Life mostly assuredly had much more freedom when I was younger. I am nearly starting to subscribe to the theory that us Baby Boomers have so much to answer for.
While sitting in a dry seat at āMarvelā or the G is nice, I cannot smoke, I cannot take my own esky and now I cannot call an umpire a green maggot or a flog !! While I am not fussed about smoking, and my capacity to drink has diminished, passionately supporting my Team is my right. I donāt swear or abuse our Players, but reserve the right to call out incompetent umpires and opposition mongrels like Stratton.
These āofficersā who want me to be aware of my behaviour can GAGF. It will end up that no-one will go to the footy.
Just as well I live in NSW and get to only a few games. If I lived in Melbourne I would probably be banned by the PC AFL Police Force on my first appearance.
The AFL simply cannot control everything and as they try more things will become apparently out of control.
What I want to know is how far off are we for the AFL Party in Parliament???
I was at Windy Hill in the 1970s very close (2 or 3 metres) to Kevin Murray as he ran out leading Fitzroy. Murray had won a stack of B&Fs and a Brownlow and was often referred to as the old man of football. I yelled out - hereās the old man of football. Two very old Fitzroy supporters told me I was a fuc&ing little c^%t who should shut his mouth. It didnāt scar me despite my tender age. They probably had a reasonable point.
I think most of our critique of swearing is hypocritical, as we have these changeable rubbery standards as to when and where itās ok. I think swearing to emphasise something even in public is harmless (The umpiring is farking hopeless today) and if someone takes offence itās their problem. If itās strong personal abuse then itās not ok because of the aggressive nature rather than the words used.
Trying to get some of the discussion in the other thread in here. Sorry to āpickā on you @JBOMBER, but your post had a lot of history in it so it seemed a good one to pull across.
Edit: Rats, this doesnāt appear to have worked.
I think there is a difference if it is a general employee, versus one who is probably paid a marketing wage (if its anything like the AFL). If youāve taken money from someone to promote their product, and be the face of that product, then I donāt think the person employing you is out of bounds expecting you to be civil to all of the potential customers. To not embarrass them.
It gets more interesting if heās not paid an explicit marketing allowance. To what degree are sportsmen now marketers versus their job just being playing on the weekend and turning up for training? Given I bet their contracts contain heaps of clauses around being available for journalists, promotional shoots etc., I suspect even a standard contract would be deemed as having some element of marketing.