Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Only nice flags allowed at the Arse?

Arsenal stewards have won few friends in one corner of Lancashire this week, after a group of Blackburn Rovers fans revealed that their flag of St George, England’s national flag displayed prominently all over the nation and a source of much pride to many English people, was confiscated as being a ‘racist symbol’.

OK, the club's official response omits the "racist symbol"; but it's still a load of PC nonsense:
Dan Tolhurst, communications manager at Arsenal, said, “Arsenal as a club prides itself on being inclusive with respect to all nationalities, cultural and ethnic groups. We have therefore decided that in order for all of our fans to enjoy their experience at Emirates Stadium, we are asking that only flags without any national emblems are displayed within the stadium.”

Good luck with enforcing that one if you ever get drawn against Rangers or Celtic(or Dinamo Zagreb or Red Star Belgrade or any one of the Turkish clubs) in the Champions League.

Personally, I don't see the point of using national flags to display your club allegiance, but as long as there isn't anything racist or overly offensive (eg Linfield;)) written on it, I really can't see the problem.

Which reminds me, I wonder how those Dublin Rangers fans "behind enemy lines" are getting on in their struggle with their club's pathetic *security* chief?

13 comments:

Wyrdtimes said...

Emirates stadium.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

That hypocritical streak(a mile wide on occassions) is showing again O'neil.

Consider the connotations meant by the term "behind enemy lines" means? And having read the comments in the link doubly so

As far as Arsenal, sure it would be the fault of the large "Irish" following in north London, you know the ones, the "enemy"

O'Neill said...

Tony,

Your original comment was ammended because of the personal abuse you directed at someone who is actually one of the more intelligent commentators on here.
I haven't got the time or the inclination to muck about in the future to do the same thing so I'll probably do both myself and you a favour and delete the whole thing.

tony said...

>>personal abuse you directed at someone who is actually one of the more intelligent commentators on here.<<

Personal abuse? Gie's peace!, mild veritas more like. As far as labelling him one of the more intelligent commentaters methinks you are oan the swally or taking plausible bullshit to the limits.

Anyhow I was objecting to the currying of favour of racist bigots by denigrating his own people.

All the best with that.

tony said...

Oh and let's hope that Arthur Boruc survives the death threats and has a great game tonight at Windsor park. He is a veteran now at dealing with Catholic hatting rabble, having played at Ibrox on many occassions.

O'Neill said...

It might interest you to know that Artur's boys are out there presently wrecking Belfast- just heard from a mate that two of the "Catholic-hating rabble" (ie a NI fan walking to the game on his own) has been jumped on and stabbed.

Anonymous said...

Arthur Boruac was a hero at Windsor tonight. Ulster's No.1 they were singing at him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gdansk-Belfast said...

Artur let our homeland down.

tony said...

>>It might interest you to know that Artur's boys are out there presently wrecking Belfast<<

I'd suggest that the first is a serious defamation and the second a madey up exaggeration, more to follow methinks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7970522.stm

http://tiny.cc/c5FCF

As I suspect after checking the news, none of the above links(if they work mention anything about NI fans/Catholic hating rabble being stabbed. Another madey up claim? Jeezo well on form pal.

I'm surprised that instead of ignoring the death threats to Artur Boruc that you haven't dodged the argument by saying that I don't get it, just like on a previous blog. However you would on thic occasion be quite correct(a first for you?) I just don't get racist bigoted supporting NI fans and their predilection for making death threats against Catholic football players. Nor your reluctance to address it.

O'Neill said...

Regarding the stabbing I was relaying what a friend told me. Regarding "Artur's boys", I was angry with your total and unjustified generalisation of the nature of the NI support. I let myself get caught and did exactly the same thing. Nevertheless, Poles were involved in a large amount of the trouble. And yes, so were NI "fans"

Superintendent Noble said a number of homes had been attacked and these were "being treated as racially motivated incidents".

He also condemned the behaviour of "so-called supporters of football who have destroyed what should have been an enjoyable evening for all supporters and have tarnished the reputation of genuine law abiding football supporters".

"We believe there was a hard core of Polish nationals who came to the game without tickets but with a very clear intent to cause trouble and disruption to genuine supporters and local residents," he added.


Regarding the Boruc death grafitti, if after all this time of you reading and commenting on this blog you really do genuinely believe of me what you are implying, then, sorry, you really do not "get me" or my politics.

You are obviously free to comment (within the normal guidelines) on anything I write here, but I've now come to the conclusion that it's pointless "debating" with you on this or any other issue- too much time is wasted arriving back exactly where I'm started from.

tony said...

Like you have admitted yoursel O'neil it is easy to get carried away and exagerrate a wee bit. No need to go in the huff with each other, and no I don't believe that you are a bigot. I am quite correct to point out your lax standards which may well be construed at times as either blatant hypocrisy, or a simple case of differing standards. concerning borderline racist sectarian comments from others on your blog or your own political attacks on the SNP.

Should you still choose to blank me, fair enough. Though I'm sure a realisation will emerge that you can handle a wee bit of the rough and tumble once your annoyance with me wears off. Nothing personal.

I should say that whilst I'm not altogether sure that many NI fans were booing their own fans for singing the famine song. I really would like to think so. I am on record(many times on slugger) for praising the progress of NI fans, especially Linfield regarding ridding themselves of their anti-Catholic baggage.

Marko said...

Why do most Unionists have about 6 chins?