There Are Some Ladies Here To Put Their Heads In Your Pants

In the field of comedic yobbery, that’s just gold: inane, but memorable and able to be adapted to a multitude of situations. It could be offensive, except it barely makes sense.

You could have a butler entering a drawing room, or a concierge entering an office:

“Excuse me, sir, there are some ladies here to put their heads in your pants.”

“Excellent. Please show them in.”

The behaviour of the Canterbury Bulldogs on their Mad Monday celebrations was certainly disappointing - disappointing that three offensive comments (see embedded video), called out from a window:

“There are some ladies here to put their heads in your pants.”

“Suck me off, you dumb dog.”

“I want to punch you in the face.”

were all that a club with a strong reputation for sexist yobbery could muster on its designated day for bad behaviour. The last one was even sung.

I would have at the very least expected a large barrage of barking noises to have accompanied “Suck me off, you dumb dog”, followed by a couple of players with bags over their heads dancing nude in the window.

Despite their absurd protestations to the contrary, Channel Nine went out of their way to provoke the players and then acted extremely preciously when they got exactly the result they were after.

Even though the Canterbury players were locked away inside Belmore Oval, Channel Nine flew over it in a helicopter, then sent reporter Jayne Azzopardi and crew down to hang around outside with a directional microphone, which they must have had to pick up what was being said through an open window 50m away.

What genuine news value is there in hanging around outside a locked gate, waiting for a bunch of drunken blokes to do something which can be construed as wrong (which they inevitably will), then broadcasting it, accompanied by finger pointing and confected outrage? If this is what passes for journalistic standards at Nine, it’s no wonder Seven is beating them in the ratings.

All the precious indignation from Jayne Azzopardi is disingenuous in the extreme. You’re not a sport reporter. You weren’t invited. You have no relationship with the players. They are at a private function. So what were you doing there? Why should they treat you with any respect when you were clearly there for an opportunistic and negative report? Why do you think you can antagonize people, but they shouldn’t say anything nasty in return?

“Oh, but the comments were demeaning and disrespectful to all women. I don’t think that any woman should have to put up with that and no man should think it’s OK to say those things.”

What? No man should ever belittle a woman sexually or make sexist comments part of an insult?

Because women never belittle men sexually, do they? Never make insinuations about penis size?

It’s not nice, but insults are meant to be offensive, you stupid bitch. We insult people when we’re angry. The more offensive, the better. If you’d made some effort to greet the players and hadn’t been so obviously looking to manufacture a negative story, you wouldn’t have been insulted in the first place.

How will respectful behaviour toward women be made more likely by an unwelcome female reporter antagonizing a bunch of yobby blokes who are drinking inside private premises? Do you think you can irritate whoever you like, then bung on an act of righteous indignation when those blokes say something rude to you?

Now they really do think you are a dumb bitch. So do most other men who say these types of things to women who annoy them. These are the people whose behaviour you are trying to change. Do you think they now have more respect for and less suspicion of women they don’t know?

Channel Nine hasn’t even reported either the text or the context of the comments accurately. It now appears that the first comment was in fact

“There are some ladies here to put their hands in your pants.”

and derives from Youtube footage of a previous event in England where an old lady put her hand down the back of player (and ear biter) James Graham’s pants.

It was probably literally directed at James Graham or another player, but really intended for Jayne Azzopardi. The “Suck me off, you dumb dog”, was almost certainly directed at her, despite the risible dissembling in the subsequent report by the Bulldogs’ management.

The alleged insult: “I want to punch you in the face” was sung to the tune of a Barney song to a guy dressed in a Barney costume, according to the Bulldogs report. Could be true. It was certainly sung, so couldn’t be construed as aggressively as Channel Nine have insinuated.

This whole episode has just been bullshit heaped upon bullshit heaped upon bullshit, all because the media want to make a headline out of any behaviour by footballers which is even mildly offensive or below par. They haven’t had any sex scandals or drunken violence lately, but can’t move on to another topic.

Channel Nine went looking for a negative story, then pretended they didn’t. They have inflated a minor incident with confected outrage, then pretended they haven’t. The Bulldogs’ management produced a “report” which is full of dissembling, but pretends that everyone should accept it or “agree to disagree”. They then paid a $30,000 “fine” to charity. What a load of crap that never needed to happen. What a waste of time and money.

The fact that teams have to be shut away in private premises for Mad Monday shows that the venerable institutional piss up is probably on its way out. But surely it could go out in a blaze of glory. If this is the best modern players can come up with, they may as well just call it Sane Monday.

The ARL could handle all these incidents far better. They don’t need to make hand wringing press statements after each one. The less they say, the better.

Players need to understand that their high salaries come from sponsorship. Gate takings will not be sufficient to pay them $200,000+ a year. Players bring in part of their own incomes by attracting sponsors. If sponsorship falls, their salaries will also fall, so if they behave in ways which will cause sponsors to leave, they get paid less. It’s pretty simple. This should be (and I believe usually is) written into contracts.

The ARL should have responded to this incident by simply saying: “We fined Canterbury under the behaviour clause in the ARL sponsorship agreement. It’s up to the club how they subsequently discipline the players. If they keep behaving badly, they’ll keep getting fined until they learn not to. No, we don’t think the behaviour is acceptable, that’s why we fined the club.”

Just leave it at that and it would all have blown over in a week.

Alternatively, why not have some clubs who don’t care if middle class women don’t support them? Let them decide on their own fan base and sponsorship. The Bulldogs manager could have held a press conference to “apologize” on behalf of the club. Halfway through, an aide could have come over, leaned in his ear and said, just loudly enough to be heard:

“Excuse me, sir, there are some ladies here to put their heads in your pants.”

As the audience turned to see a couple of tarts just behind the curtain, he could say: “I’m sorry, everyone, I’ll have to cut this short. Thank you for your time.”