I CAN'T help but think of late that the life of an AFL footballer is getting tougher. Forget the gut-wrenching training sessions, day after day through summer's heat. I'm talking about a different kind of stress and strain — meeting the demand for perfection.

The game itself asks so much of its players and is now scrutinised to within an inch of its life. I realise this thirst from the footy public is built on passion, something we should all enjoy and develop. What worries me is the point where footballers and their civil liberties become public fodder.

There seems to be a growing number of people in the community and football media who think perfection is not only required of me and my peers on the field, but expected — 24-7, 52 weeks of the year. So, to better understand my football fellows and their expectations, I decided to interview one of the community's best-known football followers.

This is a man who likes to chat to my teammates and opponents at pubs and in cafes, a bloke who loves to vent his frustrations on websites such as bigfooty.com, a fellow whose favourite pastime is letting fly on talkback radio. You may know him, as his name is synonymous with football folklore — Snowy.

When we sat down at Snowy's favourite lunch spot, I asked him his last name, but he declined to say. "All you need to know, mate, is that my name is Snowy, and I like to catch the tram."

He also went on to refer to me during our chat as "Miss Murphy", and described me as an overpaid alcoholic with the intelligence of a yabby — "just like all footballers". Which was an awkward ice-breaker, to say the least; we hadn't even ordered drinks yet. But Snowy is a passionate man with strong views, and that's why I chose to talk to him.

Now, because old Snowy reckons we get well paid to play a game we love, he believes it's his right to expect "a higher level of output in goodwill and good behaviour in your day-to-day life".

"Fair enough," I said, before trying to assure him that the vast majority of players do a wonderful job promoting the game and keeping our noses out of trouble. And that most of those who have found a bit of strife are still good people.

I returned serve and asked Snowy: "How high a level would you say is reasonable in terms of social behaviour for someone who's employed because they excel at a ball game?" "Well," he replied, "their behaviour should sit somewhere between Pat Rafter and Pope Benedict, I'd imagine." I told Snowy I thought this to be an unattainable level, but he'd made his position pretty clear.

So I asked him if he thought a lawyer or plumber should be held up to these standards, too? To which he replied: "I couldn't give a stuff, mate. What they do in their own time is their business."

At that point, I'd heard enough from Snowy to fuel my worst fears: that the thirst for footballers to be perfect is on a collision course with disappointment. I told Snowy I wasn't feeling well and had best leave.

I was pondering our chat while walking back to my car, when in a moment of weakness my eyes flashed across the little paper. I was startled by an article that challenged an AFL team to abstain from drinking alcohol for the entire year. This really sat me on my backside, let me tell you.

One of our very basic rights as humans is to have the benefit of equality. Will the journalists seeking to punish footballers in the pursuit of creating robots be so keen to take us on in such challenges?

I'll give up my two glasses of wine over dinner on Saturday night if the entire football media is happy to do the same, along with their morning coffee and cigarettes; I, for one, don't like the message all of this caffeine and smoking is sending to budding journalists around the country.

Am I being childish and petulant? Maybe both, but at least Snowy and his mates now know how insulted we are by the constant reinforcement of the myth that, for most of us, a night out with a few drinks ends in chaos and with lampshades on our heads.

Are footballers being unfairly judged for things unrelated to the game? I think so. Minor traffic offences are now spruiked as newsworthy and brought into the public forum in a bid to shame. Leadership groups work feverishly to handle punishments. It's all gone a bit too far.

As I was going over this in my head, I arrived at my car, and to my horror discovered I had a parking fine! But you've probably heard that already.