Stocky’s Scribbles: An absolute disgrace

In what could only be described as anti-football, we witnessed the U15A boys from Lite United Soccer Club in the northern suburbs of Melbourne come to play the NTC Girls with unabated aggression and brutality.

Words and images By Craig Stockdale

Something had to be said about this and unfortunately I’m not going to write about the football I was originally intending to report about.

In all my years of watching women’s football we have come across the odd one or two from the opposite gender who sometimes get carried away by developing testosterone levels and believe they are gifted with super natural talent that needs to be displayed against the female gender.

But rarely is there an entire team of them. 

Bodies were crunched, every tackle was a physical stoush and the nature of how the world game should be played was definitely not on show at Darebin on Tuesday night.

What was on show were athletes being challenged by a well drilled, talented and fearless team of girls and these boys struggled to play football as it should be played without reverting to physical force and intimidation.

Many of our girls were bruised and hurt with one Westfield W-League player suffering a potentially damaging knee injury from the barrage of senseless physical battering during the game.

This is not reflective of how the other U15A boys teams in the North competition have played against the NTC Girls this season – in fact this left us all shocked on the sidelines.

Maybe I am old fashioned, but I remember so well my parents always teaching me about how to respect women and how to act in the presence of the opposite gender; albeit not on a football pitch.

Regardless, there is no place for this behaviour in the FFV system (boys or girls) and Lite United Soccer Club need to take a hard long look at themselves.

The coaching officials on the night certainly did not display any of the coach’s code of conduct as outlined on their website.

If you have read any of my previous articles I enjoy reporting about the girls’ on-field achievements for those parents unable to attend the game. Tonight I cannot do anything but denounce what happened here and I will refrain from posting anything about the result.

To put it in the words of one un-named male attending the game from the sidelines...

“Girls, I apologise on behalf of the male species for the display here tonight.”

It’s time the young male athletes of this country stand up and show some respect for the opposite gender by providing actual leadership both on and off the field when brutality is displayed.

Congratulations to the brave and courageous NTC girls who did not flinch, complain or side step any of the physical treatment displayed by Lite United Soccer Club.

Boys – you need to lift your game because what you showed us tonight was an absolute disgrace.

Thanks.