Fans behaving badly at AFL games merits more debate than how players, coaches react in defeat or to umpires

AUSTRALIAN football no longer can consider itself immune of concerning behaviour on the terraces — and this needs more debate than how players and coaches act on match days.

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• Crowd brawl: Separating rival fans not answer
• Fans let off flare at Adelaide Oval

SO how are we all to behave at the footy?

If you stay until the end of an AFL game, should your team’s players smile and laugh or even shake hands and hug with the victorious opposition?

But if you have left early in disgust — while arguing there is the need to get a jump on the bus queue or avoid the crush on the Riverbank footbridge — how would you know? And if your commitment as a fan is conditional on victory, can you question the players’ post-game actions?

(Yes, you pay for your seat so you can do as you wish — and the players are paid to perform, so they should deliver even after the siren.)

AFL fan behaviour has become of greater concern in recent seasons — and deserves more debate to protect well-behaving fans from flares, as seen at Adelaide Oval last season during the Crows-Geelong match. Picture: Sarah Reed

Do you feel comfortable if the coach is seen smashing the telephone — or losing composure in the box as a game turns sour or on an umpiring call? If a pilot appeared so frustrated — and lacking control of his emotions — you would be checking for the life vest under the seat, right?

(But you want to see the coach cares …)

It has been a big week for behavioural review in the AFL system.

Port Adelaide players, according to former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon, are whingers for the way they repeatedly “throw their arms out at umpires’ decisions and think they’re the most hard done by group going around”.

Melbourne (and former Crows) midfielder Bernie Vince is under fire from Hawthorn premiership great Dermott Brereton for laughing with Geelong rival (and former Crow) Patrick Dangerfield after the Demons’ last-kick loss at Kardinia Park on Saturday night.

“Show a respect to the game; show a respect to your opponent, get off and socialise somewhere else,” Brereton said of a sentiment that part of football tradition 50 years ago.

And then there is the behaviour of the thugs on the terrace at Kardinia Park who, by brawling at the end of the Geelong-Melbourne, gave the AFL yet another case of concerning conduct (most unbecoming) from fans.

Of all the behavioural issues in Australian football — where many have sneered at the world game and A-League moments, such as those in Sydney derbies or Adelaide United-Melbourne Victory battles — the most concerning is the increasing level of violence on the terraces at AFL games. And, as Adelaide Oval knows from the Crows-Geelong AFL game last season, the menace of dangerous flares is not exclusive to soccer matches.

A still from video of a brawl at Adelaide Oval during Port v Geelong game earlier this year.

Bernie Vince would not be Bernie Vince if he did not smile — win, lose or draw.

Power players telling umpires their job fits with how Port Adelaide fans jeer umpires off the field at the end of the game (even after wins) in a longer-running ritual than their Never Tear Us Apart pre-match anthem.

And Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, by his admission, only stopped smashing telephones in his box because it was hurting his arm.

For the debate on segregating fans at AFL games to have begun tells how far Australian football has fallen from its once blissful thought that it was immune from what often tormented other sports — particularly soccer.

And this issue should carry more voice than any debate on Brereton or Lyon’s verdicts.

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