I’d hate you to think of the Whacker as a grumpy old man.
Those of you who know me best will be aware that’s a bit of a Furphy being floated around by some of my critics. Who are, by and large, wannabe Whackers. But don’t have the style or the experience to even come close to carrying it off.
So I thought I would share with you this week my concerns about the decline of footy, since the grandlings tell me the first few rounds of the 2023 AFL draw are out – and it’s not even Christmas.
Now don’t get me wrong, back at the grassroots level, I think the footy clubs merging with netball clubs has been a bonzer move.
For a start, the womenfolk seem so much more organised and capable when it comes to fundraising and getting pie nights running on time.
And all that extra money around the clubs has been handy for bringing in some big gun players from the big smoke.
It certainly helped our club to a flag or three in recent years.
But no, my problem isn’t with local footy – as much as that struggles with falling populations.
My problem is with what technology is doing to the game.
Never mind that garbage about filming every square inch of the ground so if someone is whacked (used to be called Whackered in my day) behind the play they can be booked.
Or the need to have almost as many umpires on the ground as players so the precious little snookums can get almost half the decisions right.
Or the stupid cameras in the goal posts for the clowns with the flags.
Nope, technology is killing the game in the stands.
And being in the stands is what the game is all about when it comes to the big leagues.
Granted it’s not as much fun as nosing the car up to the boundary so you can honk your horn for a goal and save the old vocal chords.
Parking that also makes it easier to get to the esky and the picnic lunch the missus packed before she headed off to the netball with the grandlings.
It’s the technology.
People are going to the game but they are hardly seeing any of it.
As a tacker I remember going with the old man’s old man – he never allowed us to call him gramps – and he would have this tinny little tranny (wireless for you Gen Y dills) which he would plug into one ear.
“I can’t hear the commentators from here, Whacker,” he would tell me.
I was never sure if he was serious or joking, he was a bit of a dill himself.
Anyhoo, when I went to the opening round of the footy last season, we had good seats, close enough to abuse the umpires, close enough for my six toilet stops for the afternoon and ideally placed for the accompanying grandling to fetch me a pie and get back before it was cold.
So, in not so many words, the perfect seats.
But as soon as the game began, I reckon seven in every 10 people around me started watching those assorted iThings.
Phones, small screens and slightly bigger screens – all of them showing the game.
Of the three Luddites left from the 10, two of those were watching the big screen.
The odd one out, such as me, was either nodding off or craning his neck around to see if the kid was coming with the pie.
Not one of these idiots was actually watching the game.
They were on their phones yapping, taking pictures of themselves, taking pictures of everyone around them, sending them to each other, more watching the game on their screens, spilling drinks, bumping people and generally wasting their time.
However, my absolute favourites were the fools yapping into a phone, obviously trying to explain to some other idiot in the ground where they are sitting.
So the one in front of me stood up, in a crowd of 70,000 plus, and started waving one arm as if his fellow idiot on the other side of the ground could spot him, all the time yabbering into the phone and scanning the stands more than 100 yards away on the other side of the ground.
I gave him a couple of minutes before I grabbed his scarf and gave it a good yank.
Which saw him collapse half into his own seat and half onto the lap of his neighbour just as she was pouring steaming hot coffee from her thermos.
The end result was worth the drive, the exorbitant price of the tickets and the chance to marvel at how many halfwits could gather in the one place.
With coffee scalding what I shall euphemistically describe as his inner thigh, my personal idiot bounced from his seat, shot back to his feet, his phone went airborne in one direction and his screams even had players on the field looking into the stands.
He spun around looking to kill someone and saw me smiling at him and asking politely: “Would you be happy to sit down now, dopey?
”Frothing at the mouth, he started clawing his way over the back of his seat, reaching for the Whacker.
And having timed my neck craning to perfection, it was at that exact moment the grandling came back with my pie.
Perhaps I forgot to mention it was the eldest grandling.
He’s 24, he’s six foot, six inches, in the old language – in every direction – and he simply put his hand on dopey’s forehead and guided him back into his seat.
Problem solved.
Except maybe for those coffee burns.
As we were driving home later that day, I smacked my forehead and groaned.
“What is it, Whacker?” my youthful bodyguard said.“Bugger me,” I replied. “If I had one of those fancy phones, I would have loved a shot of that dopey guy.
Would’ve been something to show the missus when we get home.”
