NORTH QUEENSLANDERS ARE PROUD THAT “AY” CAN HAVE 10 DIFFERENT MEANINGS AND NO ONE CARES WHAT SORT OF CAR YOU DRIVE AS LONG AS YOU CAN TELL A DECENT YARN AND SHOUT WHEN IT’S YOUR TURN. IT’S JUST NOT CRICKET
NO MATTER how the purists try to dress it up, cricket needs to look back, not forward if it’s to reclaim a spot on the national psyche. The Gabba Ashes Test in Brisbane last month has received scathing reviews in mainstream and social media and dropping crowd numbers mean the Gabba might miss out on an Ashes match next time.
Prices of food and badly poured beer in the ground are nothing short of extortion. Worse, overzealous security were intent on making sure only the minimum of fun was had.
A ticketing bungle – caused by the Barmy Army themselves, according to Cricket Australia – meant the England fans were spread out and didn’t raise a single chant or spinetingling rendition of Jerusalem in that insomnia- curing first two days.
Cricket Australia needs to realise that most people don’t actually go to Test cricket … for the cricket.
Watching bland players play boring cricket ( it was only 1- 59 at lunch on day 1) is not fun.
Cricket grounds should be segregated like in the good old days.
You can have the family- free zone like the old “Bay 13” and the more genteel areas where the people can sit unoffended by the horrific sight of hundreds of plastic cups being stacked together into a “beer snake”.
If you don’t mind a bit of international sledging, swearing, beer snakes, bawdy chants and generally having fun, you should be able to sit with like- minded fellows and lasses in an area where that is allowed.
If you want to sit quietly with your tranny ( that’s “transistor radio” for you younger folk), or take little Johnny to see his heroes without the horror of anti- English sentiments, you can go to another area.
As it stands, security guards don’t seem to allow anything more than polite cheering and clapping.
Last month, I saw a bloke get marched out of the Gabba by three police officers for possessing that most dangerous of weapons … a beer snake consisting of about 10 cups.
Late on day two, one of the Pommy fielders was at third man near the boundary and – as you’d hope – copped an epic verbal spray.
This spray was not threatening or over- the- top, it was funny. But before long, police told him to stop it, complete with a threatening index finger in his face.
Oh Australia, what have we become? But cricket is actually a microcosm of wider society.
You know Australian culture is under threat when the media falls over itself every time rugby player Nick “Honey Badger” Cummins says “strewth mate!” in an interview. Not so long ago, that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.
A lot of what he says is treated like some absurd relic of another era, like a time traveller arrived to make us laugh at how backward we were.
North Queenslanders still largely cling to irreverent humour and “Ockerisms” and they aren’t too precious. We’re proud that “ay” can have 10 different meanings and no one cares what sort of car you drive as long as you can tell a decent yarn and shout when it’s your turn.
But in the race towards political correctness and multiculturalism, a decent portion of our sneering elites in the media and politics apply a real cringe factor to “Australianism”, and they take strong issue with anyone who tries to describe Australian culture in traditional terms.
For them, the image of the thongwearing, beer swigging Aussie saying “G’day blokes and sheilas” must be pushed out of the national consciousness. But this – like, people’s ability to get a bit rowdy at an international sporting battle – is why the world loves Australia.
Now, foreign tourists are shocked at how stuffy, stuck- up and colourless Australia is compared to the stories they’d been told. How sad.
After laughing at Crocodile Dundee, they are disappointed to see cities full of holier- than- thou nerds.
If CA does grant the Gabba another Ashes Test, I would like to go again purely for the company of friends, but I do plan on wearing a “Pommy Bastards” T- shirt like Barry McKenzie did in his 1972 movie.
Cricket crowds are falling and puritanical chin scratchers at CA just can’t figure out why. But the answer is simple, let people have fun, let them sledge Australia’s opponents and make going to the cricket a great day out again.