It certainly was not used in the 40s 50s 60s but I cannot recall when it actually did start. I would have guessed late 70s or 80s but not sure when or why. Does anyone know?
Really took off in the early 1980s after visiting fans would hiss (imitating gas chambers) and after 1981 singing "spurs are on their way to Auschwitz, Hitlers gonna do it again" to the tune of the chas and dave Ossie dream cup final song. I was 14 and was so shocked by the anti Jewish filth that I read up a lot about the history of Jewish people in London.
I still don't understand why we were regarded as a Jewish club. My Dad used to tell me lots of history about the club, when this stand was built and that stand opened etc. etc and about the old players & managers but never any mention of being a Jewish club. Baffles me! Over the years I've known & worked with many Jewish folk & they have all been lovely so why the hatred? Baffles me too! As in the words of an old Northern saying "there's now't so queer as folk".
Lots of Jewish people left Eastern Europe in the latter part of the 1800s and early 1900s to escape the anti Jewish pogroms that took place. Many settled in East and North London and many became spurs and arsenal supporters. I guess in those countries Jewish people took the blame for bad times as those in power offered them up as scapegoats for low wages and poor housing conditions that existed much like they were scapegoated and targeted in the east end in the 1930s by Oswald Mosleys fascists and much more successfully by Hitler. In more recent history we have seen negative racial portrayals of afro Caribbean and Asian people by politicians like Enoch Powell, Margaret Thatcher etc and by out and out racist and Fascist groups such as the NF, BNP etc. In the past few years it has been polish people blamed. As for not understanding the hatred I strongly suspect that is cos you simply ain't a hate filled moron It's mind boggling to think that you could hate a group of people cos of their colour or religion or nationality...but like you said ... there are some weird ass mo go's out there...only you said it much nicer than me
I don't see it ever being eradicated to be honest. It's ingrained in Spurs culture now and has been for circa 40-50 years (mid-late 70s I believe). Just a year or two ago the Oxford Dictionary added "a supporter of Tottenham" as one of the examples under the word. I think it'll forever remain a touchy subject and people on both sides of the argument will make valid points but I fail to see how roughly 60,000 people inside a stadium and beyond will just suddenly stop or even slowly wean off using something that’s been so synonymous with the club for decades. Ajax are also extremely similar to us and fought antisemitic abuse by adopting the term Joden, with many of their chants also using the word. As a side note their Entrada before games is absolutely crazy, went about 9-10 years ago, if the Ultra culture is something of interest (it probably won’t be to many ) then I’d highly recommend to tick it off your footballing bucket list if you have the chance, it’s certainly something you don’t see over here in England.
Current times seem to think that banning words and speech solves the problem, or at least is the way to solve the problem of xenophobia in it's various manifestations. In my view it's about ignorance and if you think that you can solve ignorance by telling people to shut up then I think you have a simplistic, deluded view of human beings and the animal world in general. Only education and experience reduces xenophobia. The example I know best are the African/Americans in the USA. The descendants of slaves were (and still are) treated appallingly by ignorant whites who laughingly considered themselves superior. One of the responses by the African/Americans was to create the greatest art form to come out of the USA that has influenced music throughout the entire world. I said reduces xenophobia because as you can see with Trump supporters and Johnson supporters come to that, sadly many humans are unable to process information and differentiate truth from fiction. All the racists in South Africa did not suddenly disappear at the end of apartheid but there are probably a bit less than there were. We just have to control it, but banning words and speech is simplistic and not effective, education and example is the way in my view. Sad to say xenophobia and racism is in the DNA, you can see the same problem in the animal world. Civilisation is about becoming enlightened and humans are not a finished product. Evolution still has a way to go.
I wrote an (extremely) long post about this last night but thought I’d sleep on it, and DH and Spurf have done a far better job summing some of the elements of my argument up than I can. I think that, if we use the analogy of racism as being beaten with a stick, it used to be that more people believed in the stick (had racist attitudes) but now there’s more people who just like doing the beating. By which I mean that people will say any old nasty **** to upset someone, and if that’s about their race or religion, then so be it. Obviously that’s just as bad in terms of the effect it has on the receiving end, and actually I think in many ways it’s a much harder attitude to solve. You can try and educate people on racism. I think it’s much harder to straight up stop people being ****s. Bear with me here. Obviously racism still exists in society, and is widespread in many places, but I also think there’s a lot more ****s around generally these days, and importantly they have a lot more opportunity to be ****s to a lot more people thanks to technology, which also reinforces their ****ish behaviour. And racist words are one of the things they like to use to be ****s. Which makes them racist ****s when they do it. But I think racism motivated by being a **** is a different problem to solve than racism motivated by prejudices against people of a different creed or colour, though being on the receiving end, it’s obviously still going to be an awful and near-identical experience. And there’s obviously overlap between the two groups. Football reflects society but does it in a way which amplifies both the best and worst elements. Like DH and others, I think the ‘Jewishness’ of Spurs is now ingrained in UK football culture and I don’t think our fans stopping using the word will stop the anti-Semitic abuse that we have all witnessed online and IRL. I think there is always room for reflection about using the word, in this case, have well-meaning Spurs fans contributed to perceptions of the club and thus in a twisted fashion, contributed to the continued racism? But the onus in society cannot and should not be on groups to hide their identity to avoid abuse. The majority of Spurs fans are not Jewish but the last 40 years have made it an indelible part of how the identity of supporting the club is perceived. The ‘red rag to a bull’ explanation of anti-Semitism towards Spurs is not acceptable IMO, though there should be room for reflection on how fans use the word. I don’t necessarily think the answer is to outright stop the chanting though. I think it sends the wrong message and that the abuse won’t stop. And ultimately, by silencing it, by making it disappear, the racists win. Ultimately, all clubs (including Spurs) need to educate their fans on the history of the word and it’s use in association with the club. I am glad that Spurs are doing this (or at least trying to) and other clubs should follow suit, and shouldn’t sugarcoat the past when it comes to why the current state of affairs exists. Accountability is important.
Manchester has the largest Jewish community outside London and most live in the north of the city (Kersal, Broughton, Prestwich) which are Utd areas. And Utd have Jewish owners! But Utd aren’t identified as a Jewish club, but perhaps should be . Seen as Catholic. But would be proud to be associated with any religion or race.
1. Primarily due to the Frumers in Stamford Hill. Which would be interesting. as the likelihood of an away supporter seeing one a saturday would be near zero. 2. Some ostensible links to the Jewish contingent I seem to remember something in the early 80s about the cub trying to get a fixture rescheduled that season due to it falling on the same day as Yom Kippur etc. My anecdotal experience among Jewish acquaintances is that the team most of them traditionally support is .... the Goons (for which they shall burn in eternal hell-fire) .
I’m here to warn all of you against taking LSD. I switched on ITV tonight to see Charlotte Church dressed as a giant Mushroom singing in a disguised voice whilst a deranged audience whooped and hollered .... The drugs don’t work
Sounds like you took the same drugs as me. I saw Natalie Imbruglia as a panda singing a One Direction song tonight
So would you be if you : 1. saw what one of those f**kers did to the crew of the Nostromo 2. are a dyslexic Scientologist
Someone has to say it.... I'm a dyslexic scientologist insomniac athiest lying awake at night pondering the existence of dog
