One thing that intrigued me at the time was that shortly after I posted an Anonymous comment appeared suggesting I had overreacted. The comment said he was "only guilty of handbag violence". I misunderstood the comment at the time thinking it was making the suggestion that a footballer's partner was only just an accessory (like an handbag) and so it didn't matter if you bashed it.
I thought this interpretation pretty offensive and so deleted it! I did wonder where it had come from, and over the next few days was rather drawn to the conclusion that it was probably someone at Football Park who had been designated the task of trying to get erstwhile bloggers to moderate their righteous (or possibly self-righteous ) anger. This seemed a little paranoid even for me. Though I had been under attack from two other correspondents around that time.
I didn't think much more about it until a couple of weeks later a similar sort of Anonymous comment appeared and it said
Stephen, he damaged her handbag. Spousal violence is indeed deplorable but aren't you over reacting a tad? Check your sources it was nothing more than purse bashing!
This actually gave much more credence to my original paranoid idea. And so the comment was left on there with a further comment by me that I didn't buy this argument....though now it was clear to me that Bock had indeed destroyed her purse!!
Now, for the record , today in court he pleaded guilty to assault
The report says
Prosecutors said Bock slapped his girlfriend, Carlie Matthews, twice on the left side of her face and threw beer in her face during an altercation at the General Havelock Hotel.
He later damaged Ms Matthews' handbag, mobile phone and bracelet, the court heard, but was too drunk to be interviewed by police at the time.
full report here
This was not merely the destruction of someone's handbag!!
Now while the incident was reprehensible, if my theory about the Adelaide Football Club trying to spin local blogs is even partially true...this would still indicate that they consider this as something needing damage control rather than fundamental change of culture.
