Keep it clean, Cat fans

THE eyes of the football world were firmly on Kardinia Park last year when footage of some poor crowd behaviour went viral on social media.

An ugly brawl between opposing fans that broke out after the Cats’ come-frombehind win over Melbourne last July shocked AFL fans and bosses alike. What was worse was that the violence followed a pair of similarly shocking incidents at Kardinia Park games in the preceding year.

The media leapt into action, and rightly so. What a sad state of affairs it would be if it no longer seemed safe to sit and watch a game of footy.

When the news cycle moved on, the Cats’ hierarchy didn’t. The club continued to work behind the scenes to get on top of a problem that was bubbling away but hadn’t quite reached boiling point until CEO Brian Cook announced in December that the club had appointed an internal investigations officer to address match-day incidents. The Kardinia Park Trust also explored its options, eventually banning full-strength beer.

And it seems to be a case of so far, so good, with the Cats’ five home games at GMHBA Stadium to date this year seemingly running without major crowd incident.

So it would be heartening for local footy fans to hear that the trust is not planning to adopt the overzealous security measures which drew so much ire from football fans in Melbourne over the weekend. Trust CEO Gerard Griffin not only said it would be business as usual at the Cats’ home game against Adelaide, but he also encouraged fans to continue to barrack hard and show passion.

With so many competing passions running high, it is important to keep on top of crowd behaviour. But there is also a fine line between managing a crowd and impinging on personal freedoms — and when it is crossed it has the potential to turn people away from the game for good.

If the AFL or its security services are worried about crowd behaviour, they could do worse than take a leaf out of how our locals have handled the issue.