QPR's decision to kneel is obviously a provocation given that they had given up doing this. I wonder where this will end. I predict bans for fans who audibly oppose the kneeling.
So now we're heading towards a future where a fan will have to support BLM before he or she will be allowed to go and watch football. A BLM ceremony has been imposed on the football match. Anybody who dares to show disapproval during this ceremony will be banned. These fans will be hunted down using CCTV footage, and other fans will be asked to denounce them. This is how we tackle racism now. And nobody is supposed to have any problem with it.
Millwall players will not be taking the knee during their next game. Some QPR players may still take the knee however - but not all of them? That in itself is a welcome change. Taking the knee should only ever have been a personal choice. It should never have been imposed as a policy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55223935 All the players are going to join arms in a gesture of 'solidarity' instead. And hold up an anti-discrimination banner. The 'Kick it Out' logo will be on the Millwall shirts instead of their usual sponsor. A long-running anti-racist campaign within football. The BBC report does not say whether or not the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' will be shown on the banner, or anywhere else. I would guess that it will not be. Behind all the affected outrage, Some people in authority have twigged that there is a real problem here that can't be explained away by just labelling people mindless bigots. They are trying to deal with the problem, albeit while covering their arses at the same time. This is part of what Micah Richards had to say on Radio 5 Live; "Millwall fans, from their point of view, this whole movement is becoming political. They're saying they don't think the players at their club should want to kneel because of what Black Lives Matter represents in their mind," he said. "If they're booing that, it's not acceptable, but it's free speech and that is their opinion, but I think people are taking Black Lives Matter in a different context and changing the actual narrative of what it's all about. "When the players are taking the knee they are not saying black lives matter and they are any better than white lives, they are trying to say it's a stand for equality and unity and that is why they are taking the knee." There is some acknowledgment there of the sharply differing views on what BLM stands for. What it's agenda is.
I do have a flash car mate, and I drive in and out of London every day and most weekends. It has tinted windows so you cannot see what colour I am from the outside, and I have never been stopped.
When this happens with the banner, and our fans start applauding, it's really going to piss the media off
Another snippet from the earlier BBC News article; The Millwall Supporters' Club said the booing was not motivated by racism, but instead in opposition to the political views held by the Black Lives Matter organisation. And the imposition of BLM on football by Sky and the PL & EFL. Organisations who (naively, blindly, or cynically) present BLM and all other kinds of anti-racism campaigning as one and the same thing. Which they most definitely are not. Sky in particular pushes the BLM slogan continuously on its sports broadcasts.
It appears that Millwall have ceased recognition of BLM but that players of both teams will now stand with arms linked. I am trying to imagine what fun it would have been getting Stuart Pearce, Vinnie Jones or Graeme Souness taking part in such stunts. They wanted to tear opposition arms off, not link with them.
That's what I said to some of our players before Saturdays game. "We want you doing the Millwall huddle like you always have, geeing each other up, adrenalin pumping, mouths frothing for the fight ahead, not on one knee in peaceful harmony with your opponents".
David Speedie was a great player, and always gave it back to us. End of the game he applauded us and got applauded back. How it should be.
I went to the 1-1 Sunday morning game at Upton Park. Have never forgiven the little turd for not scoring when clean through at your end.
