When people hear the name Toby Greene uttered, some have a visceral reaction, as though what he has done on the football field and the person he is has impacted them personally, and deeply in some way.
Chances are, it hasn’t, and he hasn’t, but in a society where it seems that people make a genuine attempt to be the most offended, most of the time, the reactions to Toby Greene don’t surprise me at all.
They call him a thug, a grub, a stain on the industry… as though it is an unspoken competition to see who can come up with the worst moniker for him without stepping over the line. As we inch toward the twilight of Greene’s AFL career – he is now 29 years old – we find a footballer, and a man, at the crossroads. In a time before he brushed past an umpire, Greene had seemingly commenced rehabilitating his image. He starred in the Bushfire Relief game and was photographed hanging out with other AFL personalities socially. The PR campaign was in full swing.
But with a slight bit of contact with an umpire, he was back to square one. The AFL’s bad boy was bad news once again and all seemed right again.
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