I think regular readers will know that I am always one to stand up for freedom. The rights of the individual are something of a passion of mine, and this is as true in the sports arena as it is in the fields of politics, the arts or shopping.

This is why I will never give up my ceaseless fight to defend the inalienable rights of the sports fan. These rights are many and nuanced, but they include such basic principles as:

– The right to expensive chips;

– The right to a swearing pensioner within a 20-metre radius at all times;

– The right to genuinely believe no refereeing decision against your team has ever been correct;

– And perhaps the most cherished right of the sports fan is also the most frequently exercised: the right to boo.

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SO ADAM GOODES, WHO IS THE REAL RACIST?

In the last few days we have seen that right challenged. We have seen some prominent people in the footballing community abuse their position by urging fans to stop booing one man in particular, a man who I think has been fairly conclusively established as a compulsive troublemaker and probably the world’s biggest racist.

And it is a sad day when the fans’ god-given right to let boos echo joyously from their warm, slippery throats is endangered by political correctness. This must not stand.

I want to assure all booers, young and old, fat and thin, ugly and attractive, that I will always be in your corner. I will always support your right to boo, and I will never so much as advise against it in specific situations. For what is a right if it is not exercised? What is a boo if it is not voiced?

So when you see a man brandish an imaginary spear and find your heart clutched by a nameless dread, you boo for all you’re worth.

When you feel that a footballer dancing on a football field is almost definitely an Manson Family-esque attempt to trigger a race war, you boo your heart out.



I will support your right to do this.

I will support your right to boo when you see an opposition player behaving in a way suggestive of aggression or confrontation or of being on a different team to the one you support. I will support it all the way.

I will support your right to boo any sportsperson who violates the sacred compact between the races that has always existed: the indigenous players provide the magical, whimsical, delightful flashes of ephemeral brilliance, and the white people have opinions. Boo until you’re hoarse and I’ll stand behind you the whole way.

If you quite rightly boo a man who has the gall to suggest that you, or at least someone a bit like you, may have said or done something racist, when in fact you, or someone a bit like you, have never said or done anything racist, I defend to the death your right to do so.

And if that man then suggests that your booing was itself inspired by racial motives, when in fact it was purely and simply sparked by your hatred of staging for free kicks or knees-first slides or a quite reasonable and really extremely chivalrous concern for the happiness of young teen girls, further boos may be justified and I will back you to the hilt.

But don’t think I’m only going to support your rights in cases when racial issues are mentioned even though they’ve got nothing to do with it at all. Because booing is a part of our culture that crosses boundaries, erases divisions, and swims cheerfully through the bloodstream of every real Australian – and it’s something that must be protected at all costs.

So yes I’ll support you when you boo the referee for applying the rules to your team even though you never agreed to that.

Yes I’ll support you when you boo opposition players for being bad at the game, or for being good at the game, or for being seriously injured. You’ve got the right to do it, so you should feel comfortable letting those guys know just how disgusted you are at everything about them.



I guess what I’m saying is: you name it, I’ll support your right to boo about it. Call me a selfless crusader for civil liberties if you like, but I’m not hero, I’m just a simple man who hates injustice. And injustices don’t come much more unjust than people suggesting booing isn’t a good idea.

I hope you will stand with me as I fight for the right to boo. Because if we do not have the right, when confronted with the sight of a person we have never met whose athletic pursuits cause us temporary emotional discomfort, to publicly make cow noises at the top of our lungs, what’s the point of Australia even existing?

For every oppressed sports fan, for every marginalised Aussie battler, for every footy-loving bloke who ever felt unable to fully articulate his frustration at the incredible superiority of professional sportsmen’s lives compared to his, for every ordinary everyday common or garden knockabout larrikin who finds the weekend game the only outlet he has these days to fully express the fact that he is, mentally, about nine years old – I’ll be booing for you.

I’ll be booing for freedom.