The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 January 2001.
By Peter Fitzsimons
Having the one-day cricket back upon us and the Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! brigade back out in force is as good an excuse as any to recount the best anecdote I have heard illustrating why we need to change the Australian flag.
Sent to me this week by Tim See, it recounts a time a couple of years ago when he was attending the first day of the Ashes Test in Sydney, sitting close to England′s notorious "Barmy Army".
"As usual," he says, "we were winning the cricket, but the Poms were still making the most noise. In soccer-supporter fashion they had handed out song lyrics and sang all day long. Our occasional efforts of Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! were met with chants of ′You′ve only got one song.′"
[Unfortunately this was pre-Olympics and the Australian crowd had not yet discovered the joys of "If you′re Aussie and you know it clap your hands!"“
"Anyway, having clearly lost the singing contest, a couple of blokes tried to stir up the Poms by running back and forth waving the Aussie flag - only to be greeted by 1,000 Poms singing (to the tune of Bread of Heaven)... ′Get your s**t stars off our flag!′ Now I had to admit there really was no comeback."
Apart from smacking them in the cricket, of course...