"No-one is from here"

Had one of those head-nipping, moral-rattling situations earlier. I think I once read somewhere that everyone finds themselves in at least one such situation in their lifetime. Whatever, it has stuck with me since.

I'd just picked up my green station wagon from a garage, where I'd just had a petrol pump replaced, still reeling from the sting in my hip-pocket. Given it was low on petrol (part of the reason the fuel pump gave way) and dirty I decided to take it to my local servo for a clean. Give the neglected old thing a complete makeover.

This place has two cleaning stations, one of which has been out of service for what seems like an eternity now. This almost always means a delay. No problem; I live in a city where patience is a pre-requisite for survival. Whilst waiting for the incumbent occupier to finish, I filled the wagon up, and cruised inside to pay.
I recognised the moustached guy behind the counter: he was one of two friendly men of hard-to-pin origins. As I swiped my bank card and hit the digits on the EFTPOS holder I casually asked him, "Is that other car wash ever going to be operational again?". He almost cut me off answering, like he'd been asked this a zillion times before.

"Soon. We have been waiting for part from Germany."

Fair enough, I thought. I guess it's not an issue unless you have twenty cars lining up when there could only be ten.

Then he fixed upon me a strange look. "Are you from Germany?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm from here."

He gave a tight, crackly laugh. "That what everyone say. No-one is from here."

A flashbulb went off in my head as I considered that my game was up. Perhaps this stocky little retail assistant, whose broken English had a rolling accent that leant towards Israeli, or, for the sake of hedging my bets, somewhere else in the Middle East, was some sort of prophet. I understood what he was getting at, though: the distant German ancestry of my mother's side, and the shape of my nose. Maybe my girlfriend had it on the button early on in our relationship when she said my nose gave me away. Although she guessed wrong. Poland is a galaxy away from Germany.
I screwed my nose up slightly, as if to rid it off its 'German-ness' and stated simply: "I was born here." I wanted to say: so were my parents, grandparents, Great-grandparents, and, I think, Great-greats... it was either the 'greats' times two or three that made the trip over. On both sides. But he cut me off.

"Don't matter. No-one is from here."

I didn't know what to say. It was an abrupt reach-around from left-field. He tore off a receipt and wished me a good day, a look of stoicism still on his face.
I walked out and moved my car into the now-empty car wash and thought about what had just been said.

Had this guy been on the receiving end of racism one too many times? Was this a backlash of sorts? What disturbed me most, was his comment that 'no one was from here', regardless of where they were born. Effectively he was saying there was no such thing as an Australian! This was racism in reverse!

As I scrubbed off month-old bird turds off my car bonnet I considered how lucky it was that I didn't care about the whole racism/multi-cultural thing. My groove is: let as many in as possible, provided it's value-added, and we can live together harmoniously. Imagine if I'd been some disgruntled, out-of-work hulk with right-wing, red-neck tendencies. Someone who'd have him up against the wall for a comment of far less poignancy. Someone who'd demand more respect for a country who had taken him in. Perhaps he saw me as an easy test target.

I wanted to walk back in there and declare that I'm from here because I'm Australian. I wanted to say: Just as you're Australian, sir, because you immigrated here. Just as you may have picked my German nose, I pick your accent as someone who arrived not long ago, probably in the past twenty years. It goes back to old-fashioned geography. This continent is Australia, and we live on it. We two. You're originally from somewhere else, but I'm not. I'm a fifth-generation Aussie. I accept – and encourage – your culture, and wish you all the best in this land of opportunity. And that's what Australia still is. That's why you're here isn't it?

I don't think respect is too much to ask for in return for the opportunity to be sworn in as a citizen of one of the world's most liveable countries.

But still, I didn't say any of those things. All I did was finish cleaning my car, then got in and drove off. And not even a burn-out on departure.

Who's the toothless tiger?

This article might be seen as biting off the hand that potentially feeds. But I don't care. As freelance writers, we're taught to write about topics that ensnare our passion, make us frolic or seethe inside. So, here goes.

Now that the dust has settled and Terry Wallace’s life has returned to relative anonymity – maybe he’s even sleeping and eating again – I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the blowtorch to be turned the other way. In short, the media’s treatment of Wallace this year has been nothing short of savage. Blood-thirsty. A slight on the profession.

The carnage began after Richmond’s first round loss to Carlton. It was Wallace's final year of a five-year plan and he'd yet to make the finals. Richmond needed a strong start to the year to keep the wolves at bay. It didn't. The Tigers were thumped, and they – the wolves – sprang to life. The losses kept coming and the calls for Wallace's head – literally – reached fever-pitch in round four after a loss to cellar-dweller Melbourne.

The media – so often a struggling coach's Achilles heel in April and May – probed Richmond's bigwigs about Wallace's future, to which their position was unequivocally stated – that it would be reviewed mid-season. And yet, amid such headlines as 'Death Row', the same question continued to be asked and the public woke up to the same article – albeit with a few words moved around – every morning for a week.

Even Ben Cousins' return from injury didn't arouse the lower-regions of writers and subs.Remember not so long ago when the Herald-Sun, tired of being hot on Cousins' heals for no result, sent out a plea to readers: have you seen Ben Cousins?

Then came Wallace's 'week from hell', where an unlucky three-point loss to Port Adelaide condemned Richmond to 1-7. Wallace’s sacking was misreported (it would later be dubbed as ‘the non-sacking') amid rumours of a player revolt, and the circus reached proportions that would make our British brethren blush. One article observed Wallace's 'gaunt' features; that he'd lost four kilograms. And yet they continued pushing. That Wallace had been involved in 500 games at the highest level mattered none. The respect and dignity normally reserved for a person of such calibre forgotten in the gluttony of attack.

How long until this sort of treatment puts someone over the edge?

I'm not denying the story was there, and, yes, some of the disclosures were out of the box. But surely when the denials start, and the broken record is immovably stuck on track one, it's time to move on?

Football clubs are like any other employer. They do things on their own terms. When did your last employer get hassle from an outside party and then think to themselves, “Oh yeah, why didn't we think of that?”

Richmond fans, among the most passionate in the competition, would be sick to the teeth of the negativity surrounding their club. They know better than anyone how they're travelling on and off the field. Yes, a new coach should have been appointed earlier in the season. Yes, their club has made some perplexing decisions at draft and trade time. But they don't need their faces rubbed in it. And they especially don't need journalists and cameramen hiding behind pot plants and then reporting fact based on assumption.

Whenever journalists are challenged by players or club management on intrusiveness or shoddy reporting, their usual response is that players' and coaches' salaries are worthy of such scrutiny; that it's not for them to decide what's in the public's interest. What's forgotten is that with the rigours of modern-day football a player's career can end with one bent limb, and, historically, a coach's life only accounts for a small percentage of their life.

And so we get manic sensationalism from editors trying to outstrip their rivals, and, with increased third-party interests in the game, more outlets delivering news to the people they say matter most – the fans.

What codswallop. If fans mattered most then many things would be different, not least the fact that you are still short after handing over $10 for a beer and a meat pie.

Are the media still giving us what we want to know, or is the current climate of reportage based on assumption? If public forums are anything to go by, it's the latter. The on-line tide is turning. The average Joes don't trust what they read anymore. There's one senior writer of eloquent, minimalist prose who should understand this better than most. Bottom last in Herald Sun's tipping competition, among his many privileges is the ability to amend his pre-season predictions. If only the rest of us were able to reconsider the choices we get paid for. Amongst the varied condemnation posted this year, one popular notion is, “I'd have lost my job ten times over if I kept getting it wrong like that”.

How about changing that record, Mr Media? What about some focus on the good side of footballers' lives? Their entertainment value during these grim times aside, what about how the majority of these young blokes carry themselves as role models when so many of a similar age are turning Melbourne's streets into battlefields?

Maybe you could even write about what’s happening on the field. When was the last time two teams remained unbeaten after eleven rounds?