Wednesday, 26 November 2008

Ben on...whinging Kiwis beaten up

The news over in Aus is that the crowds have gone feral and the Black Caps don't like it. "Crowd turns on Kiwi 'faggots'" is the headline in the Daily Telegraph. "New Zealanders say they were called faggots" is the Herald Sun's headline for the same article.

The story seems to be based on a sliver of a comment in Iain O'Brien's blog (which has become a sensation since it was discovered a couple of days ago):
The crowds here are pretty good, ruined by a few, actually quite a few, idiots who think a day out at the cricket is just to abuse the guys playing any way how. You get called anything and everything. Embarrassing for these guys really, as a lot of the others around them are cringing. I don't know how many times I've was called a 'fagot' this afternoon!
(Note that the Aussie papers felt it necessary to alter his spelling of 'fagot'.)

Doesn't sound to me like 'the crowd' is turning on our fagots – just a few, well quite a few, idiots in the crowd. And it doesn't sound like the 'New Zealanders' are saying all that much about it. Just one guy dropping a quick comment amongst a much larger story.

Cricket crowds are nasty, as everyone who has been to a match knows. But there's no issue here. Just a beat up.

2 comments:

Suhas said...

I was wondering just how long it would be before the media started pouncing on otherwise innocuous segments of the blog. O'Brien is a fairly low-profile cricketer (though the tribute to him on Sideline Slogger was well deserved), and even he can't escape the cynosure of the press. Anything for a headline, I guess.

Suhas said...

My latest article examines the possibility of Ryder opening the batting in tests. Would like to read your thoughts on it, Ben.

http://thekiwiflies.blogspot.com/2008/11/just-thought.html