Bad sportsmanship, go away, come again another day

A top netball administrator has hit back at adult spectators and parents for abusing young players and umpires at a children's netball game. The abuse, including swearing at players and supporters of opposition teams, was so bad in one game in Auckland last weekend that play was stopped. Some of the players were left in tears and had to be taken from the court. This is not the sort of behaviour that we want to be encouraging in children's sports, and it just takes the fun out of it all. That is poor sportsmanship coming from the spectators, and New Zealanders have already experienced more than their fair share of poor sports - back in 1981, some lunatic named Trevor Chappell bowled the final ball underarm and some other lunatics disrupted several Springbok games just because of South Africa's apartheid policies when sport should NEVER be mixed with politics.