OK here's a post by Les Murray from the SBS site...
Rebecca, do shut upOn another topic I cannot let this opportunity pass without saying something about the silly, juvenile article Rebecca Wilson wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
Her GPS must have gone haywire on the way to work that day because her car obviously took her to another planet.
Wilson, a kind of Ray Chesterton in drag, contended that ‘soccer’ in Australia was in crisis because Gamba Osaka out-skilled and outplayed Adelaide United in the ACL final.
Which is like saying German football is in demise because Bayern Munich got pumped by Zenit St Petersburg in last season’s UEFA Cup. Or that Spanish football is on the brink of death following Real Madrid’s twice in a row loss to Juventus.
She claims, quite correctly, that Australian players lack the technical skills needed to compete at international level. Wow, what a revelation!
I guess I should feel proud that what Johnny Warren and I and thousands of others have been saying for 40 years has finally got through to Rebecca Wilson. But she ain’t fooling anyone. Most of us can smell an old fashioned soccer basher from a hundred miles.
The curious thing about this is that Wilson’s late father, Bruce Wilson, a lovely man, was a sports journo of serious integrity with a distinct affection for football.
He wrote warmly about it often, including after attending Australia’s victorious game against England at Upton Park in 2003, on which he reported with pride and enthusiasm.
This, we gather, didn’t rub off on his daughter who clings mysteriously to the belief that rugby league, her sport of choice, is some kind of cultural treasure which must be protected, above all against the smelly hordes from the north who, with soccer in their saddlebags, threaten to over-run us, rape our women and gallop off with our children.
I have news for her. The smelly hordes are coming not just from the north but from the east, south and west, from everywhere. Soccer (‘We refuse to call it football,’ she says) will soon engulf this nation to the point that we will all love it so much we won’t be able to breathe.
The times are a changing. So live with it, girl.
My parting advice to Rebecca is this: With your looks, your leathery face and ironed-on hair, not to say your god awful nasal twang, try not to spend 16 days of the next televised Olympics sitting beside the ravishing Sonia Kruger. Not good for the career
ha ha nothing like a few personal insults at the end to get the blood flowing !!
