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The Fighting Cock #37 - Don't Be Blu

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

The Fighting Cock

The Fighting Cock

The Fighting Cock
We welcome Jack McInroy back to the fold and he pars Glendenning, Carroll to Barcelona? Fulham, the problem with Aaron Lennon, Noah's Ark, delusions. Windy kicks in the door waving the four four with knowledge, Sherwood peeing on the carpet, the truth about AVB, Stoke, Les Ferdinand does some gardening, why do we pay to watch football and fears of death. Flav, Spooky, Thelonious, Jack McInroy.

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Thelonious you sure you aren't triplets? Happy Birthday!

Great pod fellas
 
Enjoyed hearing Jack's views.


Well done on brining up Sherwood & Eriksen - I actually think he's getting off extremely lightly on this........the guy has blatantly lied thinking no one would know, to make himself look good.
 
Good show.

I couldn't agree more with your calling out AVB for going to Zenit. I liked him at Tottenham but joining that racist bunch of bastards shows what he's about. That shit's bigger than football. Always.

NOTE - I need to correct this as T called out the AVB fanboys, not the man himself. I'm still unimpressed that he's joined a club with a poor track record of addressing racism.
 
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Nantynew said:
I liked him at Tottenham but joining that racist bunch of bastards shows what he's about. That shit's bigger than football. Always.
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This is a tricky thing for me. I'm decidedly not interested in cheering for Zenit in any way, nor am I interested in condoning racism. But from what I can tell, and maybe someone like vadimivich vadimivich can provide more detail, the racist brush can be applied to some (or even many) fans, but not to the club as a whole.

The above reminds me of when someone like Foer writes in How Soccer Explains the World (NOT a good book) that one shouldn't support "racist" clubs like PSG. It's true that up until 2009, PSG had a very racist and semi-fascist fan-base. On one side of the pitch. On the other was a multi-ethnic group of supporters who battled the racists both in the stadium and outside. Calling PSG "a racist bunch of bastards", then, is simply wrong.

My local club, VMFD Žalgiris, has very vocal ultras in one corner who have fascist tattoos, swastika-like emblems (like the Investec logo (I kid, Smoked Salmon Smoked Salmon )) sewn to their jumpers, and, at the last match I went to, even flew a Pravyi Sektor flag. They're the most vocal supporters, but they're also just 100 misguided youths crammed into one corner compared to the much larger (but still not gigantic) mass of fans who come to matches without celtic crosses and the like. They're loud, they often are the "face" of the club (they're responsible for graffiti and stickers all over Vilnius), but they're still just 100 sad boys who have fucked up ideas about politics and, importantly, aren't the majority of fans.

Many of my friends who are ardently anti-racist/anti-homophobic and make use of various soapboxes to affirm that, are also season ticket holders at Žalgiris. Are they, as well, "a racist bunch of bastards"? They love football; they live in Vilnius. What should they do? Especially when probably every club in Lithuania has a vocal semi-fascist element (of varying size). Should they just say fuck it and support St. Pauli? Whatever happened to the AMF sentiment of supporting your local club?

Zenit is the only top-flight club in Sankt Peterburg, so if you like football, and are supposed to support your local club, but are anti-racist/anti-homophobic, what are your options? You support your local club and hide your face in shame when a group of debils who happen to support the same club as you write a letter demanding that no black players play.

TL;DR: every club has racist fans (even this forum!), and at some clubs those fans are especially vocal. I don't think it's fair to single out Zenit (or AVB) for this. Even los culés mistreated Neymar, and Barça is supposed to be nothing but unicorns and sunshine.

Chelsea, West Ham, and Lazio fans, though? They're allllll "a racist bunch of bastards". :adelol:
 
Éperons said:
This is a tricky thing for me. I'm decidedly not interested in cheering for Zenit in any way, nor am I interested in condoning racism. But from what I can tell, and maybe someone like vadimivich vadimivich can provide more detail, the racist brush can be applied to some (or even many) fans, but not to the club as a whole.

The above reminds me of when someone like Foer writes in How Soccer Explains the World (NOT a good book) that one shouldn't support "racist" clubs like PSG. It's true that up until 2009, PSG had a very racist and semi-fascist fan-base. On one side of the pitch. On the other was a multi-ethnic group of supporters who battled the racists both in the stadium and outside. Calling PSG "a racist bunch of bastards", then, is simply wrong.

My local club, VMFD Žalgiris, has very vocal ultras in one corner who have fascist tattoos, swastika-like emblems (like the Investec logo (I kid, Smoked Salmon Smoked Salmon )) sewn to their jumpers, and, at the last match I went to, even flew a Pravyi Sektor flag. They're the most vocal supporters, but they're also just 100 misguided youths crammed into one corner compared to the much larger (but still not gigantic) mass of fans who come to matches without celtic crosses and the like. They're loud, they often are the "face" of the club (they're responsible for graffiti and stickers all over Vilnius), but they're still just 100 sad boys who have fucked up ideas about politics and, importantly, aren't the majority of fans.

Many of my friends who are ardently anti-racist/anti-homophobic and make use of various soapboxes to affirm that, are also season ticket holders at Žalgiris. Are they, as well, "a racist bunch of bastards"? They love football; they live in Vilnius. What should they do? Especially when probably every club in Lithuania has a vocal semi-fascist element (of varying size). Should they just say fuck it and support St. Pauli? Whatever happened to the AMF sentiment of supporting your local club?

Zenit is the only top-flight club in Sankt Peterburg, so if you like football, and are supposed to support your local club, but are anti-racist/anti-homophobic, what are your options? You support your local club and hide your face in shame when a group of debils who happen to support the same club as you write a letter demanding that no black players play.

TL;DR: every club has racist fans (even this forum!), and at some clubs those fans are especially vocal. I don't think it's fair to single out Zenit (or AVB) for this. Even los culés mistreated Neymar, and Barça is supposed to be nothing but unicorns and sunshine.

Chelsea, West Ham, and Lazio fans, though? They're allllll "a racist bunch of bastards". :adelol:
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This is a great post. Very true. I think T's point though was that the club choose not to denounce the fascist element of the support, and almost embrace it. That's very different issue to that of AVB who chose to join a club like Zenit with all the history included. My gut feeling isthat AVB probably was unaware of any of this, or at least it was a peripheral issue for him.

Actually Thelonious Thelonious ' frustration came from the many Spurs fans who've been wanking over Zenit since AVB joined them if I remember rightly.
 
Éperons said:
the racist brush can be applied to some (or even many) fans, but not to the club as a whole.
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Read about it a bit more, and it seems like Dick Advocaat was told he couldn't sign black players in 2006 and 2009. OTOH, Zenit (famously) have Hulk, who isn't exactly white and denounced the fans. And Axel Witsel. Same.

Maybe/hopefully AVB will be able to change things around. He clearly hopes to make a big move in the CL with Zenit, and I think they might have some success with that. But someday, black players will be a part of that. Maybe even next season.

The fans' argument is a very flawed one, but it's one I hear all the time in Lithuania. "We're not racist, but we want the club to espouse Russian values, which means no blacks, since there are no blacks in Russia," or something like that. This ignores, of course, the fact that the man who wrote the best poem ever about Sankt Peterburg, Pushkin, was himself partly African!

The Russian fans probably see no difference in their views than Athletic Bilbao fans see in theirs, who insist that only Basques play for their club, which has meant that I think they've only ever fielded one player of mixed race. Yet Bilbao are plucky nationalists, not vile racists.
 
I know nothing about Lithuania. I presume it's formerly been absorbed by Russia, or USSR, but how independent from Putin is it to this day? Are football fans generally pro-russia, or is just the Ultras? Are they political in their chants etc. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick...
 
Flav said:
This is a great post. Very true. I think T's point though was that the club choose not to denounce the fascist element of the support, and almost embrace it.
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Yeah, I think T just threw the racism part in as well. My response was more to Nantynew .

The club's in a tough position, though. They've been fined, they've had closed matches, etc., over the horrorshow put on by their fans. But PSG was in a similar bind: they couldn't stop the racism, either (my cynical view is that they didn't care--though not caring isn't the same as embracing). It was only when the non-white fans killed a white fan in a scuffle, and the government stepped in, that PSG had to change their ways.

Considering how disinterested the Putin regime is in anti-racism/anti-homophobia, I'm not holding my breath.

Like I said, I think the best will be for AVB to sign black players. But, also, good luck with finding ones who want to put up with this shit.

Finally, and this is especially appropriate considering García Márquez's recent death, because he talked about this in his Nobel speech, it's important to remember that the stuff going on in Russia that we consider beyond the pale was not so beyond the pale in England a mere 30 years ago (though maybe not as theatrical). I think Garth Crooks talked about supporter tables of the first division that were written up to exclude goals scored by black players and the like, to see who the "real" English champions were. In some ways, 30 years ago is forever. In other ways, it isn't, and Russia had a lot of other shit to deal with in the meantime.

It's like the little fascist snots at Žalgiris. They've been sold a packet of lies about national pride and Lithuanian tradition and how the Russians/Soviets wanted to extinguish that but Germans respected it, so, yeah, Hitler wasn't so bad. And they have shit jobs, shit education, shit everything, and blame it on Russia, Israel, and the rest. Expecting them to be all tolerant and stuff at an English level (where still there are the likes of John Terry! On the National Team!) is a bit unrealistic.

Another way, what would the PL be like if the footy were still just a pound and there were EDL recruiters outside…? After all, they're "not racist".
 
Flav said:
I know nothing about Lithuania. I presume it's formerly been absorbed by Russia, or USSR, but how independent from Putin is it to this day? Are football fans generally pro-russia, or is just the Ultras? Are they political in their chants etc. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick...
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No, very, anti-Russian. I meant that they just change the adjectives. "We're not racist, but we want the club to espouse Lithuanian values, which means no blacks, since there are no blacks in Lithuania."

I was at a Žalgiris match last year against Atlantas (from Klaipėda), who, I think, have the most neo-Nazi ultras of all (btw, only ultras travel). Anyway, it was right after Atlantas signed a handful of players from France, who were all non-white. Because they weren't registered (or something), they couldn't be in the dugout, so they were sat among the ultras. Of their own club.

Who started fighting them.

The police intervened and escorted the black players to another part of the stadium, but in the meantime, the punks from Žalgiris ran along the side of the pitch to confront the police and fight on behalf of their fellow ultras (ultras may hate each other, but they always hate the police more). I was absolutely dumbfounded.

Lithuania is as independent from Putin as the rest of the EU. We need his energy. But I think the real rivalry for Žalgiris ultras is with the local Polish club, Polonia, who are basically a pub team. But Lithuanian/Polish tensions over Vilnius are two centuries old.
 
Éperons said:
This is a tricky thing for me. I'm decidedly not interested in cheering for Zenit in any way, nor am I interested in condoning racism. But from what I can tell, and maybe someone like vadimivich vadimivich can provide more detail, the racist brush can be applied to some (or even many) fans, but not to the club as a whole.

The above reminds me of when someone like Foer writes in How Soccer Explains the World (NOT a good book) that one shouldn't support "racist" clubs like PSG. It's true that up until 2009, PSG had a very racist and semi-fascist fan-base. On one side of the pitch. On the other was a multi-ethnic group of supporters who battled the racists both in the stadium and outside. Calling PSG "a racist bunch of bastards", then, is simply wrong.

My local club, VMFD Žalgiris, has very vocal ultras in one corner who have fascist tattoos, swastika-like emblems (like the Investec logo (I kid, Smoked Salmon Smoked Salmon )) sewn to their jumpers, and, at the last match I went to, even flew a Pravyi Sektor flag. They're the most vocal supporters, but they're also just 100 misguided youths crammed into one corner compared to the much larger (but still not gigantic) mass of fans who come to matches without celtic crosses and the like. They're loud, they often are the "face" of the club (they're responsible for graffiti and stickers all over Vilnius), but they're still just 100 sad boys who have fucked up ideas about politics and, importantly, aren't the majority of fans.

Many of my friends who are ardently anti-racist/anti-homophobic and make use of various soapboxes to affirm that, are also season ticket holders at Žalgiris. Are they, as well, "a racist bunch of bastards"? They love football; they live in Vilnius. What should they do? Especially when probably every club in Lithuania has a vocal semi-fascist element (of varying size). Should they just say fuck it and support St. Pauli? Whatever happened to the AMF sentiment of supporting your local club?

Zenit is the only top-flight club in Sankt Peterburg, so if you like football, and are supposed to support your local club, but are anti-racist/anti-homophobic, what are your options? You support your local club and hide your face in shame when a group of debils who happen to support the same club as you write a letter demanding that no black players play.

TL;DR: every club has racist fans (even this forum!), and at some clubs those fans are especially vocal. I don't think it's fair to single out Zenit (or AVB) for this. Even los culés mistreated Neymar, and Barça is supposed to be nothing but unicorns and sunshine.

Chelsea, West Ham, and Lazio fans, though? They're allllll "a racist bunch of bastards". :adelol:
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It's not tricky for me. When Zenit denounce racism clearly and stand up properly to the influential minority that hold those views, I might take a different view.

I agree that there are racists everywhere and perhaps my statement "racist bunch of bastards" lacked subtlety. However, that doesn't mean my statement regarding Zenit should be lifted and applied to Chelsea and West Ham as you have done, as the clubs at least subscribe fully to the anti racist agenda. Lazio is different and closer to Zenit in that nowhere near enough has been done to nail the racists and they still have a say in how the club is run.

Before AVB joined them, I met a Zenit supporter who had no problem voicing his opinion that fans "didn't want someone from a Jewish club." I appreciate that this will be a minority view but Zenit took a very long time to even admit that monkey chants happened, let alone were a problem at their place.

If your local club doesn't denounce racism or stand for values that you respect, then I would
suggest not supporting them.

I've left jobs because of a conflict of values regarding discrimination and although it would pain me after generations of support in my family, I'd step away from Tottenham if racism was not being opposed strongly by the club.
 
Ive been to watch Italian games a few times in the past few years and jesus the racism there is something i have never experienced
Nantynew said:
It's not tricky for me. When Zenit denounce racism clearly and stand up properly to the influential minority that hold those views, I might take a different view.

I agree that there are racists everywhere and perhaps my statement "racist bunch of bastards" lacked subtlety. However, that doesn't mean my statement regarding Zenit should be lifted and applied to Chelsea and West Ham as you have done, as the clubs at least subscribe fully to the anti racist agenda. Lazio is different and closer to Zenit in that nowhere near enough has been done to nail the racists and they still have a say in how the club is run.

Before AVB joined them, I met a Zenit supporter who had no problem voicing his opinion that fans "didn't want someone from a Jewish club." I appreciate that this will be a minority view but Zenit took a very long time to even admit that monkey chants happened, let alone were a problem at their place.

If your local club doesn't denounce racism or stand for values that you respect, then I would
suggest not supporting them.

I've left jobs because of a conflict of values regarding discrimination and although it would pain me after generations of support in my family, I'd step away from Tottenham if racism was not being opposed strongly by the club.
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I went to watch a couple of Lazio games when i was in rome. its a strange one that club. there ultra fans are some of the worst fans i have ever seen for racism and fascism i was shocked at some of the thing they chanted. But outside of where the ultras sat the fans there were really friendly and nice people made me feel quite welcome...just needs these fans to stop the element of these clubs having a stronger voice and presence
 
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