THREATS,SPIT,BUSY COPS - MY EVENING IN THE KENNEL
By Will Swanton
Just another Friday night footy game or showdown in the Oki Corral. Will Swanton ventured into the crowd of Bulldog fans to discover plenty of passion - andtension.
Two broken legs, a punctured lung, fractured eye socket, multiple stab wounds to the back and neck and one single gunsjot wound to the head. Apart from that, sweet, Got off lightly, right?.
Got off lightly because putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger would br less life-threatening than hunkering down in the Kennel for a friday night game with the Bulldogs. Virtual suicide right? They are a bunch of pigs,right? That's the perception.
Welcome to the jungle.
The first thing: these blokes aren't there solely to cause trouble. The single greatest impression from being on their patch was how much they ride the result. They genuinely hang on every play> Blokes big and ugly enough to scare a pit bull terrier start skipping like 12 year old girls when the Dogs score.
But there's the volatile flipside.
When the team starts struggling, and rival supporters start baiting them the mood turns sour. It turned sour when the Dragons levelled at 16 all late in the second half.
"F--- off home youse Dogs," one Dragons bloke yelled at all those residing in the Kennel.
Silence. They looked over at him. Hundreds of eyes looked him up and down. The hardcore Dogs didn't say anything, they just kept looking at him up and down, sizing him up, daring him to say it again. They were nudging each other, pointing at him like the mafia organising their next hit, ominoiusly silent.
Go on say it again.
"F--- OFF HOME YOUSE DOGS".
The abuse thrown at this nman when the Bulldogs scored the matchwinner cannot be repeated in a family newspaper. One member of the Kennel got so worked up he had to be restrained by his offsider. He was snarling and spitting and stopped only when he was told in a voice just loud enough to be heard by all "Not now brother, not now. We'll get him sfter the game."
And the Dragon bloke turned white with fear.He was last seen setting a new land speed record out of the ground.
One idiot from a TV comedy program stood outside the main gates selling supposed "officialBulldogs merchandise" It consisted of a bunch of fake weapons, plastic: knives, knuckledussters and flares. They were all in Bulldogs colours.
You know what, pal" That ain't funny. Things like that, and people like you , are half the problem. Dogs fans are taunted until some reach breaking point. We're not condoning anything here, but they get as much as they give.
Police were everywhere. There was a nice woman in a Dogs jumper. Her name was Janine Smith. She was with another Dogs follower, Dieter Corsten, and a Dragons supporter, Joe McAvoy. McAvoy was a feisty soul. He was screaming something about the need for the "stinky Dogs" to go home and never come back.
A policeman walked up and told McAvoy something about his need to pipe down or else be killed. The feisty soul said something about the need for everyone to get a sense of homour and that he didn't relly mean it.
"Doesn't matter," the policeman said, "Don't antaganise them".
Smith works at a pre-school at Maquarie Fields. She was so intent on defending the club's image that she missed the kick off. She sadi she had no trouble supporting a club whose leading players were part of the alleged rape case at Coffs Harbour. No NRL club has a worse image when it comes to the treatment of women and she told of being abused for wearing the blue and white jersey.
"I was working at the Royal Easter Show in a coffee stand," Smith saud. "I had my Bulldogs jersey on and this man came up and said,"how can you wear that? It's digusting. Don't you know what happened in Coffs Harbour?"
"I said, "well, do you? Were you there?' I didn't want to cause any trouble so I bought a T-shirt and wore that for the rest of the day. But it's frustrating. There's this perception that if anyone has anything to do with the club, they must be pigs.
"We don't deserve it. They're not all angels, the people who follow this club, but THEY don't deserve the bad rap they get. And i'll tell you this- half the time it's people from other teams who start the trouble"
McAvoy said he was "just trying to be a smart-arse".
The policeman walked away and he started yelling again about the stinky Dogs and their need to rack off.
No harm done. There was a smile on his dial. Smith was laughing. He said he wouldn't do it if it really thought offence could be taken. And he said he wouldn't be doing it within bull's roar of the Kennel.
One bloke was taken away by police early in the second half. We think his name was Ben. Behind the scoreboard, surrounded by seven officers, Ben was rolling around in the mud,bawling,howling, kicking and screaming with snot and tears all over his face. Quite a sight. It wasn't the most succinct statement the police had ever received.
Ben was blind drunk. He was given a bottle of water only to realise he'd broken his wrist. He started bawling again, opened the bottle with his teeth, not a bad trick, and began sobbing abour Caroline. It appeared she had left him. He said his wrist was stuffed, his life was stuffed, Caroline was stuffed, everything was stuffed.
He was kicked out of the ground. He stumbled down the road with his mate. He stopped and said: "Who won?" The Dogs had won. Ben said that was all he really cared about