AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Andrew Hamilton | 10 June 2015

In my early years of secondary school there was a very fine footballer in the senior team of another school. I had never met him, but hated him with a passion. For me he was the embodiment of evil: came from a snobs school, had a non Anglo-Irish name, represented the wrongs inflicted on Ireland, ran rings around our team, and was a filthy player.

I later recognised that he was an unassuming young man who was scrupulously fair in his play. But that was later. In boyhood hatred created its object out of all the prejudices that lay to hand.

This memory returned in recent weeks when reading of the constant booing and vilification of Adam Goodes, and reading some of the opinion pieces on the Ballarat sexual abuse.

Goodes, already marked as the enemy by rival tribes, either…