How to support?

[masai]

I am a pretty easy going lad who is only really "noisy" at the football, when supporting my team.

On the weekend I was getting very frustrated with the stop start football of handballing backwards and forwards, taking uncontested marks and then stopping for 20 seconds waiting for an option. I was very vocal in my calls (no swearing) for them to handball once or twice, then kick the ball forward. When taking an uncontested mark, quickly run ten metres or another ten metres after a bounce and get the ball moving forward quickly.

Well a supporter down from me, told me to settle down and another told me not to bag our players. Both supporters are new to the area this year, the others around me (including one 78 year old granny) agreed with my calls of frustration.

As people around here will know, I champion the causes of any player who gives 100% (Cook, Parker, Bell, Farmer) but if a player is not giving 100% (Medhurst, Polak, Des) then I feel he should be told.

Am I as a supporter allowed to display my disgust at the lack of application of the players and coaching style, or should I quietly sit in my seat and clap when a goal is kicked?.

I hate to say it but there seems to be alot more "theatre goers" than supporters lately. I learnt to watch footy on the grass in the outer and supported teams standing next to a massive cross section of society, and always had a great time with alot of banter, but never felt threatened. Now with all the seating it appears that some of the barracking athmosphere is being diluted.

"Shout for your team", is rapidly becoming "sit down and sip your brews, quietly".

 

[ImperialPurple]

Each to their own masai. You have paid your dues and you can support / barrack in any way you see fit. I, too, am a reasonably easy going, balanced, actually fairly quiet and shy person in "real life", but certainly find voice at the footy. I have a whistle that actually hurts those around me if the sound waves hit your ear-drum at just the right angle, and I regularly come home with little voice left.
I don't, however, bag the players out loud. That is usually under my breath, through clenched teeth peppered with words I would prefer my kids didn't hear me utter. And it is usually only for an individual mistake, rather than serial bagging. Or it's a quiet word to my husband... oh great Cookie's having a shot - mark it down as a behind, that kind of thing.
There's a bloke behind us who hates Medhurst. Every time he goes near the ball, there's something loud and derogatory being yelled out - even when he does something good. Another hates Luke Webster. It was certainly a different experience for those around him this week, with Webster out of the team. That's the sort of thing that pees me off. Serial bagging of individual players.
That article in The Worst yesterday, quoting some of the lines coming from the crowd was actually being said by people around me. They were both cutting and funny and tragic all at the same time. But certainly not out of place.
But whatever way you choose to support, it would have to be better than the line of "stiffs" that sit in the row in fornt of us. You have never seen anything like it. There are 6 of them in their late 40s, they all file in, sit down quietly and make no noise at all, for the whole game, ever. They might clap when a goal is kicked, but they do not engage at all, and sit quietly with their arms folded for the entire game. My husband hates them. The women block their ears when I whistle, and a couple of games ago they brought a "new" stiff along when one of the regulars wasn't there. This new "stiff" sat quietly like the others, and then at the end of the game, reached into his bag, pulled out an eagles scarf, put it on, and quietly filed out with the rest of them. The most I heard was one of the other blokes saying... ahh take that garbage off. But that was it.

Freaky. Why bother going at all?

 

[masai]

Yes I will try and stop bagging players, I will just curse under my breath. God help the "stiffs" if Parks had slotted that goal, they would have had sore ears for weeks to come.

All in all I miss the party athmosphere of the outer with people giving full use of their lungs.

You've hit the nail on the head, the stiffs are different from me and say B all during the game and only come alive during the breaks.

 

[ImperialPurple]

Hey I'm not telling you how to support! You don't seem like the serial bagger type to me, and if a player bothers the carp out of you and you want to vent... then you should!

My "under the breath" thing is more about being "ladylike" and a "responsible parent"...

Although, at one stage on Sunday, I was so incensed at a particular umpiring decision that I jumped up out of my seat, yelled, "you friggen cheat", and I was so livid that I actually deposited a small amount of spittle on the neck of the stiff in front of me... If it had've been anyone else I would have been seriously embarrassed...

Then in my rage as I went to sit down I forgot that my seat had flipped up and nearly bounced back off the upturned seat and landed on the stiff's head. The stiff was busy wiping his neck, the wife was busy turning around looking down her nose at me, my husband was busy wiping the tears from his eyes at their reactions, as I was busy trying to regain a semblance of dignity as I sat myself down again.

Gotta laugh I suppose.

 

[Rob]

I sit directly behind the 'Dockers Den' - a coterie group full of one off theatregoers usually there for the free p*ss as opposed to being there to support the club. Stuffed if I know how they get in. If you reckon you cop it from fairweathers, try sitting behind this mob. I usually tell them to go to a toast match if they want a quiet mundane football experience.

 

[Billy Hunt]

I have been known to get fairly vocal and usually vent my spleen at the maggots but never at the players. Sunday however, frustration got the better of me and I was screaming at Polak to grow some balls. He just didn't look like he wanted to be out there.
I would never stoop as low as some others that boo the players off the oval.

 

[voodoo_86]

I'm not much of a yeller bar the occassional umpire abuse. Say plenty of derogatory stuff at weak player efforts but always as a snide remark or just in my head rather than what others could hear.

What i HATED at the game was a few idiots giving Carr a gobful, when he was right near us and no doubt it hearing shot. Fair enough he was crap that game and had just got tackled and cost a goal, but telling him to go home (I thought he came home?) and ******** off back to port and we don't want him etc etc is a bit over the top. I can't remember hearing these comments in the first 8 rounds of the season.

I can take the player abuse if it stays in the crowd, but if the players hear it, that is pathetic 'supporting'.