We’re delighted to report a surge in the number of letters! Three in a week! This could be the start of something beautiful, you know. Keep writing in and we’ll keep publishing them. Especially when they’re as good as this.
MOURNING IS BROKEN
As you said in your Twitter promo for the “BLACK ARMBANDS, SILENCES AND APPLAUSE” piece, probably best that Nick isn’t on Twitter.people take death AWFULLY seriously these days, especially when it comes to football.
Thing is, he’s bang on the money, I am a man of a certain age an age where I am in the “offered a free Parker Pen by Michael Parkinson on daytime TV” demographic. I can only remember one minute’s silence at Celtic Park in the 70s and 80s and that was for Jock Stein, aye, THAT Jock Stein.
I think it is fair to say that it’s the “Diana effect” society demands we show how much we care about dead people, soldiers an’ that and Nick’s right, it has completely cheapened the whole idea of showing respect. Even to the point where we now have a minute’s applause as we can’t trust the bloody sociopaths in every support to shut their mouths for 60 seconds.
It’s time it was all binned and a simple rule employed, unless the person who has died should have a statue or a stand named after them then no minute’s silence or armband.
Mind you Fulham might have given that rule a bit of a bending a few years back.
ROBERT HEINLEIN WRITES
In the US we don’t have any club history to speak of, so there are few memorials. But there is the Moment of Required Pledging to Our Military Heroes. (Everyone who can put on the uniform and sign the pledge is an automatic hero.) They have induction ceremonies on the field before the match in between blasts of incoherent rock music noise. It has the smell of one of those rallies in front of Stalin, where the first person to stop applauding Dear Leader’s speech gets a one-way ticket to the gulag. I’ll stand for the anthem, but I won’t stand for anything else other than the team.
Thomas Hancock
OH, SWEET JESUS, THE SUAREZ CONSPIRACY THEORY RETURNS
James Clark, Hi.
I’ve just read your article about fans ‘blindness’ relating-to wrong-doings committed-by ‘their-own’ club’s players. I was especially interested in your comments about Louis Suarez’s (please excuse the fact that I cannot-find an ‘umlaut’!) two ‘interactions’ with Patrice Evra. I offer a comment about each of the two ‘issues’!
1/. The (never proven) ‘racist’ N-word comment ‘alleged-by’ Evra. (which led-to, if my memory-serves-me-right! Louis Suarez’ being banned for ’10’ games!) !- Suppose ‘that’ did-happen! Am I the only-one who saw a YouTube ‘video’ of Mr Evra not-‘allegedly’, but ‘actually’ screaming the ‘alleged’ Suarez’ N-word, when perhaps he, Evra, (1) was either ‘unaware’ that his enraged ‘rant’ was being ‘recorded’, or (2), that he was in such a ‘foul’ adrenaline-charged state-of-mind, that he simply let-fly with both-barrels in-that-rage? … Or, was I mistaken!, and didn’t see or hear what I believe I saw and heard?
If my seeing/hearing what-I-believe-I-saw/heard, (in that YouTube video) was/is correct! Then why didn’t that ‘fact’ receive the nationwide publicity it ‘should-have’ and why, didn’t that foul ‘recorded’ usage of-‘that’-word, result-in severe censory-action being-taken against ‘him’, Evra, the ‘accuser’???
2/. Suarez’s ‘refusal’ to ‘shake-hands’ with the man whose (never-proven) ‘accusation’ got him (Suarez’) banned for all-those-matches … About ‘this’. I think 99.999% of the world’s male-population would have ‘refused-to-shake-hands’ with the man that had cost-them so very, very, dearly, AND; wasn’t there a ‘case’ for analysing microscopically whether, the so-saintly ‘offended’ Mr Evra ‘withdrew’ his hand, triggering the split-second ‘action’ of Suarez’ failing to complete this now so ‘PC’ hand-shakes palaver/routine, before ‘seconds-later’ ‘BATTLE’ commences?
I’d be happy to have you raise-this-double-issue with LFC fans and-their-uncles-too, and ‘quoting-me’, if you wish, Mr Clark. I have faith and confidence in my beliefs, and in my contentions of maintaining the integrity of those observations I’ve made-above.
Sincerely
Jed Ford. ‘Country-Music’ man.
Forever an ‘unbiased’ / ‘fair-minded’ / ‘level-playing-fields / REDS FAN.
PS. – just in-case, you might doubt my fair-mindedness, there have been players, that have, over-the-years, ‘done-serious-damage’ (‘skill-wise’-on-the-pitch) to LFC, such-as Paul Scholes, Dimitar Berbatov, and a whole-host-of-others I could easily-name, whose unquestionable-ability, I would never-dispute!
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