I HAD a call from a man bemoaning what appeared to be a dearth of real personalities in Canberra sport.

I questioned him on this, saying sportspeople such as Josh Dugan, Lauren Jackson, Michelle Heyman and Jesse Mogg expressed themselves in their sporting endeavours.

I felt that it takes time for an athlete to feel confident in expressing themselves and Canberra sport is going through a rebuilding process.

The call did get me thinking as he really had a good point. Times have changed and in the days before social media, the players and athletes had few outlets apart from mainstream media in which to make a comment.

The caller harked back to the day when local sporting teams had larger-than-life personalities such as Mal Meninga, Ricky Stuart, Bradley Clyde, Glen Lazarus, Laurie Daley and the list goes on, with the Raiders in their golden years; while the Brumbies side had personalities such as Joe Roff, George Gregan, Rod Kafer, Steve Larkham, Bill Young and Jeremy Paul. The Cannons were also in full flight with the likes of Phil Smyth.

Perhaps the commitment to the one club or one town was a factor and now players move around so much more.

These days sportspeople are far more careful in what they say; many are image conscious and reluctant to go outside the constraints placed on them by media “spin doctors” and they are trained in what they should say.

The question is: Has it swung too far the other way? Are we really learning a great deal about the personalities or the human side of athletes these days? This is not just happening in Canberra; the same issues are arising in sports media throughout the world.

What we are seeing now is a sense of “sameness” in what athletes are saying. I concede it is the media that is partly to blame. We criticise sportspeople if they say outrageous things, yet at the same time crave the spontaneity of athletes such as John Steffenson.

Thankfully, we have Twitter where sportspeople provide outsiders with an insight into their world. I would go as far as to say it is now being used as a pseudo press release by some athletes keen to express themselves outside the bounds of the carefully managed news conferences.

The upcoming Olympics could prove to be an interesting time for athletes with a Twitter account. It will probably be just as interesting for sporting administrators.

ON another issue I would like to make a public apology for encouraging people to get behind the “A League for Canberra” campaign. As it turned out, it was close to a waste of time with Football Federation Australia intent on setting up a team in Western Sydney all along, yet going through a bidding process. Sure, it fell financially short, but the FFA proved with Western Sydney that it was prepared to support a start-up club. Sorry as well to Ivan Slavich for encouraging him to become the front man for the A League bid.