Here’s a selection often cartoons I drew throughout the last A-League season. They’re packed full of cultural references that made sense a year ago and will bewilder anyone living outside of Australia. Hooray!
- The FFA Cup Final (October 2015). Cartoonists are the only people who miss Tony Abbott.
2. The Very Hungry Grub (October 2015). This one came about after a high-ranking official within the Police Association of NSW likened Western Sydney Wanderers fans to grubs:
3. A-League supporter protests (November 2015). After The Daily Telegraph released the names and pictures of a number of fans who had received banning orders, Australian football went into meltdown. At one stage, a number of ‘active fan groups’ staged boycotts and walkouts. Here’s how I saw the response from other interested parties:
4. Code Wars (December 2015). As football and its supporters continued to be demonised by certain sections of the media, a new Star Wars film was released, providing me with the perfect opportunity to combine the two and to draw some stormtroopers. This is probably my favourite cartoon and was great fun to draw.
5. Referees doing post-match interviews (January 2016). All hail the lizard men.
6. Flares (February 2016). The issue of flares is never far from the headlines in Australia. When Western Sydney Wanderers fans let off a load of them during a match against Melbourne Victory, play was suspended and all hell broke loose.
7. The Unstoppable Rise of Adelaide United (March 2015). After being bottom of the league in the early part of the season, Adelaide went on a long unbeaten run, which would eventually see them finishing top.
8. The Phantom Commissioner (March 2015). The Daily Telegraph printed a preposterous claim that Football Federation Australia were going to appoint a mysterious hero to lurk in the shadows and watch for crowd misbehaviour.
9. Depp and Heard (April 2015). Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were forced to make a video apology for smuggling their pet dogs (Pistol and Boo) into Australia. I considered how a similar video might have encouraged people to attend A-League matches. At the time, this was an innocent story about quarantine avoidance, but has since taken on a darker tone with the revelations that Johnny Depp is a shit.
10. End of season round-up (May 2015)
You can see the full back catalogue of my Grauniad cartoons here: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/david-squires
The Sunshine Room 