This was the message from junior football leagues in response to concerns about fan behaviour at district games.
Shepparton District Junior Football League vice-president Chris Cole said while it was rare, there were cases of issues with fan behaviour at times.
''The vast majority of people who come to junior games are absolutely acting in the right way,” he said.
“But unfortunately we do have some cases where the behaviour of some fans is an issue.
“On the occasions where there have been problems they have been reported to the league and we have investigated them and dealt with those issues.”
The competition has policies in place about fan behaviour and was not looking at new policies introduced by Melbourne’s Eastern Football League.
The league introduced radical changes to the competition in an attempt to curve negative barracking.
The league initiative, named “Silent Sunday”, was a two-week period where those attending were requested to “clap and cheer after each score only” to “give players an opportunity to trust their skills and instincts without sideline input and/or correction.”
Clubs also have the chance to “have no spectators on the ground during the quarter-time and three-quarter time breaks” in order to limit instruction to the coach only.
Cole said the league had a code of conduct which was distributed to fans and officials of the competition before each season.
“We obviously do not condone abuse towards players, officials or umpires,” he said.
“We’ve introduced signage around our grounds this season as a subtle reminder to the supporters of how they should behave at games.”
Similar signage has been seen at local grounds across the country, bearing the message “These are kids, this is a game, the umpires are human, the coaches are volunteers, this is not the AFL. Before you complain, have you volunteered yet?”
“We also have a strict no alcohol rule at all our junior matches, which is always enforced,” Cole said.
For the Goulburn Campaspe Junior Football League, clubs officials were educated in the lead up to the season about acceptable behaviour.
“We hold an information night at the start of the season,” league president Paul Shortis said.
“We educate all our officials about the code of conduct for the competition, they are aware of what behaviour is acceptable at our games and are able to speak to fans about their conduct on the incredibly rare occasion it happens.”
While the league was recently made aware of the changes at the EFL, Cole said there were no plans to introduce such strict rules at their own games.
“We’ve recently been made aware of this policy,” he said.
“We are always willing to have a look at ways to improve things at our junior games, however we have no plans to introduce these initiatives.
“Any discussions about these rules like these would be fully investigated and discussed with clubs before such decisions were made, but we have not had any discussions of the like.”
Shortis agreed and said they believed these kind of rules were unnecessary at games.
“It’s very rare for an incident of any kind to happen in the league at all, but our policy in the event it does is to speak to the clubs in question and get them to take action over the behaviour.”
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