Hard News: Not good enough, Eden Park
206 Responses
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JacksonP, in reply to
"we have to let gay people be harassed or Big Brother wins!" angle. Really? REALLY?
I despair. Really.
Having left a match half way through due to the inability of security to deal with drunken and abusive behaviour, including the shoulder tapping and feet on the seat behind our heads, (during the infamous Four Nations league match a few years back) this culture is real and no fun to be sitting in front of.
We also stood up for our right to enjoy the game without being harassed. The response was pathetic, and we left because if we didn't it was likely to become violent.
The idea that we should apply some 'subjective threshhold' where this sort of behaviour is acceptable is patently absurd. It means we give a pass to an abusive bully culture. Fuck that shit.
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Sacha, in reply to
The freedom of bullies is the only important thing, sir. Has made our nation great, etc. Respect is for nancies and cat-lovers.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
The freedom of bullies is the only important thing, sir. Has made our nation great, etc. Respect is for nancies and cat-lovers.
And the “fun police”. Don't forget them.
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JacksonP, in reply to
And the “fun police”. Don't forget them.
'Hahaha, boys will be boys'. Where are we even?
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Sacha, in reply to
When are we?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Having left a match half way through due to the inability of security to deal with drunken and abusive behaviour, including the shoulder tapping and feet on the seat behind our heads, (during the infamous Four Nations league match a few years back) this culture is real and no fun to be sitting in front of.
That event was a debacle. Two matches on end, poor crowd management -- and a bunch of people who were unused to coming to Eden Park or to watch rugby league live.
I'm struggling to recall the last time I witnessed behaviour like that at a Super 15 match at Eden Park or at Mt Smart for the Warriors. It is not typical and it is not to be expected.
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JacksonP, in reply to
I'm struggling to recall the last time I witnessed behaviour like that at a Super 15 match at Eden Park or at Mt Smart for the Warriors. It is not typical and it is not to be expected.
Well yes, I took my 7 year old to a Warriors game a year later at Mt Smart, and it was wonderful. There where lines of kids getting face painting, and everyone had a great time. So much so I can't even remember if they won or lost.
There seems to be some common ingredients to this kind of behaviour taking hold. Poor crowd management and ineffectual response to genuine complaints among them. Alcohol might be one too. #sarc It certainly was at that League game, due to the pre-match crowd being there several hours prior to the main event.
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Angus Robertson, in reply to
When are we?
In a temporal distortion?
Eden Park received a complaint days after the crowd had left and was unable to act in a timely manner to prevent an incident that took place those several days earlier.
How the fuck Eden Park were supposed to know this was going on (much less prevent it) is a mystery.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
How the fuck Eden Park were supposed to know this was going on (much less prevent it) is a mystery.
Not for the first time, you're being weirdly disingenuous. You know bloody well that the topic of the post and the core of the current discussion is Eden Park's insulting response when approached for comment. I'm actually growing weary of your endlessly-shifting arguments.
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Alan Perrott, in reply to
FWIW - + 1
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You know bloody well that the topic of the post and the core of the current discussion is Eden Park's insulting response when approached for comment. I'm actually growing weary of your endlessly-shifting arguments.
It is not an insult to tell people the truth (unless you are a politician). It is refreshing.
When they say it is not their job to shift the values of society, they are stating the there are arseholes in society, people who will be arseholes at their venue and that they cannot change this.
When they say they cannot be the "PC police", it is because they cannot effectively detect and remove people who are shouting abusive comments. That they cannot act without assistance from the crowd or by someone sending a text.
That they (and by extension the rest of the rugby going public) then get told they are assenting to homophobic abuse and outright bullying - that is insulting.
They can't change society and they can't police more effectively.
The only thing they have said that is an insult is to use the term PC, but you aren't complaining about that.
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
I'm not overly comfortable with the cameras in my classrooms
Just curious - why are there cameras in the classrooms? Are they monitoring the teacher or the pupils?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
It is not an insult to tell people the truth (unless you are a politician). It is refreshing.
When they say it is not their job to shift the values of society, they are stating the there are arseholes in society, people who will be arseholes at their venue and that they cannot change this.
Fucksake. Here, because you didn’t seem to get it first time, is the relevant part of the Conditions of Entry to Eden Park:
Patrons will be requested to leave the Stadium during an event if they:
Are intoxicated, or appear to be becoming intoxicated
Are verbally or physically abusive…
Behave in a disorderly or offensive manner, or a manner contrary to public order
This is what the harassment of Hannah descended to, from the original news report:
But then they turned on her for the rest of the match, directing slurs in her ear, tapping her on the head and telling her not to go to the rugby again.
Her brother put his arm around her, but no one else in the crowd around her stood up for her.
By any sane reading, this is both physically and verbally abusive behaviour.
Had the park management simply said “this is beneath the standard of behaviour we require of patrons and it’s unfortunate we weren’t able to do something about it at the time,” that would be fine.
In fact, Tracy Morgan did say something of the kind when she said “harassment of a patron would not be condoned and the men could have been evicted for that.” But then she said – bizarrely – that it couldn’t be harassment unless “everybody else around” was offended by it. That’s absurd. And it is not what the park’s own Conditions of Entry say.
Then Morgan went on to declare that objecting to this kind of harassment was “PC” – as if it was on some level Hannah’s fault. No, it isn’t Eden Park’s job “to try to move the cultural morals of society” – but that’s not and never was the point, just a shitty little bit of undermining. The point is the verbal and physical harassment of a young woman.
You’ve had all this pointed out to you. If you’re going to continue to ignore it, you can fuck off.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Her brother put his arm around her, but no one else in the crowd around her stood up for her.
That's a sad indictment on the crowd, really. It doesn't take much to say "Hey you, stop hassling her, or I'll go get security". Even one person saying something usually makes a big difference.
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Sacha, in reply to
applause
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
why are there cameras in the classrooms? Are they monitoring the teacher or the pupils?
I honestly don't know, nobody's ever said. I assume both.
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Is the bystander effect relevant here?
OK so no-one is getting murdered in this case, but is there a similar problem with abusive behaviour in a crowd? Everybody expects someone else to take care of it, so nobody does anything?
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Mt Smart has a ticker message across the big screen at different intervals (breaks in play) instructing people to text to a number the word ASSIST followed by a message if help is required. Never known anyone to use it but it's good to know it's there. Eden Park doesn't do similar?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Eden Park doesn’t do similar?
There is an Eden Park text number, but the first I knew of it was this week.
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Sacha, in reply to
Recall seeing something earlier this year about it being more complex than that - people in crowds observe behaviour around them to determine what's socially OK. Standing up to dickheads changes that equation. Someone may have a link.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
There are various reasons people might not have confronted pissed, abusive twentysomething males -- including not being fully aware of what was taking place. The problem was Eden Park treating that as assent to what was going on.
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Lilith __, in reply to
There are various reasons people might not have confronted pissed, abusive twentysomething males – including not being fully aware of what was taking place.
Oh, indeed. Just wondering if there’s anything we can all learn from this happening, so we can better combat it in future.
[and I know the management should be setting up better systems, just wondering what the rest of us can do, if those aren't functioning. Strategies! What are some good ones?]
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Sacha, in reply to
Heck I would think twice about it. Have suffered consequences before.
Agree it should have been simple enough afterwards for Eden Park to tell media what their conduct standard was, express concern, and leave it at that. What they did instead has also made them look like dicks.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Yup, what they instead did was to say to the fools who like to spoil it for others that it's OK by them. Aside from any moral reasons, that's just bad business.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
Oh, indeed. Just wondering if there’s anything we can all learn from this happening, so we can better combat it in future.
It's a different situation, and I am wearing of threadjacking, so I am sorry if I am, but...it's like street harassment, innit?
I can remember a dude yelling from his car about how he'd like to [insert violent comment involving a crowbar], on Courtenay Place, in daylight, in full view of about four other people. I get concerns over safety (obviously), and not wanting to get involved, but...how much would change if we could step up and say "dude. Not cool."
Or, at the very least, go grab a security guard, and ask them to keep an eye on the guys doing it? [ETA, and I guess, the security guards having the backing of management to deal with it.]
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