Anyone else bought one of the Sunderland AFC/Poppy badges from the club shop. Apparently they have been selling like hot cakes so should be making a good bit of money for the poppy appeal. I will be wearing mine with pride this weekend
Donated a quid as always but I don't wear a poppy. Wear a different coat everyday so can't be ****ed with pinning and unpinning it. Not a fan of the fact that there seems to be somewhat of a poppy police either nowadays.
There is no law to say you have to wear one. Its everyones personal choice. The McClean saga certainly gets the feathers ruffled of some.
Always happy to wear a poppy, pay my respects and so on. I wish people would stop seeing it as an act of defiance against some sort of Muslim uprising though, it seems to have been adopted as a national symbol for the EDL and other knuckle dragging divs.
Me and our lass sold poppies one year in Antibes & Nice ........ that's an eye opener when you have people from all over the world passing by When you have Brits, Irish, Italians, Germans, French, Arabs, etc, talking to you and asking questions it's a real education. Quite an experience tbh plus we didn't actually get permission form the mayor so bluffed it out with the local polis.
Did you get many from other countries buying them Smug? And what about our enemies in that war? How did they react?
I respect McClean's choice not to wear one but it's the way he makes a big ****ing issue out of it & go's out of his way to ram his bigoted political beliefs down peoples throats that stick in my craw.
I also always buy my red poppy from one of the official outlets, but this is the first time I have saw te club produce a combined poppy/SAFC badge which I personally think is a great idea.
In Antibes we naively set up across from an Irish bar, so we could get a decent drink to sustain us. The Brits were pleased to be able to buy one and we did well with them but some of the Irish gave us some flak. The older French either pretended they hadn't seen us or gave money but didn't take the poppy while the younger ones who spoke to us were really interested. The Italians blanked us completely as I don't think they had much real interest in the wars and would prefer to forget them. The Germans either ignored us or were openly hostile, age seemed irrelevant but the worst were over 80's and under 30's. The North Africans were just as weird and incomprehensible as usual. On the bright side we got a letter from the British Legion saying we'd made £707 ....... on the black side we spend about £100 in beer over the 2 days
I will try and get over later today mate..They are selling for £3 a badge and have been selling out very quickly indeed. They were sold out when I went over a couple of days ago, but they told me that the new batch was due in so I got mine yesterday. Let me know if you are not going to make it for the game and I will post them down to you if I can get them..
Yeah, really pleased with that. Dunno if I mentioned this but while we were in Italy recently, by coincidence, I was informed that my great uncle's last resting place was found north of Treviso. His name was Thomas Eglon and he was a Lance Corporal in the Northumberland Fusiiers. We detoured, found his grave at the British War Cemetery and laid some flowers. He'd been killed in an assault on the Austrian lines just 2 weeks before the end of the war in October 1918. As the family were Durham miners there was no money for anyone to visit so it was almost 100 years before I showed up. The cemetery was immaculately kept and it was a very moving experience. please log in to view this image
There's one thing to be said about British War cemeteries. They're almost all immaculately maintained! Your great uncle's grave looks no less than that. I found my uncle's grave in Normandy a few years ago. It was really very moving, to see the ages on the graves, from 16 to mid-20's, then the odd guy in his 40's. So many young lads, sailors lying next to para's, Brits, Aussies, South Africans. (How do you make the pictures smaller? )
I've sent a letter to the mayor of the town, Tezze, asking him to thank whoever maintains the graves as well as the local people. The cemetery is right in the middle of town and not even the pen in the visitors book had been touched. In all honesty I'm not totally sure that an Italian war cemetery, in an English town, would be so completely respected. After all this cemetery was there during the 2nd war when we were on different sides. BTW, I believe you make the photos smaller by asking your lass to stand further away
