A reply to Bazza Whatsisface

This letter was sent to Baz Blakeney by Ozespri, a poster on the Melbourne Victory message board. Baz it will be remembered felt that socceristas should probably go back to where they came from and take their soccer balls with them.

The letter's an elegant piece of satire to which Baz has failed to respond. No surprise there, He's probably too busy speaking to his lawyers about how to handle the accusations of racism and bigotry that have been flying his way.

The final para of the letter changes the mood however, because it relates a true and moving story.

Dear Sir/Madam,

A good friend has been kind enough to email a copy of your current article.

She is a connoisseur of all such anti-sockah articles in the Herald Sun and is collecting them with a view to publishing them in a book one day. She tells me she has had to purchase a 2tb hard drive for the backups, but I digress.

I don't normally bother with them reading them, finding them somewhat repetitive and seemingly published for the purposes of 'trolling' or 'getting hits' or whatever the current terminology is.

Anyway. I've never heard of you and doubt I will again, but I do note you're more qualified than most of the Sun writers who have their weekly turn pontificating on the subject having attending a total of two games. No doubt you played a season at under 6 and found it too easy, but are just too modest to state.

Now, my friend believes your article verges on racism, but of course it doesn't. She has failed to spot the subtleties of your prose reminiscent of the best of Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint and Monty Python.

I mean, who could seriously write and believe that throwing punches and spitting is to be held up as the ideal of Aussie spectator larrikin behaviour. Next thing you'd be saying that shouting 'BALL' every five seconds demonstrates how advanced the atmosphere and bogan behaviour at AFL has progressed over the years. I know, sends a tingle down the spine every time.

Some wonder why obscure journalists get a weekly turn in the Sun to write an anti-sockah column, but I know that any day soon all the Sun's soccer writers will be getting their own column to wonder aloud why AFL is still a provincial sport after 150 years, why fifty rules change every season and why it's so boring after the 30th goal was scored. Possibly because it looked amazingly similar to previous 29.

Anyway, sorry I've digressed again.

The reason for this email is that my good friend, a fifth generation Aussie, died this week. He attended almost every Victory home game for the last five years. How fortunate it is that he didn't have to learn - from you - that he wasn't a proper Australian and should go back to wherever he came from.

RIP.

Yours sincerely,
****** ****** (Yes, a foreign name, but still born here. Where do you want me to take my sockah ball to?)