Coaches inspire on grim day for Canberra sport.

Amidst the gloom a chink of light.

Canberra Football suffered a black day on Friday according to a report below. But as often in these times a real hero steps up. Coaches of two ACT Premier League sides are praised for their leadership.

Report from Peter below.

It was disappointing to see the adverse publicity in the Canberra Times over the first Friday night football match at Deakin, between Woden Valley FC and O’Connor Knights Premier League teams.

I was there and the violent incident that punctuated an interesting game (not a spiteful game), was just sickening. So I guess we should think twice before we say our game doesn’t have behavioural problems, or setting ourselves up to be better than other codes.

Our game, like any other has its fair share of idiots on and off the field, and so it was on Friday night.

I felt sorry for the coaches for both teams, because what happened, in an otherwise desperate and competitive struggle, did not reflect their intentions or abilities. Coaches cannot coach for these contingencies, but they are left with the fallout.

There are always examples of unacceptable behaviour and sometimes violent behaviour by players that sit outside the rules of the game and give you reason to cringe.

Every now and again you get a game that just goes wrong, disrupted by petulant, self serving displays by players (usually and thankfully on most occasions) toward referees which is hard to watch or condone and in equal measure.

Sadly, danger enters the scene on the field (and sometimes from idiot spectators) when as they say, we get the “second man in” – that special brand of a fool and coward for a player, who decides to indulge himself by entering into the fray. The victim is usually “king hit” in some form or another and the risk of very serious injury is ever present.

On the sideline, you get the occasional moron who throws a tanty, making that single mistake of thinking the game on the field is not the main entertainment and that it’s all really about him.

These are the individuals that really kick off bad situations at the game and referee’s can’t do a lot about it. Police can and on Friday night it came close to calling the Police and perhaps someone did.

If they had it was good judgement, although we were lucky that the situation cooled down sufficiently for it not to be necessary – but not by much!

I have watched my club (Woden) play two games in successive weeks in which some of our players crossed the line, giving us all reason for embarrassment and regret. The offences centred around swearing, ungentle manly conduct and poor on field behaviour, not violence. They arose out of games that could not be described in way as “spiteful games”, which is unnerving.

But never ask a player what he did to get sent off – their first response is “I’m f….d if I know”. Yeah sure mate! Denial is big among fools for footballers. Someone one else is always to blame! One thing is also certain – they didn’t think of the club or their team mates or the game when they behaved badly. Just themselves.

Capital Football disciplines them and clubs too often leave the offender without any administrative consequences. Clubs can be very unhappy with a player for his behaviour and wish he were not among them, but do nothing.

Why? Too scared to lose a player? The truth is that these players are not “character” of the game, they are just badly behaved individuals. Who needs them?

These two weeks have illustrated (to me) the frustration respectful and decent players, coaches and supporters can feel, and complications for the future when unpleasantness happens on the field.

Its made all the more difficult when the incidents come out of games that were not inherently nasty games of football and when the blame could not be conveniently shunted onto referees.

Importantly, if you asked those that watched the club play regularly or were at training regularly, they would probably say they were “not surprised” by the unacceptable behaviour” of the offender(s). How often do you hear that when someone has been sent from the field? Makes you think.

Before I go on, I want to make one other point to clubs and Capitol Football about players, particularly in the Premier League. Aside from a couple of cashed up clubs who are able to pay and retain senior players, the age across the PL / PPL /P18’s is very young.

Our club is known as a young club, we operate (like a number of others) on the smell of an oily rag, and filed teams that have average ages this year of 19 / 18 /17 years respectively. That means we have a high proportion of “minors” in our teams. I repeat “minors”.

That brings a lot of issues to the table that must be managed very carefully. On Friday night following the violent on field incident, I looked at our back four and I reckon it included 15, 17 and 18 year old players. None of these lads were involved in the violent incident, but they could easily have been drawn into the mess that threatened to engulf the game.

The victim, an O’Connor Knights player didn’t look too old to me as he walked holding his head where he had been kicked. The two offenders were from my club.

But I get ahead of myself. This is what I observed when following my Premier League club in the last two weeks.

The first incident was a premier league game (PPL) which saw the teams unable to assert the ascendancy and both playing pretty ordinary football. Coaches on both sides were not happy. Players were getting frustrated with themselves, not their opponents, but there was developing pressure.

It was a game played without a hint of nastiness. Into this picture came a quixotic ref who decided to police players with their shirts not tucked into their shorts. He pursued it like a man on a mission. A spectator wondered if this was an instruction from the referee’s hierarchy, but most thought not.

One of our players displayed his immaturity when for the second time he was told to tuck his jersey into his shorts. He made a juvenile unsporting gesture to another player and got a yellow card – well deserved.

He was now firmly in the ref’s sights and for good reason and that came as no surprise to his club coaches, staff and some other players. There was only one way this was going to go. He’s not big enough or strong enough to pull the skin off a rice custard, and I suppose we should thankful for that, but he has a sharp tongue, matched only by episodes of arrogance and ignorance. He holds his place because he is genuinely talented, people talk of his “potential”, but he is a bit of a serial pest and “potential” is seldom realised!

In times gone by they would have simple said “he’s a bloody young goose”. But of course that’s not PC these days is it?

So their we have it – game conditions favourable, frustration levels going up, a picky ref and a young goose! What a brew.

You guessed it, his jersey came out again and the ref chipped him. Instead of just putting his jersey back in like the other players from both teams, he decided to ask why and debate the issue, a hissy-fit followed and a second yellow card and leave the field.

More petulant behaviour and an embarrassed and angry coaching staff and other players by the manner of his departure. Our team was down a goal and as often happens, when the player left they lifted, even played some good football and got an equaliser.

The offending player is now out for a few weeks. Is that the end of it? Some would no. They would say that he should be stood down from the club for the rest of the season, because who needs this rubbish and there are plenty of other young players who play by all the rules, even when they don’t think it is exactly fair or reasonable.

But like most community based clubs, I guess they will feel that the bad behaviour was resolved by Capital Football. In truth, nothing is likely to have been resolved because you wont convince this young fellow that he was in the wrong – its all someone else’s fault.

The second incident is just as frustrating but far more dangerous and violent.

I watched the first premier league game on Friday night. Again, it was not a spiteful game, not at all. The team I watch was down two goals by half time, following a previous round flogging by CFC (biggest in anyone’s recent memory).

They were not playing good football. The second half started to look better for my team, then it happened.

Two opposing players contested the ball and jostled each other. They reached that point where it was move on with the game or escalate the confrontation. Smart players walk away.

This didn’t happen and jostling became punches thrown and wrestling on the ground. I though our player was the one more responsible, but who really knows looking at it from the fence.

Importantly, they both had moved quickly from probable warning, to yellow card to send off in quick time, though mercifully, neither seemed to have hurt the other. Lots of huff and puff.

In to this stupidity came the “Second man” (from the club I watch) and things went through the roof. For reasons best known to himself and nothing to do with football, he kicked the opposition player in the head while he was wrestling on the ground.

Unbelievable! This triggered a melee on the field, though in fairness most players were keen to stop things. On the sideline, the coaching staff , club personnel, other club players and spectators were outraged by this dangerous and violent behaviour.

People went on to the field that had no business being there, but by sheer good luck it did not translate into a full scale brawl. It takes more time to tell of it than it did when it happened. But make no mistake, this was a dangerous situation.

Among my clubs supporters, we were all aghast and embarrassed, after it was clear that no serious damage had been done to the young opposition player. Our coach was horrified by what one of his players had done and was doing all he could to ensure the players, particularly our young players, did not get into a very bad situation.

He was successful in doing so. He was Capitol Football’s Coach of the Year last season and for good reason – he is a thoroughly decent man. He was visibly shaken by what had happened and took it personally.

The opposition coach was inspirational among his club; he demanded and got reason from his players and most of his officials and spectators. He took decisive action to contain his hotheads and that made a big difference in a bad situation that could easily have got right out of control – on and off the field. This was real leadership in action.