Manny and Siggy can contest the length of ban - if I was Siggy I would perhaps give it a go as at first look you could argue he was just trying to push players away but came in too hard in the back of the guys head.
That was my impression
With Siggy's disciplinary record, he should just keep his mouth shut and thank his lucky stars he won't be missing any regular season action because of this.
Same goes for Mooskat too.
Geez, Phoenix supporters have only really seen what us Cantab supporters consider the "new" reformed Siggy - we remember the young "raw" Siggy who used to get sent off three times in a national league season. We like 'em tough down here - his reward was being eventually made Canterbury Utd captain!
As someone who first attended senior football matches in the mid-seventies as a kid when Kevin Fallon was player-coach of Nelson Utd and remembers hard men like Fallon and Charlie Ure, I must say on looking at the video of the Newcastle incident, it's pretty run-of-the-mill compared to what I've seen over the years.
Definitely at the lower end of the spectrum concerning punches being thrown - compared say, to the worst incident I ever saw, at QE II Stadium, Christchurch in 1983 in a Rothmans National League game, when the appropriately-named Manurewa player David Huff marched up to his former team-mate and new Christchurch Utd goalie Frank van Hattum, and completely off he ball, punched him in the face, breaking his jaw. Some bad blood between those two!
Huff was given a ban of some months - though it didn't end his playing career.
Manny's punching Tiago as he lay on the ground was bad though - and everyone who got a red card deserved it. I can understand fans' frustration and disappointment, as I remember being very disappointed with Siggy when he was red-carded a decade ago in a national league match in Christchurch after he threw several punches at a player he was tangled with lying on the ground. It made him a bit of a liability missing so many games through suspension all the time too.
It inspires incredulity that, as someone has posted, the Nix watched violent UK football hooligan drama "The Firm" on the bus to the game - oh, dear, what were they thinking of? More suitable viewing in future please e.g "Ghandi", Merchant-Ivory costume dramas, "Billy Elliott" etc.
Aussie football officials (and it seems, some fans) can get a bit precious about the minimal player violence in the A-League. It's nothing compared, for example, to the regular player violence in Brazil and throughout South America, which makes the Nix players look angelic - remember the talented but thuggish Brazil international Edmundo (knickname "the Animal") - 37 Brazil appearances, dozens of career red cards (a record seven in 1997 alone)? People wax about the beauty of Brazilian football, but their leagues are also amongst the most violent in the world and make the A-League look like girls under-ten. All-out brawls and multiple red cards are common. Edmundo actually played on for another twelve years despite killing three people in a drink-driving incident in 1995 (footballers get away with a lot in Brazil).
Edmundo provokes player into hitting him, then all-out brawl, armed police, fans join in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjPShUs_uVM&feature=related
Edmundo - the great and the hideous compilation (early on shaky camera is him destroying the TV camera in Equador for which he spent four days under arrest):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESWh1sDhcrs
Player Violence in Brazil Article (from "When Saturday Comes"):
http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/922-South-America/6946-conduct-unbecoming
"Brazil does more to encourage violence on the pitch than possibly any other of FIFA’s members, thanks to a chaotic disciplinary system which appears to be geared exclusively to letting thugs get off the hook. The tribunal that recently imposed yet another minimum ban on Corinthians forward Edmundo is the latest example of the farcical depths to which the system can plummet.
Edmundo was sent off for the first time in a Corinthians shirt (but the umpteenth time during his career) in a Sao Paulo championship match against Santos. Along he went to the Sao Paulo federation tribunal (each Brazilian state has its own federation with its own tribunal) with a representative from his club, who took a video of the incident which he believed would prove that Edmundo had not really meant to whack Santos defender Sandro in the face.
When the video was put on, however, the tribunal was treated to an excerpt from Scooby Doo as the Corinthians rep had bought one of his sons’ tapes by mistake. Brazilian newspapers were left to speculate on which video the tribunal would watch at its next meeting —Tom and Jerry and Wacky Races (which still gets shown on TV in Brazil) were early favourites. Meanwhile, by a spectacular coincidence, Edmundo was freed to play in the following Sunday’s derby game against Palmeiras. His absence would, of course, have detracted from the game and many felt this was why he had treated with kid gloves once again...
There has long been a suspicion that Gremio deliberately try to cause fights in home games to get local police involved. Two years ago, there was a free-for-all in a South American Supercup tie (a competition for past Libertadores winners) at home to Penarol of Uruguay. At the first sight of trouble, the Gremio fans started chanting “bring on the riot police.” The riot police came on, and although the Penarol players put up a good rearguard action, they had to make a serious dash for the dressing-room to avoid a good beating.
Gremio have been accused of employing the ‘kicking rota’ system. This involves defenders taking it in turns to foul the opposition’s best player instead of employing a man-to-man marker to do it. This way they can reduce the risk of a player being sent off for repeatedly fouling the opposition’s top men...
At least Sao Paulo can boast minimum bans. Until last year, the Rio de Janeiro federation did not impose any automatic suspension at all on red card offenders. Players sent off on Sunday matches were usually judged by a tribunal held on Thursday nights and routinely let off to play the following Sunday. (The Rio de Janeiro federation has the odd opening hours of 2pm to 10pm. Jorge Luis Rodrigues, a reporter from O Globo newspaper, explains that this was to allow its most stupid decisions to be made “in the middle of the night”)."
______________________________________________________________________________________________
The Nix players should exercise more caution in North-East India though, as anything unpopular with the crowd could escalate into full-scale riots involving pitch invasions and armed police wielding long riot sticks ...
Big Pete 65, Christchurch
