Fan Deserves Life Ban

Newcastle Herald

Thursday June 16, 2005

PETER STERLING

IN the late 1980s an individual hitchhiked from Byron Bay through the night to sleep in Parramatta Park to belt me as I arrived for training.

After the punch was duly landed, he took off back into the park before police were called to come and make an arrest.

The incident ended up in court and had a somewhat bizarre finale.

At the time I was having a column ghost-written in a daily newspaper, and at the beginning of one article the words "God forbid" were used.

It turned out this individual had decided to exact some revenge because I "had no right to speak of the Lord as though I was on first-name terms with the Lord".

In retrospect, the scary part of the whole confrontation was that, instead of having a closed fist, he could have come with a knife or something worse.

At EnergyAustralia Stadium on Saturday night, another intruder named Danny Woods made a complete nuisance of himself.

Now, I'm not saying my past problem is similar to what took place towards the end of the Eels clash, but the principle is the same, and action should also be very strong.

Obviously Mr Woods didn't appear to harbour any evil intent or malice, but his stupid action could have had severe repercussions.

In what looked like an attempt to make his own tackle, he fortunately slipped and avoided any contact with the players involved.

What if he hadn't slipped?

What if he had succeeded in blindsiding one of the players and caused serious injury?

If you saw how simple it was for Dragons halfback Mathew Head to sustain cruciate damage against the Cowboys, you can see how easily that could occur to a player who is relaxed and not expecting to be hit.

Add a can being carried into proceedings, and things could have finished much worse than they actually did.

I don't care how much Mr Woods had to drink, how disappointed he was or how remorseful he now is.

Quite simply, I believe he should be banned for life from not only Newcastle matches but any NRL fixture.

This may appear harsh, but a message has to be sent that there is absolutely zero tolerance when it comes to such matters.

NRL grounds should also carry a substantial standard financial penalty for trespassing in line with the $5500 imposed at Telstra Stadium in Sydney. The other disturbing aspect was not only how this individual was able to make his way onto the field but how long he was able to stay.

Apparently ground security were getting ready to escort the referee off, but it seemed an eternity before the intruder was apprehended and removed.

This incident obviously surprised everyone, but so too did the stabbing of star tennis player Monica Seles while sitting courtside in 1993.

Again this may appear over-dramatic, but I imagine that's how the possibility of something like that occurring was viewed before it actually took place.

Already some have found humour from this event, and no doubt the usual jokes will do the rounds in a short period of time.

There is absolutely nothing funny about this, and unfortunately it wasn't only on the scoreboard where Newcastle were embarrassed last Saturday night.

© 2005 Newcastle Herald

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