Carlton Supporters Club

One needs to mediate carefully between the group and the individual. There may be a small element of truth to certain groups conforming to certain behaviors, but that needs to be measured against that fact we are individual minds, and you need to be wary of flattening or erasing any nuance or legitimate difference that exists between members of a group.

In terms of parental pushiness, my experiences were decidedly mixed, with 2 children involved in soccer, cricket, swimming, ballet, fencing, drama, choir, art classes, gymnastics. Pushy parents come in all shapes and skin colors, as do chill parents.

My kids play a lot of games vs. sides stacked with kids with Indian and Sri Lankan backgrounds and the term "pushy parent" is very apt. I'd hate to be the coach of one of those kids, the parental interference would drive you dingbats.

Khawaja spoke very well about growing up a brown kid amongst mostly white older generation racist players. It wasn't until Gillys generation that he began to feel apart. He said that it was the parents of the kids he played that were the worst. He's done very well to get through that to become the player he is.

As a dark-skinned Australian who began his cricket career in Australia, I cannot claim any discrimination or disadvantage based on my ethnic background. Any bias that I’ve experienced has been down to the fact that I’ve been limited by this ridiculous obsession with picking the best players! I suffered from simply not being good enough.

... many young boys from South Asian backgrounds have family expectations to deal with. Speaking from personal experience, I know that they come under immense pressure to follow academic pathways and ‘safe’ careers rather than chasing exotic cricket dreams. It’s ironic because these same families will watch every game of cricket and worship the stars but for their own sons, there’s a genuine desire to set them on a traditional career pathway that requires an emphasis on study. That will change but it might take a decade or so to show. Don’t ask me why this doesn’t manifest itself in England – I can’t figure that one out myself.

From a pure cricketing perspective, the nature of Australian pitches lends itself to bigger, stronger physiques dominating senior club cricket. You have to be strong and robust enough to hit the deck and get bounce, therefore more suited to the Anglo-Saxon body shape. In England and New Zealand, the nagging medium-pacers and spinners come into their own, thereby opening up the field to bowlers who may lack the pure ‘grunt’ but can do enough with the ball at 125 kph. Australian pitches need to offer more variety full stop. It will automatically create more opportunities for players with different body shapes and techniques. The added bonus is that it will allow our players to adapt better to foreign pitches too.

From a pure cricketing perspective, the nature of Australian pitches lends itself to bigger, stronger physiques dominating senior club cricket. You have to be strong and robust enough to hit the deck and get bounce, therefore more suited to the Anglo-Saxon body shape. In England and New Zealand, the nagging medium-pacers and spinners come into their own, thereby opening up the field to bowlers who may lack the pure ‘grunt’ but can do enough with the ball at 125 kph. Australian pitches need to offer more variety full stop. It will automatically create more opportunities for players with different body shapes and techniques. The added bonus is that it will allow our players to adapt better to foreign pitches too.

Psychologically, it’s no secret that Australian club cricket is played hard and uncompromisingly, sometimes too much so perhaps. It’s easy enough to mistake some of the sledging as ‘racist’ but from my experience, I found most of it to be opportunistic rather than redneck.

Quote from: ElwoodBlues1 – on September 04, 2025, 04:54:30 pm

A lot of Germans speak accented good English but there is an expectation that if you work for one of their companies even in Oz you have to learn German to a standard. I was lucky the Engineers I worked with spoke English and I had more problems with the Electrical/Electronic schematic diagrams that were all in German and many of the symbols differ to the USA and English versions yet can look the same.

ich bin auslander und spreche nicht gut deutsch!

Quote from: crashlander – on September 04, 2025, 04:13:33 pm

It is more that Russian children were trained from the time of the Tsars not to smile in public. Back in those days, they thought smiling would attract the Okrana, the Tsar's secret police. It was more so during the days of the Sovietskiy Soyuz, where first Lavrenti Beria's NKVD was thought to be attracted to anyone who smiled. Considering that one third of the entire Soviet payroll was working for the NKVD, they always knew of such things.
I was there in 1997 and people still didn't smile in public: it had become part of the Russian psyche.

I didn't find the same thing in Deutschland, but I could speak some German. They didn't even pick on me for my nice Australian accent (not in German - they knew I was a foreigner because I didn't speak dialect, rather than from my accent. They wanted to practice their English; that's when they noted my accent. I'm sure I affected a significant number of Germans with my English).

A lot of Germans speak accented good English but there is an expectation that if you work for one of their companies even in Oz you have to learn German to a standard. I was lucky the Engineers I worked with spoke English and I had more problems with the Electrical/Electronic schematic diagrams that were all in German and many of the symbols differ to the USA and English versions yet can look the same.