Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 5:34 pm  

GT wrote:

In that case, name me another major, industrial city in the UK that doesn't have "shiteholes" in it's outlying areas?

You're also doing the people that live there a great disservice as well. Pretty houses and greenery don't always make for nice, welcoming people and wonderful areas. I've had more good experiences in both Levenshulme (if you're going to slag it off, spell it right FFS) and Gorton.

I'd also be interested (no, I don't pay that much attention on here and it'd probably be obvious if I did) in which grand, "shitehole"-less utopia you hail from?

Fully agree with your post....I visit many, many places and am yet to find a place that doesn't contain a shitehole or two in its neighboorhood (bar the odd quaint village here and there), and seeing as I'm from Warrington then Ive seen a few round here too...

The point I was originally trying to make was that another poster was trying to make out that Manchester was somehow superior to Liverpool, when, quite obviously, it isn't....

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 5:43 pm  

Should say about that Baines free kick that it was almost as good as 37 year-old Mickey Thomas' against Arsenal in the cup all those years back (before these penny floater balls you have now as well). Although I don't recall, at the time, Wrexham fans coming on the internet asking other fans to recognise Thomas as being a Welsh left-footed footballing wizard.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:16 pm  

McClennan wrote:

Let's hope so. I'm completely in support of their actions. When a single player gets fined more for flashing a shirt i.e. Bentner than an actual country's FA does i.e. Serbia, it's clear the authorities don't treat the issue seriously. Active resistance is the way forward and perhaps they can include discrimination against other groups as e.g. women, LGBT etc.

Say, for example, Citeh are beating AC Milan in the knock out stages of the CL (I know, difficult for you to imagine). Citeh look to be on the verge of knocking AC Milan out when the Milan players react to their perceived racial abuse by some Citeh fans by walking off the pitch and refusing to conclude the game.

What happens now?

[Durham Giant]

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 7:34 pm  

Fresh Prince of Chesh-air wrote:

Someone's account has been hacked, Mods!

NOTICE FROM ADMIN.

we can confirm that the account of Lord God Jose Mourinho has not be hacked.
However enquiries have shown that he recently suffered a bang on the head and this has led to him making a reasoned and sensible post.

Medical opinion is that this will only be a temporary blip and that normal posting will soon be restored.

This will include the usual fanatical defence of all things Chelski and completely irrational postings about other premiership teams.

Thank You for your patience and we apologise for any misunderstanding caused by LGJM s last post.

admin.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:57 pm  

BBC Sporf's joke twitter account has not only duped a Dutch website into believing their "Balotelli to Liverpool" tweet, but now seems to have engineered a move to QPR for Wesley Sneijder, which made it onto Channel 4 news.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:57 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

Say, for example, Citeh are beating AC Milan in the knock out stages of the CL (I know, difficult for you to imagine). Citeh look to be on the verge of knocking AC Milan out when the Milan players react to their perceived racial abuse by some Citeh fans by walking off the pitch and refusing to conclude the game.

What happens now?

City fans learn a harsh lesson about racist chanting. Racism takes precedence over sport and the players know that well enough to not be walking off the pitch for any old bother, which is what I think you might be hinting at. Even then if the issue is to allow racial abuse or feign receiving it I'd rather somebody feign it than racial abuse to continue in the way that it has. Why should anybody have to put up with it? It's the same in most people's work so I'm at a loss to wonder why it should be different for football.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:00 pm  

Whilst I think every situation should be treated differently, I don't think walking off is the solution. Walking off penalises too many people for something they can't influence. If I was in a stadium of 40,000+, I'd be fuming if a crowd of less than 1% meant I'd miss out on something I'd forked out a fair amount for. Now, if there's a stadium almost in unison abusing a team, it's obvious that something extreme should happen, but when it's minor crowds or a few fans, I think it only empowers the idiots and punishes the decent ones.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:15 pm  

Roddy B wrote:

Whilst I think every situation should be treated differently, I don't think walking off is the solution. Walking off penalises too many people for something they can't influence. If I was in a stadium of 40,000+, I'd be fuming if a crowd of less than 1% meant I'd miss out on something I'd forked out a fair amount for. Now, if there's a stadium almost in unison abusing a team, it's obvious that something extreme should happen, but when it's minor crowds or a few fans, I think it only empowers the idiots and punishes the decent ones.

Let's face it, if UEFA took the issue seriously in the first instance players wouldn't be walking off. Simple as that. That players are walking off suggests to me that they are not happy with the way UEFA treats it. We ALL have a responsibility to stop racism and that includes fans in the seats and terraces. If you hear somebody chanting racist abuse you have a choice. If you choose to let it go and a player walks off then more fool you for believing football is more important that somebody receiving racial abuse. If UEFA did treat the issue seriously then people like the Serbian FA would have received a proper punishment which forces them and their fans to deal with it themselves, and we probably wouldn't be having this conversation every other month. That we are suggests to me stronger action needs to be taken. I know there's nobody here who feels spending £50 and seeing a full match is more important than a player receiving racial abuse throughout a match, as most of the recent incidents have been in Europe (i.e. they tend to be isolated 1% morons in the UK but not in Europe where the rise of fascism is a very real thing today).

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:21 pm  

Roddy B wrote:

I don't think walking off is the solution.

Sorry, should have been a bit clearer on this bit. You're right, it's not a solution in the way that strikes are not a solution to a work dispute. However, there comes a time in the latter when the workers feel they have to strike for management to take the issue seriously because they continually ignore it (e.g. health and safety, bullying, harassment). This is no different to football. Sometimes drastic action has to be taken to make the point and thankfully Boateng has done it in a friendly so there's little impact to the footballing season. If it was me I wouldn't be sitting there taking it. I'd be doing exactly the same to apply pressure to the authorities to tackle the issue.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:10 am  

McClennan wrote:

Let's face it, if UEFA took the issue seriously in the first instance players wouldn't be walking off. Simple as that. That players are walking off suggests to me that they are not happy with the way UEFA treats it. We ALL have a responsibility to stop racism and that includes fans in the seats and terraces. If you hear somebody chanting racist abuse you have a choice. If you choose to let it go and a player walks off then more fool you for believing football is more important that somebody receiving racial abuse. If UEFA did treat the issue seriously then people like the Serbian FA would have received a proper punishment which forces them and their fans to deal with it themselves, and we probably wouldn't be having this conversation every other month. That we are suggests to me stronger action needs to be taken. I know there's nobody here who feels spending £50 and seeing a full match is more important than a player receiving racial abuse throughout a match, as most of the recent incidents have been in Europe (i.e. they tend to be isolated 1% morons in the UK but not in Europe where the rise of fascism is a very real thing today).

Do you think KPB walked off today in dispute against UEFA? I don't. He got upset by either an incident or numerous incidents where he'd received racial abuse. His team obviously decided to come off because of it, but that for me isn't a way to get at UEFA, especially during a friendly game against a bunch of nobodies.

I'm not disputing that UEFA need to do more, what I'm disputing is how to deal with it happening in a football stadium. I could guarantee you now, if an FA cup final was cut short by 70 minutes because of an incident of racial abuse, there'd be a fair number of fans that would want a refund of some sorts, and rightly so. Yes, they'd support the black or white player that had been abused, but they wouldn't walk away without getting what they'd paid for.

Yes, we all have a duty to deal with things but it still isn't right. If I'm in the Kop end at Anfield and the two hundred or so travelling Fulham fans decide to give it the monkey chants to Raheem Sterling around the ten minute mark, what can I do about that? If the players walk off, how do I deal with it? Do I send an angry complaint to UEFA because them not dealing with Serbia has led to this?

UEFA should have come down hard on Serbia, same with the many other incidents that have happened, but if walking off during games becomes the norm when/if this happens again, it will only empower the idiots, which is the last thing that should be happening. I get what you mean by protesting with your feet, but walking out on a game isn't the right way to make UEFA act (by the way, what can UEFA really do about a problem that's more to do with society rather than football? I know they should have banned Serbia but how does that alter a problem that's prevalent in society?). Racism is a massive thing and I don't think what Milan did today will do much to change anything. It's brilliant to see they feel so strongly about it, but it should be dealt with either by more/improved stewarding or by an alternative method. It's a hard one to get right to be honest, as I said, I don't think punishing the majority is the correct way to go about it, I don't even think it's the right way to go about getting UEFA or FIFA to act. Clubs, FAs, the governing bodies and even the governments themselves need to be united on this and need to tackle it together, so trying to 'make points' and 'force action' really isn't the way to start that, regardless of the ridiculous cock-ups in the past. Despite football's huge appeal, it will be very hard to make an impact if everybody isn't united on it. If it's only Britain or only UEFA and the football clubs that are trying, it will never work.