Wither Ricky now? Who knows, and frankly who cares. Is the guy fit enough to continue doing his job? Possibly. He could argue that he was merely getting his standard 10% off the top by visiting the girl and allegedly having sex. But then who do we believe? He says he didn’t do it; she has video footage which is, well, to put it bluntly, fairly damning. He says the footage was faked, maybe it is, but I’m not so sure. Why do we care? For the same reason people slow down to check out accidents and fights – because it’s tragic and it’s happening to someone else. That’s the only reason. It’s like watching a bad movie like The Keep – you only watch it for the film score by Tangerine Dream. Otherwise why bother?
I’m not entirely sure where my sympathies lie in all of this mess. They certainly don’t lie with Nixon. Let’s assume for a minute that he did, to quote Neil Patrick Harris, got his fuck on (and I’m not saying he did, I wasn’t there) and got stuck into The Girl. She’s 17, Nixon is 47. I’m not sure about Rick, but I’ve had a long standing rule that I don’t go near anyone who is roughly the same age as my daughter, let alone five years younger. In fact last time I had sex with a 17 year old girl was when I was 17, or 18. Shock and horror eh? Clearly that rule doesn’t apply to all people and my comment to Nixon, if he did do it and I’m not saying he did, would be along the lines of, “What the fuck were you thinking? Oh, let me guess, you didn’t think, did you? Dickhead!” There goes the career, there goes the credibility and, more importantly, there goes the family. I doubt the Bear would be wanting to hang around with me for all that long if she even thought that I’d been schtupping a 17 year old, let alone if video footage was released, and I strongly suspect my kids would think less of me, and I know I’d lose pretty much all of my pals along the way. There’s a lot for Nixon to lose here, not just a job and some fame.
Which makes me wonder – where are the parents in all of this? Nothing, and I mean nothing, could make me disown my children. They could go on a shooting spree and I’d still stand by them. They could commit cold blooded murder and I’d still visit them in jail. They could get pregnant to a footballer at the age of 16 and I’d still be there. I’d be sad, disappointed, let down and upset, but I’d not turn my back and leave them to fend for themselves. Any parent that does, well, they shouldn’t have kids in the first place. We’ve heard nothing from the parents, but if silence implies complicacy, then they’re happy for their kid to be living in a hotel room and ‘entertaining’ a 47 year old man. I’ve not got the words to properly express my utter and complete disgust with that. But, different strokes for different folks. There’s a good book in all of this and I’m sure that there’s a race to see who seals that deal first.
The footballers, well, there’s no real sympathy there either. Even in my early twenties I knew that screwing a 16 year old was wrong, especially unprotected sex. And I knew that allowing anyone access to any incriminating photos was definitely a no-no – indeed when such photos were taken I’d destroy them shortly after. I have the memories, I don’t need the proof, and, frankly, nobody wants to see it anyway. I have zero desire to see a photo of a football player fiddling with his bits and the fact that such photos are now in the public domain say more about the stupidity of the person taking the photo and allowing someone access to it more than it does about the person who then reveals that photo to the general public. It’s a funny thing though, I can’t help but feel that there’s a massive double standard here. Brendan Fevola releases a photo of Bloody Hell Bingle to the world and after a bit of fuss it’s all written off as ‘boys will be boys’. The Girl releases photos of two Sainters and suddenly she’s being chastised as being the biggest slut of the universe, having committed the most heinous crime known to man. They want her locked up and key melted down and then thrown away. But Fev, well, boys will be boys. But The Girl, that dirty fucking tarty slut! How DARE she intrude on the privacy of some Saints? A public stoning is in order. But Fev, well, boys will be boys, wink wink.
Give me a break! Double standards are what makes the world go around. If I was caught with a bag of coke, or got pissed and crash my car then I’d heading off to the big house, but if I play AFL then I’ll be cautioned at best. If I sexually assault, or outright rape someone, then charges will be quietly dropped and I’ll more than likely end up playing in a Grand Final. However in this case, if you play with fire then you’re bound to end up in the burns ward before too long. What makes anyone think that The Girl can be trusted? She’s playing a very dangerous game, and so far the score is about 50/50. She attacked the Sainters and has come up fairly well on that, but the adverse publicity took her by surprise. Her resulting comments gave the impression that she’d brought a fart to a shit fight; such was her level of unpreparedness. Then the Sainters crowd* attacked her, no great surprise there. They’d rather hold up ‘Saint Nick’ signs as opposed to ‘Nick The Dick’. The game was afoot though and after losing some ground she’s attacked the players and the game in a most unusual way – via the player’s agent/manager. This will throw a lot of people into disarray in a very, very odd manner. Removing one of the most powerful players from the game of player agency will see footballers scurrying for an alternate, which is what people are going to need, especially as the two new sides are actively on the hunt for signatures. The confusion will be far reaching and wide spread – this will go far beyond the exposure of a few footballers’ cocks. And what makes anyone think that the footballers version of events can be trusted? They’re young, full of testosterone and horny as hell – a 16 year old comes along, falls to her knees, gobbles like a turkey and then spreads her legs? They’re going in for the kill. This is something that they’re used to. I’ve been in nightclubs where I’ve seen married footballers getting their fuck on, to quote NPH, so when one of them says that they didn’t have sex I generally see that as an admission of guilt. The sporting world is only second to the political world for the amount of spin, misdirection and outright lies that comes from it. What everyone involved fails to understand that this game will have no winners at all – EVERYONE is going to come out of this wounded, damaged, scarred and tarred for life. It no longer matters as to who cast the first stone, it’s hailing down now and the storm clouds are only looking darker and darker.
Now if only Andrew Demetriou can somehow be implicated, that’d be cream on the cake. And if anyone wants to hire me as a writer for this story, by all means, be my guest, but I’m telling you now, I’d only meet with The Girl with a female of my choosing, someone I can trust, as both back-up and witness. I’m clearly not as thick, or as trusting, as some player managers/agents.
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*Now before any tiny brained moron out there throws the classic insult, “Yeah, but your club has just as many dickheads at it as ours, if not more,” don’t bother. I knew that already. The club I support has had more than it’s fair share of peanuts, from the full forward who had a tendency to urinate in public, either into gutters or against the legs of pianos, to the high draft pick who turned out to be a drug addled kleptomaniac through to the future club champion who tried to pick a fight with me one evening down at the Newmarket. Why did he do that? Because I happened to glance in his direction. The club captain of the time came over to talk to me and tell me to settle down, upon which I advised him to get the skinny little prick out of the club and not bring him back until he could handle his booze. I started nothing but I’d be damned if I was going to sit there and let some thin teenager try to bait me because he finally saw some hair growing on his sack. The captain thought this over for a second and agreed with me, after which he went back to the table and told his player to settle down or go home. All was sorted. I did panic a bit though as they did have the then club ‘hardman’ present and he was a big bastard indeed.
About two years later a group of pals and me were in another club when a pal of mine became highly amused at the sight of another club champion feebly attempting to pick a young lady up. I say feeble because even Jeff Thompsons efforts were better** than this, but he did get pissed off at the sight of my pal laughing at him. Words were exchanged, during which my pal yelled, “Hey! Adonis! Where’s your wife Adonis?” At this point a ruckman decided to get involved, so I thought I’d even the odds up a bit and offered to shatter a kneecap or two. The bouncers became involved and everyone was asked to leave, which we all did. Upon exiting Adonis then began to spew in the gutter, as far a sight as you’d expect to see as he was usually celebrating his spectacular play with a certain amount of adroitness. Such is life.
So, yes, as bad as some clubs are, others are worse. To my knowledge none of the players who were present in our only two grand final appearances ever raped anyone, which is more than a few clubs can say.
**A girl I knew went to a club with me one night and saw Thommo. She walked up to him and said how much she admired him as a little kid growing up, so Thommo took one look, said thanks and then followed it up with this, “Hey, I’ve got a room here, how about a fuck?” She declined. Thommo then left with another girl and repeated his offer. Upon the second rejection he called out, “Your loss then!” He was back in amongst it about 15 minutes later and was overheard by another pal of mine asking a girl, “I’ve got a room here, how about a fuck?”
Good ole Thommo. He never lets you down.
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