Dissolving our hatred of the other team into Ashes

Hating this man is not doing you any good ... Source: AFP

You can tell the first ball is close by the growing, bubbling, sense of hate.

Following sport these days, it appears far too easy to hate. You'll remember sport - that thing originally about contest and challenge which seems now to be about angst all bottled up, commodified and flogged back to us under the banners of pride and passion. It might be a primal tribalism or a more contemporary taste for extremes, but it is ludicrous.

It's so casual and thoughtless, this hate. Oh, everyone hates Manly or Collingwood or Millwall or the Stuttgart Steppers, so I guess I should too.

Of course, people back off when challenged. No, they say, of course they wouldn't machinegun or garrotte the entire front row/top order/backline, given a chance. So how about some perspective? Let's think about hate and the horrendous depths it can reach. Do you still have a problem with a bad decision from an umpire or referee?

Players fall for it, of course. Phil Jones of Manchester United last week said the team had made a point of improving because "everybody hates us". Given that Manchester United is arguably the most popular football club on the planet, it is unclear which "everybody" Jones was referring to.

Then there was the recent rugby league grand final between Manly and Sydney Roosters. Neutrals were perplexed; who did they hate less? HG Nelson, ever alert to idiocies in the Zeitgeist, parodied the attitude by proclaiming both clubs could be hated "with complete confidence".

How did this legend of hating Manly come about? It was largely due to a tactic in the 1970s by an opposition coach - Roy Masters of Western Suburbs - who created a class-based mindset with which to goad his troops. Manly were silvertails, he'd tell them, swimming in golden underpants, while the poor westies scratched themselves in fibro homes. Wests were a great story back then, leading the comp in 1978 before falling short (the "silvertails" won that year), and the media loved them. Masters and the rest moved on but the mindset remained that Manly were the most hated; it grew fat through word of mouth and pacific acceptance, even among people who might watch one game a season.

If anyone should hate Manly, I should. As a kid and beyond, I suffered long as a North Sydney Bears fan before they hibernated. I found out only years later through commentators such as Mike Gibson that I was supposed to hate Manly because they bought up all Norths' best players. I could never hate the Sea Eagles … Manly remind me of my sister's silly teenage crush on Bobby Fulton, an uncle who lived there, a salty sea breeze, a great shop on the Corso with a lucky dip you'd throw a 20c piece into and get a mystery prize. I can't imagine Manly otherwise.

But I'm no cleanskin. As a Fremantle Dockers fan, I once talked myself into hating Essendon. It was all built on an occasion when "their" bunch of men in red and black had defeated "my" bunch of men in purple (and green and red and white …). That was okay, but it was a trio of Bombers fans and their entirely predictable suggestion regarding where I store my Fremantle scarf that rankled. I decided on the spot that I should hate Essendon until it dawned on me that the club was bigger than those three stooges and I in fact knew some very charming people who supported that team.

Why do we do it? You can hear the likes of George Costanza from Seinfeld recommending the joys of holding a grudge, but grudges are high maintenance. They are thieves of time and energy, and like heavy suitcases, it feels so much better when they're put down. What we think is hate is more likely a distasteful memory we've harboured too long.

What about loving your sporting clubs and heroes? It seems equally ludicrous. I've been a Fremantle Dockers fan of the past 13 years, but when I think of the club as a franchise purchased from the AFL for $4 million in 1995, well, it hardly engenders romance. But misguided love sounds more benign than the opposite.

Doubtless we are now hearing from some or other pundit or sponsor or interest-pusher how much we hate the Poms. God, how we hate their pasty-faced singsonginess (behind every sporting hatred is a time-weary stereotype propping it up). Many of us share their DNA. I do. We do not hate the Poms. Come on - we don't. We do not hate those dressed in black from across the Tasman, others north of the equator or across the street. We cannot afford to. In sport, you are nobody without your opposition, and with that goes mutual respect, win or lose.

Rivalries are fine, and they can inspire awesome contests, but hatred favours nobody. Stare a little harder at the opposition, imagine them without their colours and branding and you will start to see yourself. That is possibly what haters hate the most.

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