Last week, Garry Lyon took to his soapbox – the one afforded him by Fox Footy, who pay him handsomely to get up there and espouse his opinions on the game we love.
He used this forum to take a shot at Carlton supporters possessing their own platforms, insisting that the online supporters of the club, and those who produce content pertaining to the team, now have too much of a platform – too much of a voice. He implied that comment on football should be left to established media and insider voices we see on the TV and hear on the radio every week.
Because that’s proven to work so well…
You must be a fan of Die Hard, right? Everyone loves Die Hard. The late, great Alan Rickman has a moment in this film where things seem to be going awry for him and his team. He cannot break into the safe as it is electrically charged. His safe cracker tells him they’d need a miracle to get in there.
But Rickman is in control. He knows what will happen next. He utters the immortal line – you ask for miracles… I give you the FBI.
The FBI cuts the power and the bad guys enter the safe, unimpeded.
It is a classic moment of the powers-that-be outsmarting themselves. And we saw it play out in real time over the course of the next couple of days.
Garry Lyon became the AFL version of the FBI, completely aiding online content creators by offering up one of the worst commentary performances I have ever heard as part of the team that butchered the Collingwood versus Fremantle game.
Garry proceeded to call a three-goal first half by Collingwood “a clinic” as he gushed over the work of a Magpie outfit that couldn’t hit the ocean from the beach, and would eventually go down to the Dockers. Even as Freo finally broke through to play some free-flowing footy and wrestled the lead away from Collingwood in the third quarter, Lyon espoused how the Magpies had the game on their terms. Whether it was a case of sunk cost fallacy, or just being oblivious as to how things were actually playing out, it was sickening cheerleading by a man who had just finished telling us that we needed to stick with the tried and true commentators of the game.
He told us to stick with him and his mates, and then produced an all-time shocker!
Ladies and gentlemen, if you ever needed a reason to seek opinion elsewhere, I give you Garry Lyon on Friday night. He was truly deplorable.
Now, I took no offence to Garry “Old Man Media” Lyon taking a shot at online creators, as he probably believes his heart is in the right place. He wants less pressure on clubs and less noise from the fan base.
But is his heart in the right place?
Or, is it only okay for pressure to be applied to a club, player, or coach when he deems it is time to turn up the heat? What’s the trigger? Who made Garry Lyon the man who knows when it’s the right time to take action?
As far as I can tell, it was him!
Herein lies the problem.
Lyon and his mates believe they’re the only ones capable of seeing what is occurring. They look at fan-produced, or “unofficial” content as ill-informed, reactionary, or misguided. And you know what? Sometimes, it is! The issue is, a lot of the time, that is how I view what he talks about as part of the broadcast. Ill-informed, reactionary, and misguided – those words just about summed up the commentary in the Fremantle win over Collingwood. He has existed in a media bubble where his words have carried enormous weight for far too long, and in a time when people are waking up, he’d rather they drift back off to sleep.
Whether he is trailing off in the middle of a sentence during a live call, openly barracking for a team in his role as special commentator, or mumbling through what passes as analysis, it seems that Garry is perilously close to passing his use-by date. The only people who haven’t realised this are him, and those signing his cheques at Fox Footy.
Garry’s salvo at the online community and Carlton creators in general, was sparked by the deplorable start to the season by the Blues, where they have been overrun in multiple games. The supporters are frustrated beyond belief, and those who have worked hard to establish platforms where they do have a voice are essentially being told to sit down and shut up?
Does Lyon not realise that the lack of genuine criticism or analysis of the club, and all clubs for that matter, is one of the big reasons people have sought to create alternative media in recent seasons? Is he so entrenched in a world he grew up in that he fails to see how it has changed?
It’s a scary place now for someone like Garry Lyon. The “shut up and listen to what I have to say” mantra that underpinned footy media is dying, with others offering a far more entertaining brand of commentary on the game via podcasts, vlogs, and analysis. I take no credit here and am not using this to pump my own tyres up in any way – there are people with a lot more followers and reach than I have. However, to state that these people’s opinions don’t matter as much as his… get off the fucking lawn, Garry!
Your performance on Friday night was the worst example of a former player still drinking his own bathwater that I’ve heard. It detracted from a game that was pretty ordinary to begin with. If you’re going to start throwing stones at people like Dan Does Footy, or any of those putting in the time and effort to cover the Carlton Football Club without being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so, then you should at least be damn sure you have your own thoughts in order before rambling into a microphone.
Because based on what you’ve served up over the last week, rambling into a microphone is about all you have left, and there are plenty better out there you’ve never even heard of.
They even remember to turn their microphones off when they’re not on air.
As always, massive thanks to those who support this work. You can see the amount of care that goes into it. I love footy, I love writing about it, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Without you, this whole thing falls over. Sincerely… thank you – HB
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