"Dear Mr Umpire, I understand that a footy fan referred to you as a bald headed flog on the weekend. Please don’t take this personally. You are not part of the game. I mean that in the nicest possible way. You are simply part of the game’s infrastructure. Like a goal post." #QotD

"Dear Mr Umpire. 

    "I understand that a footy fan referred to you 
on the weekend as a bald headed flog. ... 

    "Please don’t take this abuse personally. You are not part of the game. I mean that in the nicest possible way. You are simply part of the game’s infrastructure. Like a goal post. So when the fans lean over the fence and yell abuse, they are actually screaming at the sky, not at your person, as such. 

    "Yelling at the footy has been going on since the Romans fed Christians to the lions. (Not the Brisbane Lions, real lions). Back then they screamed, “stultus es!” ["You are stupid!] which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. They yell because life isn’t fair. They yell because men don’t understand their wives and because wives do understand their men. They yell because someone took their carpark at the supermarket last Sunday, because no one changed the empty toilet paper roll at home on Friday morning, because they got fined for doing 42 kilometres an hour in a forty zone. They yell because they are not allowed to yell anymore! It’s not about you! 

    "If fans can no longer yell at the footy then footy is inpensius [ruined]. If a bloke can’t shake his fist at the footy gods and screech, “you white (insert other appropriate colour here) maggot” then life as we know it has ended. But you need to understand that you are not the maggot, you are simply the maggot’s avatar. The maggot is the pain he is feeling now, which is the happiness he had yesterday... 

    "Understand that being an umpire carries with it certain difficulties just as being a teacher does, or politician, or a proctologist. Let them yell. If they yell, they are happy. Happy in the sense that the grief no longer sits on their chest... 

    "You would take this away? Surely not. If you take offence at being described as bald, grow hair. Or get another occupation. 

          ~ Dips O'Donnel, from his post 'Umpire and Fans: Yelling at the Sky'
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