Good to see that a few warriors for Australia, people of the calibre and moral fibre of Charlie Lynn, still have principals and standards.
Charlie, a member of the NSW upper house for 20 years from 1995, is a Trek Leader for Adventure Kokoda and a developer of the Kokoda Youth Leadership Challenge.
He held the New South Wales 24-hour Ultra Marathon record in 1985 and 1986.
This is his letter of resignation from the GWS Giants on the back of the spiral into the world of woke, moral narcissism and political correctness by the AFL
CHARLIE’S RESIGNATION FROM THE GWS GIANTS
Dear Tony,
I have enclosed my 2019 GWS Premium Membership Card (1093838) which you might like to pass onto one of your player…s to kneel on before their next game.
This effectively ends my 70-year association with Australian Rules Football – I played my first game as a 5-year old at St Josephs in Orbost, Victoria. I continued playing into my late 30s and have rarely missed watching a match since then.
My all-time hero was Ronnie Edwards – an indigenous full-forward for Orbost who will never be forgotten by those who had the good fortune to witness his instinctive magic on the field in the East Gippsland football League.
Three of my nephews played the game for Carlton, St Kilda and Brisbane – one won a Brownlow.
I have marvelled at the skills of our indigenous players over the years and I believe AFL clubs have done a great job implementing programs to meet their needs and to equip them for life beyond football.
However in recent years I have become increasingly concerned over the introduction of woke politics into the sport by the AFL hierarchy. They seem to have forgotten that people go to the footy to be entertained – not indoctrinated!
The vision of players going down on their knees in reaction to an incident that had nothing to do with Australia was the most cringeworthy thing I have ever seen.
There was a time when footballers, like the great Ron Barassi’s father, left the game to don the uniform and died along with their mates in defence of our Australian values.
Today I feel the AFL would make them don rainbow skirts and do protest jigs for the media.
Perhaps the AFL should be now be split into two – one as a registered political body and the other as a professional football body.
When that happens I may return to watch the game – but until then its goodbye for now.
Yours sincerely,
Charlie Lynn
It appears he has body parts the AFL leaders don’t have
You’re action and comments are spot on Charlie. How we’ve let a totally unrelated incident in the USA become a trigger for the sporting world to further its crazy wokeness is beyond me. I’m an ex Victorian in my 80’s and grew up and played Aussie rules with indigenous kids. There was never any need for this identification of colour so shame on the AFL administrators for allowing it. It’s a sport and should not be used as a biased political expression.