Fuss about Fev and Johnson should be flushed away
Greg Baum | March 25, 2008
ON THE scale of atrocities committed by sportsmen — ranging from drunkenness and drink-driving to drug-taking, sexual harassment and assault — urinating in public would shock only if it was against an electric fence.
It makes Brendan Fevola and Kane Johnson no worse, but no better, than the inebriated man who relieved himself in a photo booth outside Flinders Street Station on Saturday night, just before a group of young women arrived, and somewhat dampened their enthusiasm for a snapshot.
Arguably, he was smarter either than Fevola, who peeed on the window of a nightclub, or Johnson, who peeed on the wall of a police station. Unlike Fevola, he knew where the camera was. Unlike Johnson, he knew where he was.
Footballers are young men like any other young men, with charms, failings and bladders. They are set apart only by their athletic talent. At a certain level, that gains them greater privileges than the next man, which in turn imposes greater obligations, a truth most accept. But the rest of the footballer-as-superman syndrome is a social construct. Sometimes, it becomes a joke on society.
Fevola's incontinence was three days' worth of headlines. Johnson's wee misjudgement attracted a throng of media to Punt Road and was the catalyst for several talkback segments. One dwelled on listeners' tales of like excesses, which was instructive; no one is asked ever to ring in with their favourite rape stories. Yet in each instance, the club went into war cabinet, the leadership group hunkered down, the media department put out dispatches and more mea culpas were heard even than on Good Friday.
Fevola escaped suspension on the grounds that he does this all the time. Johnson suspended himself. It helps to explain why one is — properly — still captain of his club and the other is — mystifyingly — on an endlessly renewable last chance. History and demeanour suggest that Johnson, at least, will not be caught again with his pants down.
Duly, the question became: what to do about these ever-erring footballers and their irritable urinary tracts? The mind boggles. Ban alcohol? Ban all diuretics? Supply bags or bottles? Sensors? Chemical inhibitants? A chaperone? Monitor? Write into the standard player contract specifications about when and where? Have them write on their arms a reminder to go (and to wash their hands afterwards)?
Toilet training?
Really, this all too trivial. Each club can and will choose its own course. Some will impose curfews. Some will implement alcohol bans, some limits. Some will tighten them as finals approach. Some allow drinking only on the night after a game. Collingwood once allowed drinking only with meals.
But limits exist already: laws concerning public drunkenness and indecency, norms, dignity, common sense. Fevola might argue that his modest display last Thursday had nothing to do with his binge five days previously, but people will draw their own conclusions. As noted, footballers are supermen only up to a point, and it is not .05.
Truthfully, neither Carlton nor Richmond should do anything more. They are football clubs, not nannies. Sooner or later, they must stop holding their charges' hands every waking minute; apart from anything else, they will end up getting splashed.
Fevola is 27, Johnson 30. Sooner or later, a man has to stand on his own two feet, and zip up his own fly. What they did was uncouth, but to judge from the city footpaths on a Sunday morning, hardly uncommon. It leaves, as always, a bad smell.
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