Yeah, amazing how people back-track once they start losing money. I don't have a strong-enough word to describe this twat.
There have been multiple such scandals concerning hockey...the most notorious of which involved Graham James. And not only is hockey a 'tough' sport, but one of the victims was Theo Fleury, one of the toughest players in the game. But toughness tends to engender the opposite response; people think that tough athletes should be invulnerable, and consequently they are even less likely to come forward after the fact, making them better targets in some respects. Wherever there are positions of authority where kids can be preyed upon, there will be abusers. Most major sports have had them, and many institutions that place adults in mentorship positions besides. The only way to change that is a culture where victims are encouraged to go public immediately and supported when they do, both to catch abusers before they can commit more acts and maybe to dissuade them from taking such positions.
Chelsea sanctioned a secret payment to a former youth team footballer who accused the club’s ex-chief scout of child sexual abuse, The Telegraph can disclose. The alleged victim was paid off after threatening to go public with claims he was sexually assaulted in the 1970s by Eddie Heath, Chelsea’s influential chief scout for more than a decade. The payment, made in the past three years, was agreed on condition that the victim, his family and lawyers were banned from talking about the alleged abuse. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/...x-abuse-claim/ Disgusting
I hadn't read Paul Stewart's account. WARNING THIS IS TOUGH READ https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.li...ool-fc-player-paul-12216103.amp?client=safari
So close to how I dealt with it. I remember none of my childhood at all due to my mind putting up walls. So sad he had to go through that.
Dean Radford and Jamie Webb have spoken about incidents they said happened when they were in their teens. A number of other players have also come forward saying they were abused at the club. Southampton FC said it would co-operate fully with any police investigation. As a member of the schoolboy development teams, Mr Radford said he would stay over in Southampton during weekends away from his native Bristol. Along with another young player, he said he was made to "snuggle up" with a club employee on a couch. "The reasons he gave were that we needed to trust him, he needed to be like a second father to us - if we trusted him, and it worked both ways, then the chances were there that we could become a professional footballer." Mr Radford also described a sexual assault which he said took place after he had developed a back injury and was asked to lie down for treatment. Jamie Webb, who joined the club when he was 13, described how boys were "groomed" by the club employee who asked them to write him "love" letters. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-38128841
Dean Radford is the player I referred to at the beginning of the thread. It is the coach then I was thinking of. What is so wrong with this is that he went through this once before. Clearly he wasn't taken seriously. Good luck to him and I hope things happen as he wishes. I knew both those lads and feel incredibly fortunate that, having been around that set-up, nothing happened to me.
Also interviewed another ex player but he had his identity hidden and voice changed. I have a feeling he could be a bigger name, so doesn't want to talk in public. It would be disgusting if Saints just covered it up and left youngsters to suffer. Not going to lie it would effect me a little.
I would expect it would. To be honest it is starting to get to me and I didn't have anything happen to me. I have read some of these thins his evening and spoken to the kids and wife about it. Just having memoried of that time, those players and that coach. He had an aura about him and to those of us around them, he was a hugely important figure. He was the mean holding the key to our dreams. It seems that he held the key to nightmares too. There was a lot of now big names, around at that time too. Bastard.
It is bizarre how these things happen in full sight. I went to a church primary school where the choirmaster was our favourite teacher. When I was in my mid twenties he was banged up for child abuse going back decades. I had no idea, so I guess this happens all the time. And in keeping this "under wraps" is the way these clever bastards are able to silence their victims - people didn't believe the victims. My uneducated guess is that this abuse is rife - in football as much as anywhere else where we entrusted children to "nice chaps" who ran all kinds of youth organisations.
Most people who give up their time to work with youngsters in youth clubs, sports teams and the church are wonderful, generous people, but sadly *****philes are also attracted to these activities. And these people are also plausible and usually well liked and respected. Children often don't speak up for a variety of reasons and may be told off for making up stories if they did. The danger is a witch hunt similar to the recent one in politics, though admittedly less likely in this case as the complainants are adults now who have been in a football club....not just troubled souls who feel like joining in.
My memory isn't the best, but I swear Radford & Webb came forward with all this years ago and in the Echo? So have the BBC just dug up that article and revisited it? Bit odd that the Echo are not quoting their own original story. Just focusing on the actual BBC South piece for a moment, it was very broad strokes and I can't recall them saying it was one particular coach being the abuser. So it leaves the uninformed watcher thinking that it was widespread at the club? I think those of us old enough, know who the person is anyway. Very strange that he went on to become the agent for the Wallaces. As for "the club" burying this. I don't think there is a single person from this era still at the club in any position of authority. As awful as what happened is, think the media are on the verge of another scatter gun witch-hunt, that (sadly) will probably end up with little or no convictions.
