Pommy bashing gets the all clear

Following the ICC's amended Anti-Racism Code yesterday, Cricket Australia (CA) has deemed the term "pom" will still be tolerable for use against the English in the forthcoming Ashes series.

A spokesman for CA, Peter Young, said his organisation fully supported the ICC recommendations to crackdown on racism in the game, an issue which was brought to the forefront last December when several South Africa players, on tour in Australia, alleged they were racially abused by spectators. However the term "pom," or "pommy" will still be acceptable following advice from Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission who have given the idiom the all clear.

Young said the commission's advice, based on a 1997 discrimination ruling, was that "pom was not hurtful when used in isolation, although using the word with others could be deemed racist, offensive or humiliating". He refused to speculate on whether Australian fans who combined the term "pom" with offensive words to taunt English fans during the upcoming Ashes series could face eviction and bans from cricket grounds.

"That's a hypothetical," he said.

The term pom derives from pommy, an expression to describe English immigrants to Australasia; it is considered disparaging by some and endearing to others and has been particularly prevalent in cricket. There are several etymological reasons behind its use, most of them false. One theory is that pommy is rhyming slang for a pomegranate: its pale complexion, so the thinking goes, compares to that of an Englishman's skin after recently arriving in Australia. Others consider it a shortened acronym of POHM - Prisoner of His/Her Majesty - as many of Australia's first settlers were convicts from Britain.

As the build-up to the Ashes gathers pace, there have been commercials on Australian TV urging spectators to turn out at the cricket this winter, and match the Barmy Army - England's travelling posse - who have traditionally turned out in force to support England.