This article is a good example of how I’m struggling to distinguish fair criticism of bad decisions made by the club, or a toxic culture, from a media pile-on. This article steps out some obvious failings of the club well, but other aspects could be construed as being twisted to suit a pre-defined narrative.
The Starlight game was a farce, and seemingly very cynical. Certainly the club has made other mistakes.
But comments like “the club's childish push to remove Glendinning's name from the coveted medal…” shows the writer’s hand a little. Most on here backed the club on the spirit of the change (albeit the execution was appalling).
As for Lyon walking out on Cowan giving a lecture 18 months ago, that reads terribly, but given Lyon has been at Freo 6 years, there’s bound to be things that look terrible. Maybe Lyon had informed Michelle that he had a prior engagement, but that he’d attend the part he could. Including that bit of hearsay in a story is a reach of you ask me.
Alcock has been silent, but Alcock has always been silent. Presidents have different public profiles depending on the club, ranging from your shameless self-promoting Eddie/Kennett types, to people you’ve never heard of as President of other clubs. I’m not sure what Alcock could say publicly about a confidential matter in any event – he would look like a defensive idiot, the way Lyon does.
Not reported in the story is that Freo has three women on its Board (for context, West Coast has none) including an indigenous woman. It’s not quite representative, but it’s hard to have equal representation when members keep voting in former players for some reason. The Board have met, and I’m sure they have discussed options. No-one on that Board with career aspirations or sense of decency will turn a blind eye to a #MeToo incident.
If the writer has made a good faith attempt to reflect what is going on in the club that’s fair enough, but when have you ever known that to be the case with the media’s treatment of Freo?
It might come to pass that everything reported about Lyon and the club is true, or even worse that reported. What we’ve learnt lately is that often where there is smoke there is fire. But for decades I’ve seen people on this board criticise the media for the way they treat Freo. I think it’s worth keeping a critical lens now.
