I thought the Essendon supporters were mainly booing at the umps, and not Pendles. Let's face it, footy is an emotional game, especially after a controversial one, and i am sure feelings were running very high when the presentation occurred. Maybe next time, the AFL should just delay the presentation by a bit next time.
It's a very interesting topic for discussion. The ANZAC Day element of it makes it pretty unsavoury, you'd like to think that we can put down our allegiances to our teams for a minute on such a day, but that might not be realistic.
Booing isn't a thing I do because it's kinda silly to me, but I don't really begrudge others from doing it. The Goodes incident obviously stuck in my craw for many reasons, but even with that in mind, I think a lot of fans who boo don't put all that much thought into why they do it. Football is kinda like a stage show in some ways and during the game and immediately after I think some fans lose perspective that the players are everyday people with feelings and not just players on a field preventing their team from winning. So they booed as a bit of an "up yours" after the game to anything to do with Collingwood winning a game which they felt they should have. But I don't think it needs to be made that big a deal
The other thing which I think needs to be said is that today's booing, to me, is an extension of the fierce and unrelenting loyalty people have for their football sides and the emotional ride fans go on at games. Being brought to tears or furious rage or ecstasy due to how a ball bounces or a tackle being made. And the AFL capitalises on the fiercely emotional, kinda primitive reaction people have to footy for their own good. The players make a tremendous amount of money on the back of playing this game which fosters these highly emotional reactions from people. I don't think we should be too surprised or high and mighty when that emotion spills over into some negativity. I'm not excusing it completely, but I'd like to think there's a way to understand and not support it without all the hand-wringing that's going on.