Some irritating Aussies
BY SAM BUCKLETrans-Tasman footballing relations have enjoyed a welcome détente in recent times. It’s been quite refreshing and I’d been enjoying the company, opinion and general goodwill of Australian football fans over the past few weeks. They’ve been expressing much respect for the Phoenix and even got a kick out of us qualifying for South Africa (albeit all felt slightly patronising). So, it’s a little disappointing this blog will run against a welcome trend. Sadly, one or two Aussie clowns have got just far enough under my skin.
First, to my misfortune, I ran into this blog from one of Four Four Two’s contributors, Melbourne Victory supporter Neil Zimmerman. Mr Zimmerman begins with a boorish crack at our accent and a lesson for us in the Queen's English. If the irony in that hasn’t yet slapped him across the face, he may wish to consult this recent - and highly important - BBC linguistics research survey. Guess what, New Zealand English is comfortably more “socially attractive” than its Australian counterpart. So sux to you Neil.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. These types of crazies shouldn’t even be acknowledged. However, when he gets around to it, the focus of Zimmerman’s column is on the intolerable “bias” of Sky Sports A-League commentators (Andrew Dewhurst and Fred de Jong). He’s not the only Australian football fan to grizzle about this. You’ll find a fair bit of whingeing on Aussie football discussion forums after most Phoenix home games.
Welcome to our world. Did somebody say Channel 9 cricket commentary team - Ian Healy anybody? Personally, I can understand local commentators being slightly parochial. But I actually don’t think Andrew and Fred are too bad, particularly if you consider what we’ve had to put up with from Fox for the past three years (admittedly, it’s been a lot better this season). At times there’s only one team on the pitch – whoever, and it doesn’t matter who, is not the New Zealand Phoenix.
Among other things, Zimmerman has a crack at the commentary duo for their “inability to be able to contemplate … that Nick Ward’s second yellow card was actually quite soft” – as if they should have been protesting some terrible travesty. Fact: Ward was getting skinned senseless by Hearfield. Fact: they were both yellow card offences. Fact: two yellows is a red. “I’m sorry, but it is.”
Moving along, we have a column by Davidde Corran on Australian sports opinion website The Roar. Read it for yourself, but the nub of it is that New Zealand Football chairman Frank van Hattum (or is he the chief executive, and is it van Hutton or perhaps van Huttun?) committed some appalling breach of international footballing diplomatic etiquette by suggesting the Aussies were “chicken” and mentioning some countries that might possibly be interested in a game with the All Whites. Apparently, because Australia Football Federation chief executive Ben Buckley hasn’t told the public who Australia might play before it leaves for the World Cup, we’re not allowed to mention any possibilities either. “It’s just not the done thing.”
Oh please, yes you guys are big swingers these days and you’ve got a World Cup bid in the works, but spare us the snobbery and the finishing school lecture. And if you’re going to imply amateurism on anybody’s part, then best you don’t spell their name three different ways in doing so. Good on van Huttin for not speaking in clichés, generalisations and tedious administrator’s empty dross. He was having a bit of fun and sharing his experience at the Cape Town draw. Harmless.
The good news is these guys are in the minority. I enjoy plenty of the football opinion that drifts our way across the Tasman.
In fact, come to think of it, I don’t mind their commentary these days. And even their football forums seem to be trending less feral (admittedly, from a base that permitted movement in only one direction).
PS - I found this an amusing means of passing idle time, the Castrol World Cup predictor. Not great news. We have only got a 3.6% chance of progressing from our group. Hmmmmm. I was a bit surprised this was less than the North Koreans (5.4%), given the composition of their group. And our chance of winning the whole thing? 0.0% (although Castrol has done us a terrible injustice by using only 1 decimal place).
 |
 |
 |
Sponsored links
Newest First
Oldest First
No surprises Corran is one of the SBS crew, who along with Craig " God I wish I was European" Foster and Les "The Urban Sophisticate" Murray, think that football is a Very Serious Business and spend all their time trying to look as clever as possible by rejecting any local australian tradition in favour of copying everything root and branch from overseas. They really are quite pathetic in their own way, the simple fact that the comments on the blog are overwhelmingly supportive and his increasingly self justifying set of responses really make him look quite pathetic and foolish.
as for the melbourne guy, it's your own fault for reading 4-4-2 blogs Sam ;-)
Having watched football on TV in many different countries, I can honestly say that Dewhurst is one the best around. The nature of the A-League means there will will always be accusations of bias. TV commentators and referees. I agree that the yellow cards were warranted on Friday, but I feared for a minute that Heston was going to over compensate for being a Kiwi when he took an age to flash the second yellow.
As for Van Hattum, I afraid I'm in the camp that thinks the guy is a clown. And unfortunately his comment about the Australians only adds to my feeling. Why would the Aussies want to play us? Won't they use their time to play teams like Austria and Ghana? And if Van Hattum is important enough to go to Cape Town, he is important enough to take some of the blame for the most laughable and unprofessional behaviour from a football administrator I have ever ever come across. The Glenn Moss debacle. And the reported South African accomodation emabrassment. The guy is a public embarassment to an increasingly high profile NZ Football Association. The sooner he's replaced by a professional who knows what s/he's doing, the better. Rant over.
Read Mr Zimmeman's blog yesterday, then when I got home happened to watch the replay or the last game against Melbourne Vuctory (sic). Listening to Andrew Dewhurst and Harry Ngata (not Fred for this match) I could not see what he was going on about. I thought there was very little bias in their commentary at all. In fact they were praising Melbourne's defensive organisation when Phoenix were on attack, questioning whether Nicky Ward's cards were appropriate (when biased comments would be screaming for yellows they took their time analysing the replays), they were calling bad Bertos crosses as just that, and giving praise to Langerak when he came out strong for them. Right throughout the game the comments were balanced and appropriate. I was getting quite angry thinking about Zimmermans drivel. Typical anti-kiwi BS if you ask me.
Being familiar with the anti NZ commentator whinge-fest on 442 I listened out for anything overly biased during the Melbourne game and could not spot anything. I thought it was a very fair and objective commentary.
I can completely understand why Aussies would get annoyed at our commentators. Too much "we" for the Phoenix, and "hopefully" the Phoenix can do this. Sure, their commentators can be bad also. So they moan and we moan.
Someone put this guy in a room with audio of the Roar vs Phoenix match, and get him to take a shot of vodka every time the Aussie commentators start talking about Tommy Oar.
I bet he'd be hospitalised with alcohol poisoning by the 20th minute.
0.0% of winning the WC! Maybe the s/w used on the Castrol site cannot hold anything smaller than a 32-bit number! Never mind, your there anyway and anything can happen (see Greece winning in 2004)...with a bit of luck a win and a draw may get you through.
Did here in European newspapers that the Aussie 2018 bid could be derailed from others ports in Australia. i.e. Aussie Rules and the Rugger codes not allowing the sue of the stadiums and not postponing their fixtures. After everything Lowy has done, the other codes are scared and fighting back.
The Castrol site looks like a rip off of the excellent FinkTank http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank/article6945166.ece
The probabilities are disturbingly similar between the sites though!
Why all the angst about commentators? At the end of the day Brian, Dewhurst and De Jong are commentating for NZ Sky for a NZ audience. Ditto the Aussie guys. Why should we expect them to be anything other than a little one sided?
From TV to a tent: Family of eight evicted
Men in court after raid on Auckland apartment
Mallard offers ticket cash back
Suppression lapses for kidnap accused
'Starved, beaten' teen weighed just 32kg
Star claims Home and Away racism
Sonny Bill Williams finds rugby boring: mate
Robyn Malcolm lays it all bare
Mallard offers ticket cash back
China 'will see Crafar ruling as racist'
Mallard sells festival tickets online at profit
Should you take your groom's name?
Cyclist: Don't fine us, fix the road
Marryatt skips council debate to play golf
Govt says asset sales will cut debt
Cue Australian forum angst in 5...4...3...