I'm an Aussie born and raised in Perth, Western Australia, so when I opened my morning Metro here in football mad London and found an article about yesterday's Test match between Australia and South Africa in Perth, I was justifiably pleased. Until I read it.
It was not the fact that the South Africans had doggedly denied our boys the win by hanging on for a draw that ruined my day -- rather it was the second time in as many weeks that rampant racism by my (and I hesitate to describe them as such) countrymen, had made international news.Seriously though, WTF? Being from the west coast, it's easy enough for my to write off the riots in Sydney as 'those idiots from Cronulla', but racist taunts at the WACA? I mean ok, Perth sports fans have never been the most articulate at heckling. 'South Africans are Wan-kers' is about as eriadite as I've heard at the cricket. That, and a lot of these drunken morons seems to think that the harshest 'insult' they can provide is to question the sexuality of opposing teams.
Not that I'm suggesting bigotry is a step up from racial taunts. More like a lateral step along the bottom of a very slimy barrel.
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