| No more knee on 12:38 - Feb 14 with 2712 views | TVOS1907 |
... by Brentford | |
| When I was your age, I used to enjoy the odd game of tennis. Or was it golf? |
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| No more knee on 09:55 - Feb 15 with 2240 views | TheBeast666 |
about time, common sense over hollow political gestures | | | |
| No more knee on 22:24 - Feb 15 with 1940 views | DiddyDave |
Exactly mate,politics and sport should never mix. | | | |
| No more knee on 07:50 - Feb 16 with 1825 views | pioneer |
No argument from me either. All that knee taking and the racist abuse by idiots seems to be growing. | | | |
| No more knee on 15:27 - Feb 18 with 1534 views | sxdale |
Politics and sport should never mix, good luck with that.
Politicians love sport they have always been linked, the Romans having gladiators kill each other to keep the masses happy, bread and circuses. Hitler's 1936 olympics to show the power of the third reich to the world - nice one Jesse by the way. The boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era. Even Cameron trying to be appeal to the man in the street pretending to have some form of allegiance to Villa before being caught out with his West Ham faux pas.
Momentous political events also start with sport or at least the sporting event is the catalyst, Dinamo Zagreb v Red Star Belgrade 1990 and Boban's kick which pushed the nationalist tensions over the edge and began the Balkan war.
At the Maksimir Stadium is a war memorial to the fans who died during the war, the various militia's on all sides were in the main from the fans/hooligans. Which bring me on to my next point, football stadiums as a recruiting ground for extreme politics. I can remember the NF recruiting at Spotland in the late 70's early 80's and "The Flag" being dished out in the Sandy.
Unlike in this country football clubs abroad have a political history, Roma are communists and Lazio fascists hence Di Canio's nazi salute to the ultra's. In Eastern Europe many of the teams were formed by the police or the army.
Finally sportsmen and women are in a position where they can reach large numbers of people and why shouldn't they be political if they have something they believe in? Should Marcus Rashford not have got involved with child hunger and shamed politicians into doing something about it. The speed of that u-turn from the government was dizzying once a premier league footballer was involved.
I do wonder how the taking the knee protest would have panned out had fans been in stadiums all this time.
People who want politics removed from sport really mean the want the politics they disagree with removed from sport. | | | |
| No more knee on 15:48 - Feb 18 with 1492 views | TomRAFC |
Your last sentence makes the point I would have taken many rambling paragraphs to make. | |
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| No more knee on 16:07 - Feb 18 with 1454 views | sxdale |
To be fair there were many rambling paragraphs in my post until I got to the point  | | | |
| No more knee on 16:09 - Feb 18 with 1446 views | ChaffRAFC |
Racist abuse online is probably growing because people don't have that outlet of shouting it on a match day so they take to twitter instead where it can probably been seen by more people and becomes more reported as it's in text rather than it being shouted and heard by a few fans, not the player, and then forgotten.
All completely unacceptable obviously but suspect there isn't more racism in football, just that it's reported more while people take to putting it in text mode.
May be wrong obviously. | |
| If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor |
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| No more knee on 16:29 - Feb 18 with 1401 views | tony_roch975 |
have to disagree - you wrote an excellent, evidence based rational critique of the 'keep politics (I disagree with) out of everything' trope. | |
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| No more knee on 17:05 - Feb 18 with 1351 views | sxdale |
I do think that racist abuse (or rather racism in general) is on the rise but across all of society not just football. History tells us that racism gains traction in times of economic hardship additionally the rise of populist politicians who seek to gain an advantage by dividing the people has been evident for some time. Whether it's frog faced Farage with his motorways jammed up with immigrants comments or America first.
The other point of course is the ability for racists to espouse their views behind a veil of anonymity. I remember a few years ago we were playing Dag & Red and one particular individual' was constantly abusing their keeper calling him a paedo until the vast majority of the Sandy joined in with a chorus of "there's only one Tony Roberts"
I have been guilty in my younger days of not calling this kind of behaviour out and I still am ashamed of it. Never again, I refuse to be silent anymore whether at work or in the pub (remember them) and surprisingly or not, when I have said something it's been taken on board. I believe the vast majority of people are decent at heart. | | | |
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