There’s nothing silly about Perth footy club’s costume scandal

My three-year-old already loves football.

When he sees the blue-and-yellow guernseys darting across the TV, he cheers: “That’s our team!”

I cringe, but he’s already a staunch fan despite not having lived long enough to see a good Eagles season.

It keeps going at the park. I walk my two boys down to the local oval to play on the playground, throw the dogs a stick and watch the local footy practice.

I’ve been waiting for him to be old enough to join Auskick since he started walking. But lately, I’ve started second-guessing that.

“Stop f---ing around like a bunch of nannas,” I hear one afternoon.

I’m appalled. It’s one of the coaches of a boys’ team whose players couldn’t have been older than 14.

My son isn’t old enough to register the swearing, let along the misogynistic insult – by the way, his Nanna is nothing if not hard-working.

But I can’t shake the thought that this is the environment he’ll be learning in.

I think about going over and saying something, but with two kids and two dogs running in every direction, I decide to mind my own business.

When I get home and tell my husband, he agrees the comment was bad, but says it’s pretty normal. He was coached like that too, it’s just how it is.

We all think in 2025 we know better, but despite all the government respect campaigns and opinion pieces like this, it’s clear the change is not breaking through

It’s not just the words we say, but what we let slide in the moment.

That same brushing things off as “banter” is what’s behind the Osborne Park Football Club scandal.

The City of Stirling has terminated the club’s lease after a player turned up to “Silly Sunday” dressed up as the late physicist Stephen Hawking, who used a wheelchair for much of his life due to a slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease.

The player was in a wheelchair and there was allegedly a mock-up of a pornography website on the screen of the communication device insinuating he was accessing child exploitation material.

The wheelchair and accessory were later found by cleaners of the clubrooms and the matter was referred to police.

No criminal offence was found, but the club has since been forced to vacate the premises for good.

This costume wasn’t a clever or cheeky joke that missed the mark because the world suddenly became “too woke”.

Making light of child exploitation material has never been OK. It’s not edgy. It’s not harmless. It’s indecent.

And to be clear, the costume wasn’t mocking victims directly – it was allegedly insinuating that Stephen Hawking had ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

But it’s the same lack of care for victims all over again.

WA Premier Roger Cook yesterday said people “need to realise what is not appropriate in this day and age”. But the truth is, this behaviour was never appropriate — not in any day or age.

The real issue isn’t the costume itself, it’s the response in the moment.

The failure of anyone in that room – a teammate, a coach, a club leader – to say: “That’s not on.”

Apologies from the new club president mean little when recognition only comes after public backlash.

The lease ban matters precisely because it shows that finally, there are consequences.

And, according to the City of Stirling mayor, this wasn’t a first offence. The club had “a pattern of poor form and poor behaviour”, according to Mark Irwin.

This is what accountability looks like after repeated failures to self-correct.

None of this means those involved should be “cancelled” forever.

It should be a learning moment – for the player, the club leaders, and every bystander who laughed or stayed silent.

However, real growth requires consequences. Without them, there’s no reason to change.

Some people complain that these standards are a product of political correctness, that clubs are being punished for having fun.

But “woke,” in its truest sense, simply means waking up – finally seeing the world as it really is and how our actions ripple outward.

Just because something was once considered fair game, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t hurting people. It just means those being hurt weren’t being heard.

Our young men – already being told that the modern world is against them – are still being taught to think that being decent makes you soft, and that speaking up makes you a killjoy.

But that’s exactly backwards.

Being a good teammate, a good mate, a good man, means knowing where the line is and being strong enough to draw it.

The truth is, the crisis of abuse, sexual and domestic, doesn’t start in adulthood. It starts much earlier — in changerooms, in pubs, and at “Silly Sundays,” where silence and laughter tell the next generation what’s acceptable.

Osborne Park’s case is more than embarrassing. It’s a warning. If community sport is to be the heart of our suburbs, then that heart has to be healthy.

Elise Gately is a journalist at Radio 6PR, which is owned by Nine, also the owner of this masthead.