“Sometimes the calls go your way, sometimes they don’t,” says local football supporter (left).
Local football club member James Toovey urged fellow supporters from all clubs to ease up on umpires, today.
“People need to understand these guys do a great job under pressure,” said Toovey. “Mistakes happen when you make quick decisions in the flow of play.”
Toovey, who, in early 2007, spent three drunken hours at his local pub telling anyone who would listen about the shocking state of umpiring and vowing never to watch this sport again, went on to explain to co-workers this morning that “the game moves fast and sometimes umpires aren’t in a position to see every infringement.”
“Swings and roundabouts,” he added magnanimously, in reference to several contentious calls favouring his team in the previous night’s match, “Those aren’t my words – that’s straight from the neutrals on BigFooty’s main board.”
Toovey’s best friend Alan Devlin: “You weren’t here a couple of years ago when Jim spent an hour on the phone trying to get on SEN talkback. When he got through it was a full minute of insults about umpires rooting their mothers. I don’t think it went to air.”
“People are just jealous of our success and will do anything to downplay a win,” said Toovey, whom friends describe as “blissfully amnesiac” about taking two days off work in 2010 to carry on an internet flame war over what he called “evil maggots conspiring with corporate suits in the league to wreck the game with impunity.”
“I think on the second day he even set up a writer account on The Roar,” said his girlfriend, Caroline Baker, as she stubbed out a cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. She closed her eyes and added in a quiet, distant voice, “We don’t talk about it.”
“I’m not an umpire and neither are you,” said Toovey. “We all need to let these guys do their job. I think the public are getting more mature about that.”
