plays the tired old football hooligan card.

"Waltzing Matilda becomes a war cry." Come off it Mr Baum. In what way can a folk ballad about a suicidal tramp turn into something as aggressive and provocative as a war-cry. These were drunken thugs with no brains and too much testosterone, that is all.

He equates our bemusement at the Uruguayan claim of a divine right to play in the World Cup to us staking a claim of Australia as the "sporting centre of the universe". Only the blinkered Melbourne AFL insiders ever claim that. In fact, Australia's World Cup qualification has shown us just the opposite.

In world Footballing terms we are minnows and we know it. But that does not stop us dreaming.

We qualified for the World Cup, but "Nothing has been won yet". How about winning recognition and respect, not to mention significant funding. For me, I would far rather my country qualify for the World Cup Finals than my AFL team qualify for the AFL finals series. It is infinitely more significant. And I say that as a mad Adelaide Crows supporter.

Baum thinks our qualification produced only a shallow and short-lived unity. I disagree. Only Football can bring together our hearts and minds as a nation on the world's biggest sporting occasion.

Forget the Olympics. Individual results, as significant as they are, are necessarily diluted by the myriad of other sports and events. Forget Rugby League and Union "World" Cups. Not many countries even play those games. Forget Cricket, Netball, and all those other minority sports. The AFL Grand Final is a magnificent sporting event, but it is still basically an inter-suburban contest.

Only Football can bring us all together, competing on a truly world stage, with a single sense of purpose and unity.

So, to me, Greg Baum's article ranks right up there alongside his namesake, L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of OZ", firmly in the realm of fantasy.

In the book and the movie, the terrible, frightening wizard turns out to be just an old man hiding behind a curtain. Nowhere near as frightening as he appeared at first.

Likewise, we Football loving Australians should look behind the curtain of prejudice thrown up by Greg Baum, Kevin Naughton and their ilk, and see them for what they are, frightened, narrow minded and, increasingly, worried about the rise to prominence in the Australian consciousness of Football, the Beautiful Game.

If only they had the sense to embrace it.

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