Maate, been a long time since I posted here but I've seen too many
shark reckons about what happened at the end of the game on Friday from people who weren't there (and a few who were) to not offer my version.
I was actually in the bay where the fight occurred and I think it can be best characterised as a minor dust-up between two groups of fans who don't regularly attend games at Sky and just don't understand what the unspoken rules are.
On the one hand you've got a small group of Victory fans who didn't do anything particularly wrong but it's clear from the comments I've seen that they feel like the bay was 'their bay' and it was 'stormed' by Nix fans. That's just not how it works at Sky Stadium. Me and my son moved there at half-time with maybe 100 other fans purely to watch the Nix attack that end. We often do that if we're attacking that end in the 2nd half basically because we can, which is really cool. So no malicious intent at all but I could see that the Victory fans weren't exactly comfortable with a load of extra Nix fans turning up for the 2nd half. I can imagine if that happened in Australia it would be problematic but I feel like they maybe made assumptions about what was happening that they brought with them from Oz and which don't reflect the reality of a game at Sky.
On the other hand there were at least 2 separate groups among those Nix fans who were younger, a bit boozed and obviously not regulars. No Nix gear, didn't know any chants, and really
shark banter. I mean rugby test match level of terrible bantz. Crucially, they also clearly did not know how to deal with the away fans in the way that most Yellow Fever or regular Nix fans would. I doubt a single one of them even knows about the famous conga line when we hosted the Victory years ago which to this day is one of the coolest piss-takes I've ever seen of the stupid wanna-be-ultra mentality of a few too many Aussie fan groups.
Midway through the 2nd half Red Badge did ask one group of Nix fans who were right in front of the Victory fans to move so they definitely knew that there was a bit of a vibe. As the half wore on a more visible presence from them would have been helpful.
When the Victory scored their fans did what you would reasonably expect but there probably was a little bit of extra lip given to the Nix fans (or at least perceived to be given due to the slightly off vibes). When the Nix got a penalty some Nix fans did move in a bit closer to the Victory fans to give a bit back and when Rufer scored is when it suddenly spilled over - there was a brief flurry of punches between a couple of guys (I honestly don't know who threw first) and then a rolling maul of about 5-10 guys trying to separate them for about a minute. A couple of Red Badge did reappear and were eventually successful in helping to break it up. Not trying to minimise the actual fight but it really was what you'd describe as handbags. That said, I was still genuinely surprised when it happened and there's no doubt it was upsetting for the visitors who definitely would have been more concerned about what was happening to them on unfamiliar territory. It was still a very
shark look for us.
If the Nix really can identify the 2 or 3 main protagonists and ban them that would be fair. I doubt they'd care though as they almost certainly weren't regulars (a ban from the stadium might be a different story though).
A couple of other not-too-serious contributing factors to mention:
1. The Victory captain threw his support under the bus by attacking that end in the first half. That was a dog act and nearly as bad as the Nic playing in their away kit at home (I know why, I just don't care). It's just not the way it's done at Sky where the Nix always attack in front of the Fever in the 2nd half. We don't move if the Nix attack that end in the 1st half because there's not time.
2. This season the Nix have made it impossible to get all the way to Aisle 36 so it's a bit more compressed around Aisle 31-32. Not sure why that is but my experience in the past is that it allowed away fans to separate themselves a bit more.
Anyway, that's all my reckons on this. I really hope it doesn't result in putting anymore restrictions on home fans ability to move around the stadium because that would be an over-reaction. Identify the main culprits here and give them well-publicised bans and in future if there's away fans just get a couple of Red Badge to sit in a couple of empty rows between them and the home fans and she'd be sorted I reckon.