What if it was our club?

[PavLike]

I've been pondering this for a while and rather than post it in the Hawks thread - for fear that it might be seen as an attempt to troll.

I have been a Penn State football fan ever since I went to college over 20 years ago. After the Joe Paterno case broke - I was living in the US and many people would ask "How can you continue to follow/support that team/organisation after the attrocities that happened there?

I wonder how Hawthorn supporters are feeling at the moment and wonder how many would question whether or not they might be ashamed or feel that they might change who the follow because of recent events (if found to be true).

I'm curious as a passionate Freo fan and as a club with a rich indigenous heritage/culture and the fact that we are a relatively new club. If it came to fruition that our club was found to have done something similar - Would you consider disowning Freo?

I personally am not sure - I guess I'd consider taking a break from the sport and club and see what actions the club did as a result of situation.

Thoughts?

 

[freoextra]

I've been pondering this for a while and rather than post it in the Hawks thread - for fear that it might be seen as an attempt to troll.

I have been a Penn State football fan ever since I went to college over 20 years ago. After the Joe Paterno case broke - I was living in the US and many people would ask "How can you continue to follow/support that team/organisation after the attrocities that happened there?

I wonder how Hawthorn supporters are feeling at the moment and wonder how many would question whether or not they might be ashamed or feel that they might change who the follow because of recent events (if found to be true).

I'm curious as a passionate Freo fan and as a club with a rich indigenous heritage/culture and the fact that we are a relatively new club. If it came to fruition that our club was found to have done something similar - Would you consider disowning Freo?

I personally am not sure - I guess I'd consider taking a break from the sport and club and see what actions the club did as a result of situation.

Thoughts?

Nope will always remain a supporter but I would be loud in demanding change. But that is easy for me to say,it would likely be completely different for some of our indigenous supporters.

I am pretty confident in our now with indigenous representation both at board level and within coaching ranks but slips in the past especially when we were a new club are very possible.

 

[Descent]

Nope will always remain a supporter but I would be loud in demanding change. But that is easy for me to say,it would likely be completely different for some of our indigenous supporters.

I am pretty confident in our now with indigenous representation both at board level and within coaching ranks but slips in the past especially when we were a new club are very possible.

Agree, but my conditions are harsh. If the response is anything less than gutting the place and removing every vestige of the sick past, then it would be very easy to walk away.

 

[Demons09]

Agree, but my conditions are harsh. If the response is anything less than gutting the place and removing every vestige of the sick past, then it would be very easy to walk away.

This stems from culture it would be deeply ingrained in Vic clubs i mean you only have to look back to the eighties very hard to name many indigenous players from the VFL era.

 

[PavLike]

It definitely is an interesting perspective. I was doing some research...

Once again - not saying he's guilty but in Clarkson's 16 years as coach - He had 16 indigenous players total on is list... Only reason I looked this up was after Burgoyne made his statement that he had no idea what was happening?

TBH Looking back at it now - We got lucky having Gerard Neesham as our initial coach considering the amount of work he does for Clontarf now.

Still - touch would that our club never has a scandal that could potentially rip the organisation apart. I feel for everyone affected
by this; including North and Brisbane.

 

[Power Raid]

Be it at Port or my adopted local side Freo, I'd continue to support the club

but that support comes with the "demand" to always strive to be better and remove the elements that have brought the club into disrepute

 

[Quazar]

a lot of the Hawks fans yesterday were outraged, disillusioned; sad, vitriolic etc...the whole ambit of emotions you'd expect from news breaking like this. It's a very ugly, sorry; sad state of affairs. Many were threatening to revoke their memberships etc, each individual will react differently accordingly to their personality type. Unfortunately you always get thick-headed goons who serve the other side, but their voice is at best a whimper in the dark. It's time for light to be shone......

No one really knows the whole story, the whole 'truth' yet. But with the past indiscretions of clubs like West Coast, Essendon, Melbourne, Adelaide (all different circumstances/situations granted) no one is really safe until a lid is blown off, because this is a societal issue as it is a high-performance sports level. I'd like to think that given Freo is fairly shafted by being unfairly dumped at Tasmania and the likes when Essendon and St. Kilda seemingly don't have to shows you we are lower down the AFL's pecking order, level of importance etc etc and as a consequence not so high on hubris to plummet to these depths. You would hope given our underdog status.

That being said, the Ross Lyon coup was pretty ugly the way it played out, and I've said many times - sport is a ruthless industry and business. Then there was the "budding boobs" scandal, but these seem more in line with typical 'controversies' that occasionally spruik up in the good ole world of sport. What has happened here feels almost from another world, a world that shouldn't even exist. There's an invisible line, and anyone can cross it.

I don't think any footy fan from any corner of existence is naive enough to think that with such high stakes, clubs will do certain things to gain an edge, bend rules; find loopholes etc etc...but this goes beyond the pale. It's a sadistic, insidious operation that has no foundation in logic, acceptance or explanation. It's going to hurt a lot of people, but no more than those directly involved. Including relations and people associated with Clarko, Fagan etc.

But there has to be natural justice and from there, appropriate outcome. It's bleak, it's atrocious - but right now it's up in the air and if it serves any purpose where a positive can be an outcome it's that it has to never EVER happen again. Whether that outcome can be reached we don't know, the human condition is a bizarre one and sometimes we bear witness to things we'd rather not see. But things can't be swept under carpets forever. I just hope that it promotes better education and understanding and tolerance going forward so it can't escalate beyond a group of scumbag men who took their positions of power to a needless, abhorrent & baseless level of abuse

 

[Joose]

Could well be Freo's future.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with bringing in a bunch of activists with an axe to grind to audit our club like Hawthorn did?

If you want to see evidence of racism, if your whole career revolves around conflict between Indigenous and white Australians, then you will find it, your job depends on it.

Fremantle FC is 27 years and it has had scores of aboriginal players pass through its doors. If you think that among all those players and their partners and their families that there would not be one instance of a real or imagined sleight, a clumsy joke misconstrued or even a case or two of flat out bigotry?

Lets be real here, for every Indigenous player with a bad story to tell there are dozens that owe the game their successful lives. They have achieved wealth and fame and the clubs bend over backwards to accomodate them. No demographic in the AFL is coddled like the indigenous demographic is coddled.

We are going down the American path and tearing ourselves apart over this race issue.

What unites us is far greater than what divides us.

 

[Descent]

Could well be Freo's future.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with bringing in a bunch of activists with an axe to grind to audit our club like Hawthorn did?

If you want to see evidence of racism, if your whole career revolves around conflict between Indigenous and white Australians, then you will find it, your job depends on it.

Fremantle FC is 27 years and it has had scores of aboriginal players pass through its doors. If you think that among all those players and their partners and their families that there would not be one instance of a real or imagined sleight, a clumsy joke misconstrued or even a case or two of flat out bigotry?

Lets be real here, for every Indigenous player with a bad story to tell there are dozens that owe the game their successful lives. They have achieved wealth and fame and the clubs bend over backwards to accomodate them. No demographic in the AFL is coddled like the indigenous demographic is coddled.

We are going down the American path and tearing ourselves apart over this race issue.

What unites us is far greater than what divides us.

Extreme sarcasm warning

Ain’t no coddling like waiting until 1967 to grant citizenship, eh? How about that stolen generation? What a coddling! And the 10 year life expectancy gap? So coddled!

 

[Grape Bear]

Yup, that was spoken like a true “I don’t see race” acolyte.

 

[G Mus]

Big boomer energy

 

[Boomer93]

I hate this public hanging before any sort of trial. Its everything our society is trying to get away from.

Most of the statements have come from the partner, the actual conversation between the player and coach could have been much different to the conversation relayed to the partner he was then breaking up with. If this was the case, with a relationship at risk and possible pay out to gain, why would he now tell his partner the truth.

The Aboriginal liaison wasn't told, Burgoyne didn't know, Rioli didn't know.

I also don't know what throwing a 'sim card out does in the world of social media.

Now im not saying it didn't happen. But the way people are acting with out any proper evidence is pretty sad. I don't think anyone wpuld be acting like this if the bloke wasn't aboriginal, which makes me feel like people are being overly righteous for the wrong reasons.

 

[MadEyeEmmy]

 

[WAnchor]

Fremantle FC is 27 years and it has had scores of aboriginal players pass through its doors. If you think that among all those players and their partners and their families that there would not be one instance of a real or imagined sleight, a clumsy joke misconstrued or even a case or two of flat out bigotry?

And what disturbs me is that if there is evidence of such 'sleights', your post implies that you'd prefer for it to be swept under the carpet.

I so hope that by the time my children are adults, your way of thinking is where is belongs - in history.

 

[Square Peg]

I reckon there's good precedent to believe that if a club wins a flag, and a few years later some scandal emerges that questions the ethics of the club at the time and so the legitimacy of the flag, almost all supporters of the club will stick fat.
Carlton 1995, Eagles 2006, I reckon Hawthorn 2013-5 will be the same.
So either those claiming you'd stop supporting the club if we were in that situation are superior beings, or more likely the ratio of threatened to actual microwaved memberships will follow the historical trend of 1000:1

 

[Boomer93]

View attachment 1515390

Hahah I was actually going to put a Note: I'm not actually a boomer.

Boomer is the name of a football club I used to play for.

I'm tempted to make a new account because this is the third time iv copped it for the name in 6 months

 

[masai tu]

This stems from culture it would be deeply ingrained in Vic clubs i mean you only have to look back to the eighties very hard to name many indigenous players from the VFL era.

Hit the nail on the head.

In both WA & SA, there is a long historical playing record of many indigenous player’s. Every Saturday we’d go and watch our local teams play, and indigenous players were integral parts of teams. You just accepted TI, Maurice, the Narkles, Dempsey, Cable etc as part of the fabric.

Victoria had b all indigenous players up to the late 80’s / early 90’s.

 

[masai tu]

Could well be Freo's future.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with bringing in a bunch of activists with an axe to grind to audit our club like Hawthorn did?

If you want to see evidence of racism, if your whole career revolves around conflict between Indigenous and white Australians, then you will find it, your job depends on it.

Fremantle FC is 27 years and it has had scores of aboriginal players pass through its doors. If you think that among all those players and their partners and their families that there would not be one instance of a real or imagined sleight, a clumsy joke misconstrued or even a case or two of flat out bigotry?

Lets be real here, for every Indigenous player with a bad story to tell there are dozens that owe the game their successful lives. They have achieved wealth and fame and the clubs bend over backwards to accomodate them. No demographic in the AFL is coddled like the indigenous demographic is coddled.

We are going down the American path and tearing ourselves apart over this race issue.

What unites us is far greater than what divides us.

I agree with the points you are making, all clubs must keep an eye on all aspects of their club. Player relations :- team mate to team mate, coach to player, player to footy manager, must be closely managed.

When a situation occurs, context is the major point to me. How, when and what occurred before.

The more I hear about the Hawthorn situation, the more I think they have put winning in front of dignity.

 

[Lach72]

I’d support if it was completely dealt with and those responsible were punted

 

[purplerunsdeep2]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Freomaniac]

Well... Players come and go, so do coaches, adminstration people and other staff....

Fans/ supporters will always be loyal.

If this happened at Fremantle, I would want any people responsible, if the evidence is sufficient enough to be proven, to be removed regardless how many years left on their contract.

As for the victims in this. It would take years, even decades to recover if they every do fully recovered from this.

 

[Electronic_Renaissance]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What a strange statement. It almost comes across as the club has skeletons from the past that are about to be released.

If every other was doing these statements it would make more sense. But apart from those involved (North, Hawthorn, Brisbane) I have seen nothing like this from the other clubs.

 

[Square Peg]

What a strange statement. It almost comes across as the club has skeletons from the past that are about to be released.

If every other was doing these statements it would make more sense. But apart from those involved (North, Hawthorn, Brisbane) I have seen nothing like this from the other clubs.

I read it as the opposite, we're getting on the front foot because we're sure we're a helluva lot cleaner than a lot of others. I liked it, it's clever and confident

 

[arsesmart]

I hate this public hanging before any sort of trial. Its everything our society is trying to get away from.

Most of the statements have come from the partner, the actual conversation between the player and coach could have been much different to the conversation relayed to the partner he was then breaking up with. If this was the case, with a relationship at risk and possible pay out to gain, why would he now tell his partner the truth.

The Aboriginal liaison wasn't told, Burgoyne didn't know, Rioli didn't know.

I also don't know what throwing a 'sim card out does in the world of social media.

Now im not saying it didn't happen. But the way people are acting with out any proper evidence is pretty sad. I don't think anyone wpuld be acting like this if the bloke wasn't aboriginal, which makes me feel like people are being overly righteous for the wrong reasons.

What makes this more credible at this point is that there are multiple individuals/players with stories of a similar controlling vein. There's also potentially verifiable details/claims, such as the sim card change, the address change and emails.

 

[arsesmart]

I read it as the opposite, we're getting on the front foot because we're sure we're a helluva lot cleaner than a lot of others. I liked it, it's clever and confident

Also that we take the principle of being open, inclusive and considerate seriously. That includes not shying away from self-examination and improvement in an open way.