The Tube
I watched the first part of this documentary about the London Underground on BBC2 last night and it was fascinating.
The thing that impressed me most, was how a very multi-racial staff acted as a coherent team and stood up so well to the hassle they got.
I shall be watching next week.
Is This a Solution to Bigots Like Abu Qatada?
Michael Burleigh writing in the Sunday Times today, takes a broad look at terrorists who have come to or are in the UK.
He makes one point that I wholly sympathise with. If someone says lets kill all people with a penchant for wearing purple socks, then they should be prosecuted for incitement to murder.
So why hasn’t Abu Qatada been prosecuted, if as some allege he has incited others for murder? Surely if found guilty and sentenced, he could then be returned to his homeland. We now have a precedent in that in this case in Derby, three men were jailed for urging people to hang homosexuals.
These cases would be very much helped if phone-tap evidence were allowed. I can never understand why it isn’t After all, if the United States can use it, to convict the Mafia, why can’t we use it with possible mass murderers. It might have the side-effect that they all got paranoid about talking to each other.
Liverpool Supporters Boo Evra
The Suarez affair has not shown Liverpool of their supporters in a good light. Watching the match today between Liverpool and Manchester United, there is a lot more booing of Patrice Evra.
I think, it’s going to need some sort of punishment to bury all of this.
Incidentally, it doesn’t seem that the supporters behaviour is not much better at Loftus Road, where Chelsea and John Terry are playing.
It wwould appear that we might be winning the battle against rscism in football, but now we have another one, where supporters use a racist incident to stir up trouble.
Diane Abbott Slips Up
The media is making a hell of a fuss about Diane Abbott’s comment on Twitter.
I find Ms. Abbott entertaining, although her politics are very different to mine. I suspect, that if we were sat next to each other on a plane or train, we’d argue and agree and disagree in unequal measure.
What she originally said was probably scientifically correct in its full context, but was rather shortened because of the rules of Twitter. I don’t disagree with her reasoning and “divide and rule” is a method, that is used by everybody to get their own way on a committee or in a meeting, whether inside politics or not. The British Empire probably used the technique in the past, but hopefully that is all history and to be learned from and not copied. I suspect that it is technique much less used in business and management these days as well.
The real mistake she made was to publish without thinking. But this is the Twitter trap!
I think it would also be better, if when we see something wrong on Twitter posted by someone we know, we douse it in a bucket of very cold water, rather than report it all to the media.
Having read the tweets that caused the story, it strikes me that an early intervention, perhaps in a light-hearted vein could have created a molehill out of a mountain.
We have had politicians in the past, who would have mangled their words with impunity and got into awful trouble on Twitter. George Brown comes to mind, although there would probably be many others in his era. On the other hand, politics has had its fair share of precise wordsmiths, who would have found Twitter suited to their style.
Suarez, Terry and Hansen
Luis Suarez has been given an eight match ban and a substantial fine for abusing Patric Evra in a racist manner. The ins and outs of the case are discussed in this article in the Daily Mail.
What annoys me about this case is the way that Liverpool and its fans will not let the matter drop. Suarez has been found guilty by the FA and may not normally be a racist, but it would seem that the evidence showed he said something very inappropriate.
It was very similar last night at Tottenham, with John Terry being cheered by Chelsea fans at every touch, after his well-publicised incident with Anton Ferdinand.
and then Alan Hansen makes a serious gaff on Match of the Day.
You could argue that his problem was less serious, as he was trying to make a serious statement and got the wrong words. Which of course he shouldn’t have done!
In the heat of the moment, we might all made statements appropriate to our feelings. I have several times said or mouthed things like “You stupid bastard”, when I’ve been cut up say, by another driver. But these days few of us would use any racial phrase in that sort of statement, even if they could have done, by virtue of the other person’s race. It doesn’t help either party.
In my view, the Terry case is the most serious of the three as the police have got involved. But then, this is not the first time, that the England captain has been touched by the law or scandal. Just read his Wikipedia entry.
In my view, John Terry’s real problem is that just like Alan Hansen, he has let himself down. He would not be the first footballer to do this and I hope he follows Tony Adams example and rebuilds his life constructively.
In some ways the pity of the Suarez and Terry cases is that the alleged offences were not spotted by the referee at the time. In that case, it would have been an immediate sending off, which would have probably calmed the situation somewhat, as sending off results in an immediate one-match ban, until the case is considered. So perhaps for racist behaviour it should be two or even a three match ban?
After all, if two of my employees had a racist spat, the first thing I’d do would be to send them home to cool off, whilst I discussed with my lawyers, whether I should fire someone.
Gay Footballers
There are no openly gay footballers in the UK, although there are others in countries such as Sweden and the United States.
It is relevant to look at the history of black footballers to get a handkle on how gay footballers will appear in the UK.
Viv Anderson was the first black footballer to play for England and he burst on the scene in the mid-seventies with Nottingham Forest. His rise had a lot to do with Brian Clough, who I suspect didn’t give a care about anything other than your ability to play football. And Anderson could certainly play!
At the time Anderson made his mark, Other black players also made the breakthrough. Notably, this was the three players Cyrille Regis, Brendan Batson and Laurie Cunningham at West Brom. But now black players are commonplace and we’re even seeing the sons of black players entering the game and being successful.
I first saw black players in the early 1960s. There weren’t many and they did get abuse. The most notable was Albert Johanneson, who played for Leeds.
It has been a long journey from the 1950s and 60s to where we are today. And I don’t think that there are many, except those on the Far Right, who regret it.
It will be a long time before gay footballers are in the same high position. Judging by the time scale it took for black players to be fully successful and accepted, it will probably be somewhere between ten and twenty years.
One of the differences between black and gay players, is that although black players are obvious, gay ones are not. So how many are there out there at the moment.
There are probably more than you think!
I don’t have any evidence, but news stories over the years have constantly found quite a few gay policemen. In fact, in one case, the Chief Constable of Sussex police made an appeal for gay officers, to help solve a homophobic murder and was totally surprised at the response he got.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if there are quite a few gay footballers. I suspect too, that many of their team-mates know the truth and keep the secrets of the dressing room. After all, all footballers know how their eccentricities or problems are reported in the tabloid press.
Some months ago, I wrote this.
I was at the Ipswich Inter Milan match in the San Siro, when I found myself sitting next to a journalist, who worked for one of the more outrageous tabloids. We chatted about various topics concerning football and Ipswich in particular and I can’t remember how it came up, but we started discussing my coeliac disease. I then said that the statistics indicated that there must be at least one footballer, who must be a coeliac. I suggested it might make a story, as it might help those with the disease. He then said that the readers of his rag wouldn’t be interested. But if I knew a footballer who was gay, then that would be a very valuable story.
THe full post is here. The last bit may well be the key. Despite what is generally thought, there have been a large number of intelligent and very savvy footballers. I always note Derek Dougan, who was not considered very bright by the press to be very bright in his early years, but went on to be an author and a very good chairman of the Professional Footballers Association. So I do not think it unlikely, that one of the current crop of footballers, who is coming to the end of a good career, who just happens to be gay, will come out. I suspect too, that he won’t sell his story to the tabloids. After all with the coming out of Gareth Thomas, they can now see that the support from most people and the media is very strong.
This article in Wikipedia, discusses the issue of gay footballers and is well worth reading.
So I agree with a survey from the University of Staffordshire, that found that 90% of football supporters expect there to be an openly-gay footballer by 2015.
If you look at the dynamics of the long road to success of black footballers, I would actually think that 2015, might even be a bit pessimistic.
But just as this process is happening in the UK, it is also happening across the world. So I suspect that by the time of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, one of the major football nations will have an openly gay footballer in the team. As homosexuality is illegal in that enlightened country, let’s hope that it has the right effect on the Qataris’ attitudes.
But then I live in hope that FIFA will see sense and realise that they are risking players lives and health by playing in the summer in the desert.
Gypsies
The BBC phone-in this morning got very heated when they were discussing gypsies.
I lived in the country for forty years and everything you didn’t lock up properly disappeared very quickly. The gypsies always got the blame, whether it was their fault or not. I would say though, that if you wanted to hear a farmer get angry, then just bring up the subject of gypsies.
My late wife, C, was a barrister and she was involved in the divorce of a leader of the gypsy community, who incidentally lived in a 1930s semi-detached house in quite a large town. His attitude to those who claimed they were gypsies, was that many were just criminals taking advantage of rights and our good nature. Incidentally, my wife found him to be a very honourable man, who fully abided with the divorce settlement.
We are on the one hand guilty of labelling a community with the habits of their worst members. But then we’ve done that for years with everybody.
The Unbelievable Story of Cec Thompson
I’d never heard of Cec Thompson, who was one of the first black players to play rugby league for Great Britain, until I found this story on the BBC’s web site. He has just sadly died at 85, after an incredibly full life, which to say the least started very badly.
He is the sort of person, who is an inspiration to everybody. His obituary in the Telegraph tells more.
Does Public Transport Combat Racism?
I wonder about this, but the masses of different races and nationalities, that use public transport have to get on.
When you swipe your card by the driver on a bus say, you often wave and say thank you and if the bus isn’t busy you’ll often get a cherry reply, whatever the race of the driver. And let’s face it, is there a race not represented amongst London bus drivers.
Often too, you’ll strike up a conversation with the person next to you, about something trivial. Sometimes this will be caused by my apologising for being clumsy because of the stroke and I can’t remember receiving a rude response.
One incident stands out. I was needing to get by a black man of my own age, as I’d rather hidden myself away on a corner seat, at the back of the bus. So I apologised before I hit him with my rucksack. He said not too bother, as he was very happy and after five years as a widower he was going to propse to his girlfriend that day. I said I was a widower too and he said that it’ll all work out. He waved me goodbye as I left the bus. Good luck to him and I hope the lady accepted his proposal.
So when you throw people together and they all get mixed up, does it take the racial tension out of living?
I think the only thing we need to ensure is that when we travel on a bus or train, that we treat everybody in the way we would like to be treated ourselves.
Book Burning
It is being reported that a fifteen-year-old girl has been arrested for burning a copy of the Koran.
My father was a printer and bookbinder and to me, all books are to be treasured and not defaced or burnt in any way. Perhaps, when a book has been fully read, it should be passed on, but only in the last resort, should it be burned and then to do something positive like generate heat.
So the girl was wrong in what she did and arresting her for what was probably a childish act, will only encourage others to do similar things.
We need a lot more tolerance and common-sense.
Especially in these days, where we have had the Sunningdale and Milton Keynes murders and the Derby sex attacks to keep the Police busy, with more much serious problems that could be considered to a racial dimension.
The Anonymous Widower 