IS CON, IS GOOD
Mr Mean vents his spleen
It can be a lot of fun being Mr Mean. Taking pot shots at people from the sidelines. Highlighting their incompetence. Hurting people's feelings. All the things that make football the great game it is.
It's especially satisfying in Australia where there are so many slow moving targets. Just think of all the dinosaurs on the local scene just waiting for that meteor between the eyes, and every single motherless slimeball who stops soccer from featuring on commercial television.
People have, however, stopped me on the street on occasions and pointed out that although I've got the complaining bit right, I've not been so good with the 'do something about it' part of the equation.
To be honest, like most football fans in Australia, I didn't realise there was a 'do something about it' side to the equation. I thought that was part of being an Australian football fan.
Then I met Con.
Con is a Foundation Member, which means, like the rest of us, he's still waiting for the autographed, framed photo of the first ever Carlton team he was promised when he became a Foundation Member. He's also waiting for an honour board with his name on it and the names of all the other Foundation Members. He's also waiting for...well, the point is that he has plenty of reasons to be cynical about the club and football in general.
But instead of taking the easy, cynical path (the one on which my footprints are firmly embedded) he's done something - he's taken direct action! He's become a football anarchist in a world full of football conformists.
His target has been Channel 7, the corporate PR arm of the AFL. You may remember some time ago a guy called David Hill sold the rights to televise Australian soccer to Channel 7 for $5 over 10 years.
David then moved on. He stood for Parliament, started his own railway and put in a bid to become Secretary General of the UN. Last anyone heard he was a house husband in Chatswood in suburban Sydney who keeps mumbling to himself 'mainstream supporters, mainstream supporters' over and over to anyone who will listen. Which is no one.
Anyway, Con is upset because Channel 7 have treated soccer worse than their viewers - which is pretty bad. Just think Home and Away.
Con's response has been brewing for a long time. His original plan was a corporate takeover of Channel 7 funded by the float of an internet company that didn't exist selling products it didn't produce to customers he never saw.
It was a brilliant strategy.
Con was foiled at the last minute when he discovered his preferred domain name - www.justgivemeallyourmoneyandwe'llworryaboutmakingaprofitlater.com.au was already taken by some bloke called Kerry Bullmore Packer. Bullmore. What kind of name is that?
Con quickly reverted to Plan B. Plan B consisted of a simple, yet telling strategy entitled - Bloody Big Banner.
It was the game against Sydney Olympic when the world was exposed to Con's first foray in football activism. Two Bloody Big Banners were displayed during the first half. One read 'Soccer on 7 - I'd like to see that' the other 'Nobody screws soccer like 7'.
It was a triumph. A simple telling point made in a way that was destined to piss off all the right people and make the rest of us piss ourselves laughing.
The banners are now doing a world tour of Australia soccer grounds, such has been the reaction of supporters around the land.
Channel 2 has edited the banners out where possible, and the rest of the media (apart from one soccer newspaper) have predictably ignored the story. They have done this because they are morons incapable of expressing themselves beyond 'In the 69th minute Thompson crossed the ball and Conroy headed wide'.
We should have contempt for the lot of them. Find out where they live and set fire to their hedges. (Please ignore that last bit - Ed.)
Con is now a champion of the masses and a hero of mine. He has more things planned but he will not reveal them to me, other than a protest outside Channel 7's corporate bunker sometime in the future.
If you see Con at a game, go up and help him. If you see me, walk the other way. I have seen the future of Australian football - is Con, is good. Mr Mean STAND is an independent supporters group and can be contacted at seven_screws_soccer@hotmail.com
