Last Saturday evening, my young son headed off with his older cousin to the A-League match between Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory. Not knowing much about the league, and having heard soccer fans were sometimes rowdy, I had hesitated about letting him attend. But my nephew assured me it would be fine. And my sports-obsessed 11-year-old looked at me with pleading eyes. So off they went.
A text message from my nephew around 8.15pm was the first I knew that things were not fine: “Not sure if you’re seeing what’s happening in the game but just wanted to let you know that it’s very far away from us and we’re very safe.”
I quickly found the footage online: a mob of fans (although fans are not the word for them) storming the field, flares shooting through the air, the referee doused in sand and the bloodied face of Melbourne City’s goalkeeper after a metal bucket was thrown at him. Not quite the spectacle my son was expecting, much less his mother!
The irony of Saturday night’s sorry display – chaos, violence and a match called off for player safety – is that soccer was having a special moment. The Socceroos’ spirited performance at the World Cup had captivated the whole country. They were very much what we needed after another exhausting year.
Socceroos fever surely resulted in a significant bounce in soccer’s profile and Australia’s A-League competition. This was definitely the case with my son. Until recently, his sporting enthusiasm has been mainly focused on AFL and cricket, both watching and playing. He’s small in stature but a big Western Bulldogs fan. And his ability to imbibe – and talk – bowling stats and batting averages would see him fit right into any commentary team.
Our weekend plans revolve around under-12s cricket games, and his Christmas wish list is less Lego, more Boxing Day test tickets. It was the Socceroos that drew this kid into the soccer stratosphere. Fussing over sleep deprivation seemed futile when we saw his bleary-eyed face beaming with joy watching the Socceroos give it their all in Qatar, even if it was 2am back in Melbourne.
Several flares were set off during the Melbourne derby.Credit:Getty
He loved them as much for their gutsy David-vs-Goliath self-belief as their fancy footwork; for the buzz they injected, as if by magic, into Australia’s pandemic and rain-fatigued atmosphere.
How sad, then, to see the ugly scenes at AAMI Park, and to know they will leave an imprint on the minds of new followers of the game, especially young ones like my son. He described what he saw on Saturday night as “scary and a bit crazy”. He was more than happy to leave when his older cousin suggested doing so (before officials suspended the game). By the time he got home he was nevertheless buzzing with excitement, if stunned.
I asked him lots of questions about what happened but the main thing he wanted to talk about was the goal that Melbourne City scored 11 minutes into the match. That’s what he cared about. As it should be.
My son wants to go to another A-League game. He’s already prepping me, prosecuting his case like the little lawyer he’s always been. But after the violence on Saturday night I will think twice. What parent wouldn’t? Whether I let him go or not will depend in large part on how the managers of the A-League, and Victory, deal with this incident and what efforts they make to create a culture that has an unequivocal, zero-tolerance approach to violence or hooliganism of any kind.
It is unfortunate that the incident has generated a partisan row among different sporting codes. If the same thing happened on an AFL field, Test cricket pitch, or tennis court I would be just as disturbed – as a spectator, as an Australian but, most of all, as a parent.
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