O'loughlin Grateful To Past Stars
The Age
Saturday April 12, 2008
MICHAEL O'Loughlin has never been racially vilified by an AFL opponent, but Sydney's iconic Aboriginal forward has consistently endured racial taunts at games over his 14-year career.
While his teammate Adam Goodes went through a confidential mediation process with an opposition player after the dual Brownlow medallist was vilified in a game in 2002, O'Loughlin said indigenous players were more likely to encounter racism while walking along the boundary line rather than when they were in play."There's nothing you can do. I suppose if you react, they know that they've got to you, so I tend not to. But it's very hard when you're having a sip of your drink and you're talking to the fitness guy next to you, if someone does say anything. You turn around but you see a thousand faces. It's difficult to pick one face in a crowd and when you actually turn around, they don't say anything to you," O'Loughlin said this week."It doesn't happen every game. You'll have one idiot, maybe two idiots a year who yell out some stuff from the other side of the bench when you're walking along."It hasn't happened for a long time for me."I'm not sure about other players, but those things do stick in your head when it does happen. You think, 'What are you doing here?' "Aggressive crowd banter was a part of the game that all players accepted, O'Loughlin said, while explaining that his close-up encounter with a West Coast fan during the 2006 semi-final at Subiaco was not racially based."I didn't hear anything racial towards me there. They were giving me a little bit of stick, but it wasn't anything to do with the colour of my skin," O'Loughlin said."The majority of times, they're telling me how much of an idiot I am and how much they don't like me, which is fine, that's footy, that's no dramas. Ninety-nine per cent of the crowd is amazing, but you get that 1%," O'Loughlin said before the Swans and West Coast meet at Sydney's ANZ Stadium tonight."I suppose if you're playing well or the team's winning, you get up peoples' noses and they feel it's the only way to get you off your game, I suppose. I don't understand it, but that's what I've been told growing up."Goodes, in an essay he wrote for the AFL's 150-year anniversary book, revealed that he had instigated AFL mediation with a high-profile opposition player in 2002 after being called "a f monkey-looking c---" during a game at the SCG. He also wrote that he was racially vilified at the age of 18 when he was playing for the Swans reserves, and that, "There are players running round in the AFL right now who have been vilified that you wouldn't know about".O'Loughlin said this week that in 14 years playing at the senior level, he had not been racially vilified - "Growing up I did, back in Adelaide definitely, but not in the AFL."But after seeing security guards deployed in cricket crowds last summer after the Indian team's controversy-laden tour of Australia, O'Loughlin wondered whether AFL crowds could be monitored similarly."Although it's hard to actually pick someone out of the crowd when you've got thousands and thousands of people all over the ground," he said.O'Loughlin praised the lead the AFL had taken on racial vilification and said other sports were following."It's just making sure that we stay on top of it because obviously there's no place for racism in sport and sometimes it comes out and guys have a brain explosion, I suppose," he said."A lot of credit has got to go to the older guys who played before me, Nicky Winmar, Longy (Michael Long) and Syd Jackson . . . obviously, they copped a hell of a lot. And then taking the stance they did is why I can just go out and play footy. I don't have to worry about all that other crap."
© 2008 The Age