For those on the social media you may be aware, but there will be a minutes applause by the Derby fans in the 31st minute on Saturday, for a chap called Colin Bloomfield, who is battling against melanoma. Hopefully our fans can join in this and show some respect for another football fan. http://www.melanomauk.org.uk/events/derby-county-fans-call-minutes-clapping-wembley/
For all our excitment about Saturday, there are a few things that are more important than footy http://dcfcfans.co.uk/topic/14842-clap4bloomfield/ The guy is a lifelong Derby supporter and has inoperable brain tumour He has weeks to live They are going to have a round of clapping at 32 minutes Please respect this....and join in I will
My sister has had cranial issues, so I'll be clapping along too. Beth is right, it keeps things in perspective.
All seems a bit self-serving, these arbitrarily selected minutes of applause. We get to give ourselves a pat on the back afterwards and feel we've "done our bit" for the world, then immediately move on and completely forget the person. Of the millions of people suffering who might be singled out for this treatment- they're all inevitably relatable westerners who we find it easier to empathise with as well. I wonder if the 100+ people blown up in Nigeria yesterday would take much comfort from these 1st world altruistic displays, ensconced in the lavish surroundings of billion pound football stadia. I feel like the pervasive seeping of PC dictatorship into everyday life means you're immediately a horrible person if you choose not to get involved in these events too. There's a weird Kafkaesque rubber-stamp floating over all our heads, with "good" or "bad" ready to be meted out instantly. The language used always has accusatory connotations for abstainers, "show respect"; as if not to applaud would be disrespectful. Mustering up temporary 'empathy' then abandoning it after a minute, doesn't do the life justice. Yet to be any more emotionally involved than that, would mean being miserable all the time. There's 7.5 billion of us, someone will always be ill ...That said, if it happens, i'll still applaud (tl;dr - sanctimonious ramble )
Sympathetic with your view, but remember this 31 year old man is a Derby County fan and will almost certainly be watching the match. If it encourages him one iota, it's worth it. I'll be applauding too
A great idea, will do nothing to help him but a great idea. Can you give me a round of applause in the 14th minute, I received a kidney/pancreas transplant 16 years ago from a 14 year old who shot himself in the head. His parents will feel much better when I tell them!
And I also think #ClapForBloomfield is not the best of tags, I think he has enough to worry about without wishing that on him as well!
As sad as Mr Bloomfields circumstances are a nice reminder on our site that he’s not the only fan going through a tough situation at the moment. http://www.qpr.co.uk/news/article/2...inally-ill-qpr-fan-alfie-preston-1571085.aspx Should we not have a clap in the 66th minute? A very close friend of mine in his 20’s who is an absolute Rangers nut has been diagnosied this week with an incurable life altering and debilitating illness. So as sad as it is. I don’t see why Mtr Bloomfield is more important. My mates is 25 should everyone have a clap for him in the 25th minute??!! (I’m in no way proposing either of these,as the rest of my comments will indicate) As a wider point I believe this type of thing has gone too far in football and that every club is a competition to prove they are the ‘best’ fans. A way of doing this by proving their class. And a perceived way of doing this seems to be, by how sympathetic they can be too vaguely football linked causes thus giving them an inflated sense of importance of their own club. While each of these circumstances are individually tragic, the frequency of this devalues it all in my opinion. Alan Davies the well known intelligent and respected comedian highlighted this same issue with Liverpool. They refused to move a game to an anniversary date of the Hillsborough disaster and he pointed out how far do you take this… “Do they play on the date of the Heysel Stadium disaster? How many dates do they not play on? Do Man Utd play on the date of Munich? Do Rangers play on the date when all their fans died in that disaster, whatever year that was – 1971?" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...usal-to-play-on-Hillsborough-anniversary.html Now I stress all these events are individually tragic but it irks me how it seems to be that some are deemed more important than others and the cynic in me links this to fans wanting to give their club an elevated sense of worth. So the mourning/respect is not as genuinely heartfelt as it should be thus devaluing the whole thing. I think what our club has done is far more appropriate and classy. This enforced, peer pressure mourning and respect for this one individual above all others isn’t fair in my opinion. Sub-consciously I genuinely believe the Derby fans (not directly affected /friends or related to the unfortunate terminally ill fan) are more pleased at the fact that when the millions of people tuning in as neutrals tomorrow go, “why is everyone suddenly clapping” and they find out, they think oh aren’t ‘Derby fans great’. Article from the Daily Mash highlights how the enforced and regular mourning has got out of hand in football and this supports my sentiments. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport...datory-for-all-premiership-kits-2012123154666 I’m not sure who decides this hierarchy of what tragedy is more important than the next one and I will be respecting the clap in the 31st minute but for me on a personal level there are far more relevant unfortunate situations that are pertinent to me and the latest article on the club website is a reminder that this type of thing unfortunately isn’t as uncommon as we would hope that it was.
