If you’ve taken notice of the Australian media’s portrayal of soccer over the years of you’d think going to a game as an unarmed non-ethnic be about as inviting as John Howard’s presence at David Hicks’ homecoming party.

It left me perplexed as to the heavy handed reporting of violence at A-League games after personally never witnessing any real problems. After attending this match between Melbourne V Sydney I saw reports of it being compared to a blood bath  “Soccer Fans Brawl” “Soccer Fans Hurt In Fracas”.

The reports claimed “A group of Sydney FC supporters were allegedly attacked” and “possibly by Melbourne Victory rivals” near the ground. ‘Allegedly’. ‘Possibly’. They could’ve ‘possibly’ been FARC separatists too. And they supposedly threw computer equipment, because we all know soccer fans love to send faxes and scan documents from the ground. This type of biased reporting of something that may not have or didn’t even happen is nothing new [Here's a link to a great site logging biased reporting of the game "Das Libero"].

This article ‘Keep soccer fans apart’ tells how police ‘stopped violence erupting’ and it ‘threatened to boilover’. But still nothing of note actually happened. But when there are facts and actual incidents we get sold a different story. A non-soccer crowd with 192 evictions [Yes, 192] “192 thrown out of cricket at MCG” and “Police Praise Crowd Behaviour” is labeled as ‘well behaved’. If there’s no arrests and no evictions at the soccer then it’s still considered violent and if a flare goes off then ‘un-Australian’. So on this evidence real trouble doesn’t seem to bother anyone, but non-existent trouble get’s everyone madder than Matthew Newtown when facing a woman.

If they can make up soccer trouble then why not make up some satirical AFL trouble?

So The Black and White Brigade was born.

A ‘made up’ pisstake group of Collingwood football hooligans that have been meeting in secret locations, only know each other by numbers and are hell bent on spreading their ridiculous [all though with a couple of legitimate points] mandate. A few logos for this group of numbskulls:

A dodgy mandate was needed so that was written and included:

-Take football back to the way it once was- Abolish the corporate element.

-The Segregation of fans from each club

-Full strength beer available at all times. It’s a man’s sport, men drink real beer.

-No go zones for police and security in parts of the stadiums. We can police ourselves.

-No go zones for Families.

-No ejections for cheering loudly and enthusiastically. Swearing is a part of the experience- whether it’s deemed ‘racial, personal or derogatory’ by the do-gooders. If you don’t like it fuck off.

And a fake history:

Formed in October 2008 the black and White Army or the ‘Boys’ as they are also known started when a group of made up disgruntled fans [some ex-cheer squad] had a meeting at our local pub. From this core group of 5 we have grown to 25 hardcore members. While at the moment we take a more underground stance. You’ll be seeing us soon, don’t worry about that.

It was then made into a blog.

With posts such as:

So they sack the cheer squad to get rid of troublemakers? They should sack the cheer squad to get rid of the numpties. There’s only a few old members of the cheer squad with any sack whatsoever and they left to join us a long time ago.

I actually forgot about it until a few weeks later when someone sent me a link to a couple of forums where they were discussing it. So I checked the email. It contained numerous emails reporters and producers from talk back radio requesting an interview [amongst emails from people wanting to join, people finding it funny and ironic hate mail]. Some of the loaded questions included whether we had anything to do with the bashing of some AFL player’s dad. At no point was I asked if it was real. Some of the exchanges were just ridiculous, like this from a reporter:

Do other clubs have groups like yours? who has the best? Many Clubs do. Maybe Dockers..they call themselves Fremantle Fist.

Have kids ever been caught up in any violence you or your group have been involved in? No, never.

Is there a name you (personally) would like to go by or be called in the article? No, just number 03 from BAWB

While talk back radio were trying to ‘show your side of the story’ and get our message out to a massive audience on their prime time drive shows. Various online and print media were also reporting it:

Later on I received a phone call telling me to “Turn on the Footy Show you dickhead”:

So it seems when there’s real trouble it’s brushed off and ignored, probably to appease the sponsors and vested interests. Yet if you make up the problem then everyone will wave their fists in the air and condemn it, whatever it is.

But I’m not here  to try and make a point [my juvenile detention cooking course doesn't qualify me] about there being a correlation between our apathetic nature towards actual problems and our inherent tendency to become heated at the fear of something that doesn’t exist with the Australian media’s portrayal of soccer and violence. That’s un-Australian and I’ve got to hurry up and throw this laptop I’m typing this dribble out on at a Sydney supporter…’possibly’.