You keep constructing these binaries yeti, that on the one side is the truth about Lyon that is there to see and it’s that he’s awful in every way, and there are people on the other side asserting Lyon is great bloke who is beyond reproach. Putting Jezza to the side, no-one is saying that latter. I don’t even think Jezza knows for sure Lyon is a great bloke (despite his inside information), and if he does it’s perhaps just a sense of misplaced loyalty on his part. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Jezza’s ‘everything is dandy’ optimism is any more deluded that your ‘everything is awful, burn it to the ground’ view of the club.
On the media reports of Lyon’s behaviour at the Christmas party three years ago he sounds like he is - or was being - a sleaze-ball. But in terms of minimising Lyon’s actions here, I still don’t understand what he had to do with the firing of an HR manager. Are you suggesting that Lyon (I would assume indirectly) had her sacked personally? Are you conflating events, even where The West didn’t? Or is his past alleged sleazy conduct three years ago (and as far as I can tell a one-off) being re-litigated because The West brought it up again in an unrelated story?
From where I’m sitting it seems that any information that portrays Lyon or the club negatively is taken at face value by many on this site. Any information that portrays Lyon or the club positively is rejected out of hand as being unreliable. It’s 2018 information siloing at its worst.
So while I don’t agree I’m trying to minimise Lyon’s actions, I do feel the need to stick up for the club. You might consider it misguided, but the reason I do is that I care about the club, and I care about Dockerland. This used to be a place that was a bit of a refuge from the incessant (and often baseless) attacks on the club from the WA media and Eagles-supporting idiots on talkback radio. It’s where people would at least consider whether the information presented by the media beared scrutiny, and might offer a different opinion. In that sense it was a refuge.
That same instinct can occasionally still be seen about stories about players: think how defensive some people are about stories about Bennell or how the media reacted to Johnno’s kebab shop incident, and how quick many were to contextualise it. But not only do people take negative stories/innuendo about Lyon or the club at face value, they take it a step further. I just think it’s a bit sad that this place, like so many others online, has become about the angriest voices in the mob.
In my view Lyon might be a creep, or at least likely has been on one occasion. He coaches too defensively. The club has at times be run a bit shoddily (the Starlight game was a fiasco). The CEO doesn’t share my values and I’d rather he left. But that doesn’t mean everything Lyon or the club does is terrible. The bad doesn’t completely invalidate any good. People, and organisations, are complex. I just think portraying Lyon (and even Rosich) as cartoonish villains without any redeeming qualities seems unnuanced and not supported by the facts.
I guess each to their own, but that’s why I feel the need to chime in.
