we have never descibed ourselves as anything other than a small club that continues to punch above it's weight.....unlike another certain northern club that thinks that it has a god given right because of it's 'long history of success' to be in the premiership - but in fact sits only one place above the Lions in the championship!
We are just an average mid table championship club. We are proud as punch about it.. Will dread ever becoming a big club. we will leave them honors to the likes of Man.Utd. Arsenal, Chelsea, Any team attracting less than 30,000 on a regular basis nowadays is only a small club The bigger you are the harder you fall just ask any Coventry,Sheff.Utd. or Leeds fan they will tell you all once big clubs but not no more
A decent letter but let down quite badly (IMO) near the end where he suggests that virtually every club do have some racist fans. I am not so sure that is true. The "racist" chanting from the 70's (it wasn't labelled racist back then) has never fully gone away and as wrong as it is to do, I still believe that in most cases it is a few mindless idiots simply "having a laugh" as football grounds have, over the years, accepted chanting of every type.
Thai - you will be hard pressed to find a club whose supporters have an exemploary record when it comes to acts of racism
In your special report on racism you can only single out one supporter who seems to have given his carer the slip and class this as 56 incidents. As a wall fan I hope he never comes back to the ground. But just an easy target documentary of cheap journalism just before we return to Luton - any journo fire stoking there ? Yep 100%. You would not do such an investigation (and i use that word lighly because it wasn't) at a top 4 prem club would you because that would upset the apple cart. This is shocking journalism and you should be ashamed of it. I hope Millwall will speak out in defence of the other 14,999 fans there that day because you seem to have overlooked them. Our fans have voted coloured players as player of the year 3 of the last 4 years so please stop spurting crap and stirring it too and get out amongst your golden premier league clubs and highlight their minority element too - but you wouldn't dare. Disgusted And their reply.... Dear Phil Thank you for your enquiry about Sky Sports News Special Report. We recognise that racism in football is both a serious and sensitive issue, so we take the upmost care to be both thorough and fair in our research. During our three month investigation, we attended matches from different leagues across the country where black and Asian players told us that they had been racially abused. During this research, we found evidence of racist abuse at three matches; Millwall v Birmingham City, 23 Oct 2012, Millwall v Leeds, 18 Nov 2012 and Burnley v Blackburn, 2 Dec 2012. All of these incidents were highlighted as part of our report. Our footage was broadcast in the programme and all parties, including Millwall, were invited to respond. The club subsequently released a statement referring to the new evidence and its own possible action and we have provided footage to the authorities to assist with this matter. Yours sincerely Joanne Sky Sports
Me and Kenny could be bruvva's http://www.newsatden.co.uk/14359-ja...ns-after-racism-documentary.html#comment-2153
Pleased you said this......it is something I have discussed elsewhere and still believe this is true, why? In the UK generally, not specifically football fans, there has always been the tendency to mock something that is different and also use those differences to form part of abuse - for example "oi, rag head!" referring to a person of the Sikh religion, or "Paki" which was widely used toward a person, though not excluded to, Pakistan. Some of these kind of terms have hung around, probably most I guess but I have found in more recent times that such terms are used in anger as opposed to being simply racist. Another example - a fat guy at the bar is looking at you and it's pissing you off. What do you think or say? My guess would be (if thinking) "what are you looking at you fat ****" or similar. Some of you are perhaps brave enough to say it to his face but the point is - you are not necessarily "fatist" because you have though or said "fat ****" or similar. You have done little more than to use something different about that person to form an abusive statement either in your mind or vocally. You can replace the word "fat" with "black" or anything else and the end result would be exactly the same - singling out a difference between you and them to use as a form of abuse, making you feel superior over them. The chances are if it was a black guy with a really big nose, you would also throw in a remark about the size of the nose as a double whammy to achieve even more superiority. That guy could equally be sat in a wheelchair suffering with some mental illness and is looking at you and for whatever reason it makes you feel uneasy and the word "spastic" may be dragged in to your mind somewhere - does that make you a terrible person? I don't think so because it is a throwback to the years when such expressions were widely used and were actually acceptable by the vast majority. Such expressions are handed down to off-spring and again in the vast majority of cases are not used as a derogatory term, but more of an easy way to describe a person that is different. To shout "you Paki twat" at a football match, for example does not necessarily mean the person shouting is racist though. It is abusive for sure but you could not call that person a racist unless it actually formed a more significant part of their life i.e. they call other Pakistani people the same in normal, everyday life. This is where the whole "race issue" becomes a very grey area for me, and many others. Like I said, the football ground has become a place where abusive shouting has been allowed to prevail and some people will take it a step too far, that's the nature of some football fans. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are some "real" racists that attend football matches. A woman that used to sit next to me at Carrow Road didn't like Asians (except the Chinese) but she never actually shouted he inner thoughts. Was she really racist? I am still not sure she was inherently racist at all but more of someone who was suspicious and ignorant about them. I can't say for certain that was the case, just a gut feeling I had.
