Good morning.
The tiresome issue of Club Statements dominates and perhaps the Inter Lull is a useful opportunity for some of us to pull the car over switch the engine off, take a deep breath and have a bloody good long hard look at ourselves. Arsenal fans who for who knows how long suffered abuse actually matched and perhaps even outshone Tottenham cavemen with their own hate songs on Sunday.
As I’ve mentioned previously, even for those with no moral center be they Arsenal or Spurs – no value system worth speaking of – the fact that both clubs have seen fit to issue a statement condemning those with a lust for bullying – and face facts, that’s essentially what this is -that the jig is well and truly up.
I actually think this blog is well past the point of ‘arguing the case’ against the minority of bigots hiding behind the ‘it’s banter/just a laugh’ defense. The notion that somehow buying a ticket to a football match gives one a passport to bully using race, or inferences of homophobia or suggest child abuse is a deluded one.
Yes, banter is good. The sharper, the nastier the better in my book. But sing about child molestation in a supposedly humourous way? Have any of you choirboys got children? Are you allowed near children?
I don’t ’embrace’ the whole politically correct gig. But this garbage needs knocking on the head now. I don’t even understand how it’s still in existence.
BIOYC!
It was good to note that the Wenger chant did not last as long on Sunday as it used to and also it was definitely chanted by fewer people. I’m a great believer in trying to annoy the other side as much as humanly possible but will then meet those same opposition people at work on a Monday and just have a laugh with them. However, I don’t think kids watching on TV or listening on the terraces will understand that adult subtlety and will simply believe that blind, ignorant, unthinking, mindless hatred is OK.
Good to see so many on here agreeing with that.
I wouldn’t want us to have the antiseptic atmosphere of many rugby grounds but let’s have a bit of humour instead of the viciousness. If Sagna was indeed spat upon when being carried away, this is the action of a low-life who has been conditioned by those kinds of chants.
Here here. Greg. Wit & viciousness are not mutually exclusive :daumen:
Well said Greg.
Being a Spurs fan since I was a nipper I’ve been ‘programmed’ by my peers to hate Arsenal, but to spit on another person over a game? No thanks!
Exactly right.
If only for the sake of the family enclosures, there is no place for ‘hate’ chanting.
There is not one plausible argument for it.
It’s not big, not clever, not funny, not ever.
We were brought up with “Sticks and stones may break our bones…”
Sure, some of the chants are in bad taste, but so what?
I’ve been called some nasty things on this site, but I couldn’t give a monkey’s. Oops, am I allowed to say monkey anymore?
I’ll tell you what, give me £140K a week and you can sing to me whatever you like.
You lilly livered pansies are killing the game.
Was just pointing out how it is Nipper. Clever chants require clever supporters. Which is a rare in football grounds. Plus in sports where the fans are deemed to more intelligent you get no chanting ( cricket and rugby ). ps have never been to a rugby match so am just guessing. I am so sure its like ” Your going home in a big white ambulance !!” Yes its part of the game !!
i think you sell fans too short
“there’s only one job on teeside” and “there are only two andy gorams” were just two examples of good terrace wit, without the terraces
I wouldn’t mind a lot of the “edgy” stuff, if it weren’t for the simple fact that there are children at the matches.
Adults might be able to differentiate between what is OK to taunt the opposition fans with at a match, and what is OK in everyday discourse. Children, as we all know, are rather stupid when it comes to things like that. They see the biggest, fattest, meanest looking supporter at the match singing about kiddyfiddling and they want to be like him. All the time.
If it weren’t for all the families present at the matches these days I would be more or less happy to let these neanderthals keep on embarassing themselves.
As you say HH. Race, religion, child abuse and a few other topics are simply not on.
A closing thought, though. Why do pedophiles always have a beard, glasses and trenchcoat? What is it about that look that children find so damn sexy!? :devil:
A Frankie Boyle joke. I feel I’m in my comfort zone. :daumen:
He’s a funny so-and-so
As much as I dislike spiteful chanting I still believe in freedom of speech. Hence the slogan “I may hate and detest what you say, but I will defend to the end your right to say it.” Forget this maxim at your peril.
Here’s a question – Who has the right to determine what is offensive and what is not offensive – who acts as God? Some little civil servant shit or a mother fucking brown envelope MP or those cock suckers Cameron & Clegg?
Rant for the day over. :-|
well there is clearly a subjective element in that many are offended by things others wd not be. swearing alone offends many (and wd not occur in eg an american stadium, in large part, simply because there are children there. does phil thompson find the chant “sit down pinocchio ” offensive? i imagine he does. nevertheless there are some areas on which we should all be able to agree without running off to hide behind free speech arguments, eg gassing of jews and child molestation.
….and wishing a man had been shot dead by terrorists!
indeed
They’re still only words like the child will use in the playground. Perhaps our society is more a victim of infantilism than it realises.
A while back a sales bod from Talk Talk tried to flog me a phone contract and I refused saying I would never use the services of such an infantile sounding name for a corporation. He laughed and hung up.
Whatever way you cut it, someone is drawing a line. Who sets that criteria? Whose morals and ethics are you going to adopt, ‘cos I’ll tell you straight that one man’s morals is another man’s loss of freedom if he thinks those morals are a load of crap and self-righteous BS.
I think you’re confusing ‘freedom of speech’, with freedom to deliberately offend and abuse.
As an individual, i choose what i deem to be offensive or not, based in part, to my upbringing and being taught the differences between what is acceptable and not acceptable.
My parents from their parents and so on.
It’s called human evolution. We learn to adapt to changes over time, and as a society develop mechanisms to cope and move on, in a civilised manner as possible.
Unfortunately it seems some are still stuck in the dark ages.
As for Clegg and Cameron……you don’t want to get me started on those two fu…….
Offence can only be taken, not given. It always depends on the response. In the good old days we taught to ignore ignorant rude people and pay them no attention. Perhaps that’s the problem – we pay too much attention to clanging cymbals.
were taught
I’ve seen racist, fascist pond life at work, and though they may have the intellect of a soiled nappy, they know exactly what they are doing and do so deliberately to offend.
Is that not the point of screaming racist bile at someone? To cause offence?
And the people who are attempting to curtail it via the statute book know exactly what they are doing too. Taking your freedom(s) and by the sounds of it with your blessing.
As I have already said people are paying too much attention to what they are saying instead of ignoring them. As long as they attract attention they will keep on doing it.
Screaming racist bile at someone is an offence already written within our statute books.
It doesn’t seem to curtail the filth coming out of those who support and are a part of the BNP/EDL axis who make thousands of peoples lives a misery in this country every week.
If you think “ignoring” these ‘people’ is a solution then by all means continue to do so at your leisure. Personally, i think these groups should be given more exposure, more air time and a larger platform (to express their ‘freedom of speech’) so the public at large can see them for what they really are and draw their own conclusions, regardless of what our political masters and ‘free’ media want/tell us to do.
Give them enough rope……
Being a left-wing loon, you have archived, your endeavor .
I never said I approve, of racist, fascist, I’d like to hear it so I know who and what they are. There are fascist and racist on the left, but the left, over time has claim the narrative of political speak; and now, if you are slightly right of center, as I am, then it is deemed, that I’m racist, antisemitic, want 7 year old down a mine, and I goose step around the room.Not me, but what the hell, you’ll have to think whatever you like, that’s free thought, as well as free speech.
You was the one making the assumption that those who did not agree with your point of view were “left-wing loons”. I’m a big boy, i can take it and have been called far worst things……water off a duck’s back.
I never stated that you approved of racism or fascism. The above reply was a response to eastanglianspur.
It seems however that i have offended you and for that i sincerely apologise.
*For the record it’s achieve and endeavour*
**No further offence intended**