Trevor Brennan does a Cantona!

[Carmen Stateside]

Mr Bamford will be a quiet boy the next time hes at a game 
I would have been out of there aswell before he reached the eigth row ffs!!!

[pintsofguinness]

Eg there is as many eye witness reports that say that section of the crowd were chanting "your mother's a whore" and "you fenian bastard" at Brennan for a good 10-15 minutes.
Do you, or anyone else,  really believe some story about his pub? Brennan's teammate must be as crazy as him. 
The w**ker deserved what he got.  If the same was said to any of us in a pub we'd react the same way.

2. Even assuming the victim did say something, it might have been innocuous, or misheard, by TB;

Misheard chanting for 15 minutes?

[Evil Genius]

i think i'll believe it when i hear a neutral voice on the matter. i don't think George brennan, Ulster rugby fans or BBC Northern Ireland reporters qualify under that heading in my book. Apparently the Toulouse forum seems to support Brennan's claims - i would say we'll never find out exactly what happened. And again i'd ask why isn't he pressing charges?

I wasn't there (and neither were you, apparently), which is why I didn't rush to judge before presented with some decent evidence.
Imo, Fowler's account has credibility, since:
1. It is on the BBC's website - they are hardly likely to allow someone to use that forum merely to satisfy a private agenda (e.g. defending Ulster fans willy-nilly);
2. Fowler has put his name to the piece i.e. his own journalistic credibility (and job) may be on the line if he were subsequently found to have made it up;
3. If TB is wholly innocent, he is liable to bring a case against Fowler, should Fowler turn out to be lying.

As for why the victim is not pressing charges, I can think of a number of reasons - he was in shock, he may not speak French, we do know that he was flying back that evening (and may have had pressing reasons for being back in NI), he might have been told that he could do so after the French police had investigated, or it could even be that the French cops might not have welcomed charges against a popular local sportsman? Or simply that he just wanted to get the hell home and forget about the whole thing - people don't always want to take things further, even when they've been wronged. 

[Josey Whales]

"It is on the BBC's website - they are hardly likely to allow someone to use that forum merely to satisfy a private agenda (e.g. defending Ulster fans willy-nilly);".

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that.

"or it could even be that the French cops might not have welcomed charges against a popular local sportsman"

No offence but that statement is taking the piss.

"Or simply that he just wanted to get the hell home and forget about the whole thing "

Funny that photos of him posing his sporting his damaged jaw after the incident appeared everywhere.(hardly wanting to forget about it)

If Brennan went up there because someone called his pub shite then good enough for him he's  abigger clown than i though he was. I still find it hard to believe that any person with even half a braincell would climb 8 rows through the Ulster fans to pick out one individual who called his pub shite. And until i hear from a neutral i don't believe it.

[Evil Genius]

Eg there is as many eye witness reports that say that section of the crowd were chanting "your mother's a whore" and "you fenian bastard" at Brennan for a good 10-15 minutes.
Do you, or anyone else,  really believe some story about his pub? Brennan's teammate must be as crazy as him. 
The w**ker deserved what he got.  If the same was said to any of us in a pub we'd react the same way.

2. Even assuming the victim did say something, it might have been innocuous, or misheard, by TB;

Misheard chanting for 15 minutes?

I have provided a credible eye-witness Statement that indicates TB's reaction to some moderate sledging was wholly over-the-top.

You are claiming that his mother was insulted and he was subjected to sectarian abuse (both?), for a full 15 minutes. Where is your source for this? And by "source", I don't mean something beginning with "I heard...", or "it's on a website...", try being specifi, you know, names, web addresses, newspapers etc.

As for your final comment "Misheard chanting for 15 minutes?" - that is risible, even by your standards. The possibility of TB having misheard was only one of four possible scenarios I outlined, one of which was that the victim may, indeed, have abused him severely.
Not only did you ignore the other three in your (seeming) determination to have a pop at me, but you even added in your own "15 minutes".
That alone shows what a stupid point you are trying to make, since there is no way that TB will have been warming up for 15 minutes to have been abused.
And even if there was concerted, obscene abuse, all he had to do was continue his warm-up in front of the home fans. Instead, it is reported that he actually came off the bench and ran over to the away fans and started doing press-ups.

This is increasing looking like the actions of a headcase; if you actually knew anything about rugby, you might not be too surprised at such a charge being levelled against Brennan, since he has considerable "form" in that respect.
Whereas, the Ulster fans have no reputation for the sort of abuse you are alleging - quite the contrary, in fact.
Of course, I don't expect you to take my word for this, despite my having watched Ulster play home and away on a few occasions; however, I might refer you to Donagh's post on the matter (unless he's too much of a sectarian Protestant bigot for you to believe, either)

[Bogball XV]

[2. Fowler has put his name to the piece i.e. his own journalistic credibility (and job) may be on the line if he were subsequently found to have made it up;

An oxymoron if ever there was one!!
Bottom line EG, we don't know what was said, you don't know what was said - I didn't actually see anyone on here tarring all Ulster fans with the same brush, the consensus seems to be that, there are w**ker supporters at grounds all over the world (usually tanked up. but not neccessarily), it's not that surprising that every now and then players react to their taunts - yes, they should have the sense not to, but they're pysched up anyway, and Brennan gets more pysched than most.  There's a limit to the slagging supporters should give, and tbh chants for 15 mins even if it were only 'your pub is a poor drinking establishment' would get on your nerves a bit, i mean the monotony and lack of ingenuity would nearly be enough to drive anyone mad!!

[Donagh]

You are claiming that his mother was insulted and he was subjected to sectarian abuse (both?), for a full 15 minutes. Where is your source for this? And by "source", I don't mean something beginning with "I heard...", or "it's on a website...", try being specifi, you know, names, web addresses, newspapers etc.

I had already posted the source for this earlier. The allegations were made by callers to Liveline this afternoon. It can be downloaded from the RTE website.

[ONeill]

I decided to take a look at L'Equipe, expecting this to be on the front page. Nothing. So I did a search for 'Brennan' and this is all that's in today's paper:

Brennan cité par l'Ulster
Trevor Brennan va être cité par la province irlandaise de l'Ulster suite à l'incident ayant opposé le Toulousain à un adversaire lors du match de Coupe d'Europe dimanche. «Nous allons déposer une plainte contre Trevor Brennan pour ce qu'il a fait à notre joueur, le deuxième ligne Justin Harrison, a expliqué l'entraîneur Mark McCall. Nous avons beaucoup de chance que Justin n'ait rien de grave».     

Les deux joueurs se sont battus à la 55e minute et ont reçu un carton jaune. Mais l'Ulster rejette la faute sur le Toulousain, et compte également relever des coups que Brennan aurait portés à des supporters du club irlandais. Accusé de piétinement, Brennan avait déjà comparu devant la commission de discipline de l'ERC en novembre, mais il avait été blanchi.

Well, i could grasp the gist of that, but my French isn't that hot, so I ran it through Babelfish and it came out like this:

Brennan quoted by Ulster
Trevor Brennan will be quoted by the Irish province of Ulster following the incident having opposed the Toulouse one to an adversary at the time of the match of Cut of Europe Sunday. "We will deposit a complaint against Trevor Brennan for what it did to our player, the second line Justin Harrison, explained the trainer Mark McCall. We have much chance that Justin does not have anything low register ".

The two players fought with the 55e minute and received a yellow paperboard. But Ulster rejects the fault on the Toulouse one, and also hopes to raise of the blows that Brennan would have carried to supporters of the Irish club. Shown trampling, Brennan had already appeared before the commission of discipline of the ERC before November, but it had been bleached.

Is it any wonder I struggle to make sense of rugby?

The funniest thing I've read in ages. Must get a few more articles translated.

[ONeill]

"He didn't know why he had been singled out. He watched Brennan comes towards him and he actually thought he was going to shake his hand.

Although this rivals it for hilarity.

[pintsofguinness]

Of course, I don't expect you to take my word for this, despite my having watched Ulster play home and away on a few occasions; however, I might refer you to Donagh's post on the matter (unless he's too much of a sectarian Protestant bigot for you to believe, either)

You see that's it right there! All you're interested in is protecting ulster fans. I don't give a flying f**k what ulster fans do or what reputation they have. And where the f**k is this "sectarian prtestant bigot for you to believe" coming from? What the hell are you talking about?  That says a lot to, you're trying to turn this into a political argument.

As for sources, I read it in the paper, I read it on the website rufus put up and I'm listening to reports on it on the radio all day, sorry I didn't get the names and addresses of those who rang in.

And I picked your number 2 point because I thought it was so ridiculous, nearly as ridiculous as your claims about what happened.

[SammyG]

I've just spoken to a lad, who was there, and he confirmed the BBC account, virtually word for word, even though he's still in France and hasn't seen the BBC news.

Couple of questions:

1) What is the source for the stories about Brennans mother/sectarian abuse?
2)  Brennan came out to warm up and was doing press-ups (while the Ulster fans counted). He was laughing and joking with the fans. There was then some chanting about his pub and he waded in. This whole procedure lasted 3 or 4 minutes, so how can there have been 15 minutes of abuse?

[Evil Genius]

"It is on the BBC's website - they are hardly likely to allow someone to use that forum merely to satisfy a private agenda (e.g. defending Ulster fans willy-nilly);".

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that.

"or it could even be that the French cops might not have welcomed charges against a popular local sportsman"

No offence but that statement is taking the piss.

"Or simply that he just wanted to get the hell home and forget about the whole thing "

Funny that photos of him posing his sporting his damaged jaw after the incident appeared everywhere.(hardly wanting to forget about it)

If Brennan went up there because someone called his pub shite then good enough for him he's  abigger clown than i though he was. I still find it hard to believe that any person with even half a braincell would climb 8 rows through the Ulster fans to pick out one individual who called his pub shite. And until i hear from a neutral i don't believe it.

You have taken two possible explanations for why no charges have been pressed (yet), but ignored the others.
As for the photograph, that will have taken all of two minutes of his time - perhaps whilst waiting in hospital, or at the airport? It's not as if he did a two-page spread and "My Toulouse Hell" story for The Sun, after all. Any half-arsed journalist in the vicinity will have seen the state of his face and asked for a snap, it could even have been one of the victim's mates, with a camera-phone.

The fact is, neither you nor anyone else have produced any credible evidence that the victim said or did anything outrageous, whereas there is now clear evidence of nothing more than mild sledging from him (if that).
As for Brennan, we do know that he, a massive guy in a very physical sport, repeatedly punched the fan, for what cannot have been more than verbal abuse (or do you not believe he actually did hit him, either?)
Your "half a braincell" comment, however, may be much more apposite than you think, since TB has long had a clearly established reputation for violence, often unprovoked, over many years.

I am afraid a trend is emerging from several posters on this thread: "Southern Irish rugby player hits Ulster fan - fan must have deserved it".

Why do I feel that if it had been "Ulster player hits Southern Irish fan" the reaction from those self-same posters would have been to hang the Ulster player from the highest gallows?  

[Evil Genius]

tbh chants for 15 mins

The "15 minutes" line seems to have come from Pints of G. He has not been able to substantiate it, other than "I heard it on the radio" etc
I'm almost disappointed it wasn't "A bloke down the pub" 

[pintsofguinness]

I've just spoken to a lad, who was there, and he confirmed the BBC account, virtually word for word, even though he's still in France and hasn't seen the BBC news.

Why do I feel that if it had been "Ulster player hits Southern Irish fan" the reaction from those self-same posters would have been to hang the Ulster player from the highest gallows?

Because you're a bigoted p***k that can't see past politics? Just a question.
Btw you do know there's a lot of those who posted on this thread from ulster or are we not allowed to support them?

The "15 minutes" line seems to have come from Pints of G. He has not been able to substantiate it, other than "I heard it on the radio" etc
I'm almost disappointed it wasn't "A bloke down the pub"

Someone rang into the radio and said the chanting went on for 10-15 minutes.  Excuse me for not writing down his  name and address.

Btw why is sammy's "I've just spoken to a lad" ok??

[Evil Genius]

You are claiming that his mother was insulted and he was subjected to sectarian abuse (both?), for a full 15 minutes. Where is your source for this? And by "source", I don't mean something beginning with "I heard...", or "it's on a website...", try being specifi, you know, names, web addresses, newspapers etc.

I had already posted the source for this earlier. The allegations were made by callers to Liveline this afternoon. It can be downloaded from the RTE website.

So we're supposed to take your recall, of a radio phone-in programme, no doubt fuelled by the  usual bunch of tossers who make up most of those audiences, as a "source"?

Why don't you download it and post it here, so that we can all judge it? After all, it's your source.