Spoilsports

The rude appearance of that demon leprechaun named Cornelius Horan in the Olympic marathon has justifiably outraged most true sports fans.

If it were down to literally billions of fans watching his evil intrusion the Irishman, wearing what looked suspiciously to be like emerald green Ireland rugby socks as part of his odd kilted get-up, could happily have been tied to a column of the Acropolis and stoned.

Fans were incensed at what he had done to the gold medal aspirations of Brazil’s Vanderlei Lima, ruining four years of lonely and dedicated preparation, and condemned his fiendish act.

Why then do we call George Gregan a whinger when he complains about a missile thrown at him from somewhere in the Absa Stadium crowd?

The bottle of liquid Gregan gave to the Wallabies’ support crew “for evidence” during the test in Durban could have seriously injured one of the players.

It, like the mugging of referee David McHugh at the same ground by the odious Pieter van Zyl, was an unsportsmanlike act that should be denounced in the strongest terms.

Gregan is right to complain about crowd control and projectiles thrown from the stands and it is wrong for officials to shrug their shoulders and label the Wallaby captain a whiner because he complains.

What are we going to do? Wait until some visiting player suffers a serious injury before doing something about maniacal crowd behaviour?

We might not like to hear it but South African crowds do not have a reputation to be proud of. There is too much drunkenness, too much aggression and at times it seems as if the ugly fan is in control.

It is obviously a difficult, perhaps even impossible, task to police cranks in the stand but that is where the real fans should stand up.

Point out those who use foul language, who are inebriated to the point of embarrassment, who even attempt to throw projectiles onto the field… isolate them, eject them, let them know they are not welcome and not free to share in the Olympic values that underscore major sporting events.

As Hunter S. Thompson said about the Hell’s Angels after he had been beaten up by them; “exterminate all the brutes” - now; kick them out; they are spoiling our game.