My Son supports Saints and he is a northerner having been born up here I was trying to get him to support his local team Lincoln however he is a glory hunter and wanted to support the team that wins that Daddy always watches Football chants can be pretty sick but short of arresting a huge amount of people or banning them from grounds I don't see what can really happen. A small group of Lincoln fans sing 'we smell fish' to the Grimsby lot. They start to get angry, then the whole Lincoln crowd sings it. Ban those people and Lincoln goes under. What to do? Toughie to deal with. Then you have the Celtic IRA songs. We recently had them at Sincil Bank for a friendly and it was all flares, Irish flags and IRA singing before the game started. The Lincoln fans voiced their disapproval. Needless to say there was quite a bit of trouble and destruction in the town before and after that match even though there is a very high proportion of Irish or Irish heritage in Lincoln (of which I am one)
Exactly. it's usually either that one or "does your boyfriend know you're here?" Anybody finding that offensive really has had a sense of humour bypass.
Difficult to see how the stewards could aprehend around 500 people. Despite my complaints to the club they are not capable - or interested - in stopping anyone using the disabled toilets at the Northam End, particularly those who want to smoke. I see it every game, more so because my disabled grand daughter is anable to access this facility at half time. It,s quite disgraceful.
Totally agree with ex-Lieghparker. I would generally consider myself to be left wing and someone who abhors racism (how you can be into jazz and be a racist?) but I think the comment about seeing you hold hands was very funny and more imaginative than offensive. The wierest shout for rasicm recently was Davis Baddiel's comments last season about anti-sematism against Spurs. This prompted a lot of heated debate when it transpired that many of the Spurs fans actually referred to themselves as "yids." I find this really fascinating as I have never really considered SPurs as being a team that were subject to racial abuse (although the worst abuse I've ever heard at a game was back at the Dell when a shout of "Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz" came up from the Archers. This was never commented upon at the time and it made me feel highly embarrassed at the time. This was a one off and I have never encountered this since. ) Given that many of the world's problems are largely a reaction against Zionism, I was staggered by Baddiel's comments when he should have been more vociferous in his criticism of Israel as opposed to a very, very small minority of away fans. I think it was a salutory lessons going to the England v India cricket match at the Rose Ball in September when the banter between the two sets of fans was good natured, taken in excellent spirit and extremely funny. However, during the delay due to the rain I was staggered by the songs sung by the Indian fans about Pakistan which was technically a criminal offence. In the like of songs about throwing pakistani's on the bonfire, I think the hold-hands jibe is non-consequential.
I would be the first to condemn homophobia. It is in the same league as racism, sexism etc etc. However, what is a homophobic remark, or a racist one? It has become acceptable for women to make jokes about men, and like most men I groan but I'm not reporting the matter to the Equal Opps Commission (or whatever is the latest quango). What about the "does the social know you're here" comments to Merseyside teams? (Incidentally they had a great retort to that, and surely that is the best way to handle this sort of banter?) For that matter should the authorities take more seriously the instruction to shoot Pompey fans that we are encouraged to do wherever Saints play? As I have lived in the North for much more of my life than in the South I don't join in the "Southerners" chant. This chant is surely telling the opposition something about the status of Southerners compared to their poor sad Northern existence! I disagree, but I am hardly offended. When they used to sing this at Anfield, most of my Scouse mates thought they were chanting "Sunderland" and so were very confused. When I explained it to them they just thought it rather sad! If we get too PC we lose some great humour - remember Leeds fans singing to us "You're French and you know you are" which was brilliant. If a player were known to be gay, I would find homophobic abuse of that player unacceptable. I would want any club that allowed it sanctioned. But this sort of stuff - oh come on!
