Come off the grass...

To be frank, you one-eyed Australian Football League supporters should finally back off.

As football fans we can't afford the luxury of your sporting blind spot.

Build your stadium, but don't expect us to be satisfied with an oval for a game that is played on a rectangle.

We've been telling you about the world game, football, for generations, but you continued to taunt and tease and stick your heads in the sand.

You even used sexist, racist, and homophobic slurs to describe our love and passion for the game.

The late great Johnny Warren, a 1974 FIFA World Cup Socceroo, called you out when he wrote a book with the self-deprecating title: Shelias, Wogs and Poofters.

There has been a bigoted attitude to football for years across our state and our nation.

You wouldn't even allow us to call it football, demanding soccer, even though the game originated in England and was brought here by the colonisers.

And do not bother calling us hooligans because a few idiots with passion overflowing descended into potentially criminal behaviour.

It's not acceptable and strongly condemned, but the masses at watch parties have had the time of their lives during the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023.

But then all you fair-weather supporters jumped on the bandwagon because there has been success.

The Matildas have finally captured your interest and you are generous in your praise - we applaud with you.

Don't get me wrong, we love you for it, yet I can only imagine what you're saying if you're suffering from this column.

Many of our families have been playing and administering junior and senior football for more than 50 years in this state, but there wouldn't be one of us who hasn't, at some stage, hidden our passion for the game.

We have family members who took the meeting minutes in block capitals on foolscap housed in ring binders, have been foundation and life members of local clubs, left cars running to provide adequate lighting at training, and put every free hour into physically building clubrooms from the ground up because they possessed the skills and there was no money to be had.

They have been keeping clubs ticking over on the smell of an oily rag, begging for space and borrowing gear.

And while we understand many sporting clubs have been in the same spot, you didn't have to hide your advocacy and your wish for better because of the names you were called and the utter despair you felt after being knocked back for funding again and again.

When you got your Sherrin for Christmas, the sports' stores sold us old leather and plastic footballs that quickly became water-logged or disintegrated after a few kicks.

The City of Launceston Council thought it was outstanding leadership to open York Park for 500 people.

They were surprised when it sold out.

Come off the grass! Open your eyes.

You built our grounds on old landfill sites and natural floodplains close to riparian reserves and wonder why the grounds are not fit for use during key winter months when the season is played.

As football aficionados, we love the Australian Rules variety, we are Australian after all and once trained in our teams' football guernseys.

Heck we even warmed up with an oval ball for something different and a bit of fun.

We love the game, we admire the physicality, but you are knowingly ignorant and don't offer the same level of respect in return.

Where have you been?

Football is Tasmania's most played team sport.

There are more than 36,000 Tasmanians (6.8 per cent of the state's population) who play football each year.

And Tasmania already leads the nation when it comes to female participation, making up 28 percent of all players.

That figure will explode because of the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023.

For example, there are 45 female teams entered in the upcoming Hobart Cup.

The semi-final against England was the most watched TV program in two-decades.

It reached 11.15 million Australians and had a national average audience on Channel 7 of 7.13 million.

The semi-final was the most streamed ever since records began with just under one million views tuning in.

In raw numbers, about 42 percent of the nation watched the game on free to air television! There is no game that unites Australians like football.

Most don't realise the enormity of the World Cup, it is already described as the finals with those making the last 32 having already entered a series of rigorous qualifying events before even making it to the tournament.

To make a World Cup semi-final is rare for football countries.

For the Matildas to make a semi-final against England is beyond the imagination, it's the sporting stratosphere.

The England team, the Lionesses are formidable, the 2022 UEFA European Women's Football Championship winners are stacked with class.

The English FA puts more money into their academy program for talented juniors than the whole of the Football Association across Australia.

So go Matildas, go the Tassie AFL team, and go Carlton, and for the rest of you, lift your game.