It is mightily disappointing that PHC’s record-breaking tenth football league championship has been forced to share time in the news cycle with the shenanigans that followed the club’s celebration party last Sunday.

They did not deserve that.

But a joyous afternoon and evening descending into the worst of our nature was an unwelcome yet telling reminder of Bermuda’s societal decline.

While it is right to celebrate Flora Duffy and our Commonwealth Games athletes in Australia on one hand — doing the same for the swimmers and track and field athletes who competed in their respective Carifta events in Nassau, Bahamas, and Kingston, Jamaica, on the other — it is also right that we shine a light on utterly poor behaviour.

Beacons of light and hope dragged into the mire by the louts and the uncouth who are only the merest provocation away from a widespread punch-up — often over something so abjectly immature and silly as looking at a girl the “wrong” way or spilling a drink.

What was seen on Reid Street not long after 11pm when tourists are still out and about should bring shame to every household; equally shameful is the likelihood that the police will sweep this under the carpet when instead the perpetrators should be feverishly sought for questioning.

Such was the lackadaisical and fallow response. It cannot be condoned that scores of out-of-control youths can brawl openly on the island’s second most famous road and face no consequences.

We have taken some criticism for publishing the video that was sent to us, and for including the audio, but it is a decision that will be taken over and over and over again.

The “heads in the sand” approach has gone on for long enough. Our dirty linen, so often aired in Parliament by the supposed leaders of the country, needs widespread airing so that realities can truly hit home that we are not what we always say we are or think we are.

We can do boorish pretty well, too. Sunday night on Reid Street was just that. A culmination of inaction and lack of accountability.

Enabling this behaviour for as long as we have, across all levels of society, has got us where we are.

It is wishful thinking to say we are better than that, especially when the evidence on almost a daily basis suggests quite the opposite.

But we can wish.