I dont know if its because im biased ..or because richmond are so inept and undisciplined or if something far more sinister is behind the last 5 years of richmond getting the least free kicks and giving away thw most .Its made me so angry ,frustrated and bewildered .I end up swearing and losing my temper,which i never do otherwise .
The same with my tiger mad girlfriend .
We talked about it after yesterdays game and come to a desicion to keep our memberships but stop going to games as its just to damaging to our mental health, im to old to deal with the extra blood pressure because of infuriating umpiring and rules .
yep.
I watched VFL Saturday, and really enjoyed it. kind of just watched and appreciated a game of footy, without all the angst. paid too much for a beer and a pie, sat in my tigers jumper, yelled out encouragement, didn't notice the umpires.
its partly me being less invested in the outcome,
but also partly the umpiring being inconspicuous.
I felt yesterdays AFL was terrible, even by our regular umpiring standards.
I didn't enjoy it.
The more I think about, the more im realising it HAS to be in our power to stop.
because I think its a negative feedback loop.
Umps shaft us, we hate them and call them filthy green maggots and vilify them on social media, they dont live in a vacuum so they read and hear it, hate us and persecute us more.
chicken or egg? it doesn't matter.
the persecution is real. but I have to rule out conspiracy; why would The AFL systematically rout us? and if they did, too many people would be involved for it to stay secret. there would be a whistle blower ('Gil told the boss to tell me to shaft Richmond') at a pub or in a taxi or on the back page of the paper. same applies to betting corruption: why would they only fix Richmond games? and someone would get caught or blow the whistle.
no, it has to be human error, driven by egos, producing vindictiveness.
us and them in a kind of abusive relationship.
a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. we see Curtis DeBoy assigned to us days before the bounce and we all go (reasonably) 'great were gonna get shafted', we all hate Deboy more, his mum and sister read social media and say 'jeez they really hate you. do you know what they say about you?'. he exercises the only power he has through his whistle, and thinks 'hahahaha, *smile* you Richmond *smile*'
I dont see how it can be anything else.
the only way to test it would be hand out duct tape at games and we all remain silent,
and see if it got better?
back in 2015, I developed a similar theory that we were responsible for Richmonds propensity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
it was our collective fear being projected on to the playing arena.
somehow, we broke the cycle and became collectively certain of victory, and the players felt it and it too became self-fulfilling.
how do we crack the umpire negative loop? Pay Dusty to become an umpire?
start saying 'you ripper, we've got Curtis this week, he'll look after us'. and cheering him in a non-bronx fashion?
*smile* knows.
im pretty over it though
www.theguardian.com
