When Australia went nuts for the Matildas last year, an old video of Captain Kerr did the rounds. In the clip, from 2021, Sam Kerr stands on the football field during a Champions League game for her English club, Chelsea. Play is stopped by a pitch invader who saunters into the game with his mobile phone held aloft, ignoring the discomfort of the women, apparently taking a selfie with the team.

Sam Kerr drops a pitch invader during Chelsea’s Champions League draw with Juventus.

He struts around, cocky, until Kerr sizes him up, lowers her shoulder, takes a run at him and knocks him to the ground. A cheer erupts. Kerr gets a yellow card.

For many Kerr fans, watching this only cemented their admiration. How many times have you wished you could have relegated life’s pitch invaders with a clean shoulder-barge? It was a small piece of vigilante justice for every woman who has ever had her fun interrupted by an idiot bloke with a compulsion to make himself the centre of attention.

Would we cheer a male player who had shoulder-barged a female pitch invader to the ground? No, for much the same reasons that we would have been horrified if Kerr had racially abused a cop who was black or brown. Although we had our doubts for a good 24 hours there.

On Wednesday, it was reported our girl had been charged with racially harassing a police officer following a night out which ended with an argument with a cabbie. We endured a day of worry – could Kerr, a role model for Australian girls, a woman with Indian heritage, really be racist?

One young lady I know executed an immediate cancellation of Kerr – deliberately excluding the Matilda from her International Women’s Day poster of female icons.

On Thursday, we breathed a sigh of relief when it was reported by a British tabloid that the alleged racial harassment was against a white cop, who she had called “a stupid white bastard”.

On Friday, The Australian reported that Kerr will deny calling him a “bastard”, but not calling him “white”. She is pleading not guilty and also fighting to have the charge thrown out of court as an abuse of process.