Paddy Kilety's thespianic debut in Windsor Park Bigotry play!

[Mentalman]

Are you (Gweyltah) now stating, for the record, that you are he?

Or she brother, or she.

http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/brian/brian-07.htm

[brokencrossbar1]

For what it is worth, I think gwel is a woman.  I don't think EG is VPTBG.  But, shure they are all the same anyway, bloody huns

[deiseach]

I don't think EG is VPTBG.  But, shure they are all the same anyway, bloody huns

EG has a sense of humour, or is at least capable of levity. VPTBG, on the other hand, must be the most po-faced churl to ever venture an opinion.

[saffron sam2]

[I can't be arsed to look it out just now, but when I first started posting, someone started a Poll trying to guess my "real" identity. From what I recall, people voted for at least six different aliases; none was correct.

Not the original poll, but here's an associated link.  http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=877.0
I note that the option of Ealing Green was not available.

Anyhow, I'm not much bothered; what I find much more interesting is that you (and others) seem much more fixated on who I am, rather than what I post.

Or is it permissable in Gaelic Games to "play the man" in preference to "playing the ball"?

I don't find it particularly strange that posters here would want to be able to compare your postings on two different sites for consistency.  For example, in my time posting here and lurking on owc I would suggest that only nifan and GSpain have been consistent on both owc and here.  Others like SammyG, (SBE) Mac and (SBE) MD (_HNISC) certainly show a much harder line towards the GAA on owc than they do here.  The Dowie was just consistently an increasingly tiresome, repetitive smart arse, like all his media personas. So we are able to treat all posters in the most appropriate manner if we can read and compare posts from a variety of sources.


Other points from this thread:

I actually found myself laughing to that.

Since it is an established scientific fact that Huns, as well as all being sectarian bigots, also lack the sense of humour capable of making anyone laugh, I don't believe you.

Then again, I shouldn't be surprised since all Taigs, with their tales of moving statues, miraculous cures and the evils of contraception, are pathological liars...

In fairness to ziggy, he finds most things funny and would be renowned on the board for his attempts at pleasing everyone.  Except Fearon.  I didn't find the piece (from the Buckfast Tele) funny.  What does that make me?  You do have a point with the rest.

In actual fact, this play could be improved with a little bit of updating, eg the Lennon death threat incident.

Or the RoI fans booing Rangers players and making Nazi salutes at Israelis? 
[

Is this an analogy or whataboutery?

Such bollix. The sectarian behaviour at Windsor Park that night was deplorable

What Tony unfortuantely left out here was the racist behaviour from the same occasion.  Or can I assume that this would be passed off as "banter and crack" as similar behaviour was on another thread here recently.

[SammyG]

Others like SammyG, (SBE) Mac and (SBE) MD (_HNISC) certainly show a much harder line towards the GAA on owc than they do here. 

I presume you have some examples of this. I post, regularly, on 4 sites and use the same name (which is actually my name and first initial) on all of them. It would be a bit stupid to post contrasting views on any of the sites, as it would be fairly easy for anybody to check.

In actual fact, this play could be improved with a little bit of updating, eg the Lennon death threat incident.

Or the RoI fans booing Rangers players and making Nazi salutes at Israelis? 
[

Is this an analogy or whataboutery?

As per my previous post. it's neither it was an attempt to highlight the absurdity of Fearon's post (hence the smilie). Neither of the things I mentioned were in any way relevant to the play, the same as the things Fearon mentioned.

On your other point what racism? I'm not aware of any racist chanting, or even any allegations of racist chanting.

[saffron sam2]

Others like SammyG, (SBE) Mac and (SBE) MD (_HNISC) certainly show a much harder line towards the GAA on owc than they do here. 

I presume you have some examples of this. I post, regularly, on 4 sites and use the same name (which is actually my name and first initial) on all of them. It would be a bit stupid to post contrasting views on any of the sites, as it would be fairly easy for anybody to check.

Three things in life certain, death, nurses and SammyG asking for evidence.  I haven't said anything about contrasting views, just that yourself and the other two certainly take (or took) a more hardline view on owc than here, particularly in the very early stages of your contributions here.  Porbably the best place to look would be in the archives or the search facility on owc. It was certainly something I noticed and highlighted as soon as you began posting here.  Again, I am just posting my opinion, apologies if it has come across as fact.

I have just remembered a fourth certainty -  you will post in reply that since I have not produced any evidence, I must have made it up.

In actual fact, this play could be improved with a little bit of updating, eg the Lennon death threat incident.

Or the RoI fans booing Rangers players and making Nazi salutes at Israelis? 
[

Is this an analogy or whataboutery?

As per my previous post. it's neither it was an attempt to highlight the absurdity of Fearon's post (hence the smilie). Neither of the things I mentioned were in any way relevant to the play, the same as the things Fearon mentioned.

On your other point what racism? I'm not aware of any racist chanting, or even any allegations of racist chanting.

I think as soon as Fearon types anything, he does (in the main) highlight his own absurdity.  It is obvious in the past that I have had difficulty with the distinction between whataboutery and analogies - I am still struggling here, even after your post.

I haven't mentioned racist chanting - I mentioned similar behaviour.  I think that the continued use of accepted racist terms to describe ROI fans and players on owc is similar to the chanting of accepted racist terms in 1993.  You think the former is banter and crack - I don't. We'll have to disagree there.  I'll let others make up their own minds.

[T Fearon]

On the contray SS2. Whenever I post here it tends to extract the crass hypocrisy of some, not least of which is SammyG.

There is an even better play about Windsor Bigotry, to do with Belfast Celtic's decision to withdraw from the Irish League in 1949. See it and it will become clear how little, if anything, has changed at Windsor Park over the last 6 decades

[saffron sam2]

On the contray SS2. Whenever I post here it tends to extract the crass hypocrisy of some, not least of which is SammyG.

There is an even better play about Windsor Bigotry, to do with Belfast Celtic's decision to withdraw from the Irish League in 1949. See it and it will become clear how little, if anything, has changed at Windsor Park over the last 6 decades

On the contrary yourself, I don't think you are doing yourself many favours with your argument based on a work of fiction.  While the play is undoubtedly based on real events, it is too hard in such a work to separate fact from fiction and as such it is better to rely strictly on facts and not on this play when attempting to make / score points.

I don't dispute the fact that sectarianism (and anti-Catholic sectarianism in the main) permeates soccer at all levels in Northern Ireland.

[Evil Genius]

The sectarian behaviour at Windsor Park that night was deplorable
Indeed. And I and all true NI fans have deplored it

and involved the vast majority of those in the attendance,
Bullshit! Whilst there certainly was a very significant element of knuckle-draggers attracted by the opportunity to abuse that particular opposition, it is a libel to allege that they constituted the "vast majority". As someone who was there, I can attest that unpleasant as it was, it was still only a minority.

and was shamefully led by the North of Ireland manager and goalkeeper who conducted those mocking the greysteel atrocity etc.
Disgraceful - and unquestionably actionable. At one stage, when the support was getting behind the NI team (rather than abusing the ROI), Bingham tried to encourage them on - he wanted to finish his career on a win, after all. Charlton - a fiery individual at the best of times - took exception; then again, he was facing the possibility of not qualifying at that stage. You're similarly making it up about Tommy Wright; and as for Greysteele, that would be comical were the event itself not so terrible and your slur not so offensive
Anyone who cares to study the two individuals' record will know that these things simply could not have happened.
Billy Bingham frequently picked team with more Catholics than Protestants. He honoured the likes of O'Neill and Jennings with the captaincy in preference to alternative candidates like McIlroy. Throughout his time, the players were all united in the one cause and hugely committed, with considerable success (two World Cup qualifications). Do you think that Catholics like Martin O'Neill would have played under a sectarian bigot of the kind you allege? Do you think a sectarian bigot would have asked a Falls Road Catholic (Gerry Armstrong) to be Best Man at his wedding, or Gerry have accepted?
As for Tommy Wright, after this game (Bingham's last), he was picked to play 13 more times for NI by new manager Bryan Hamilton. Hamilton hasn't a sectarian bone in his body, as evidenced by the fact that he was subsequently happy to accept a senior consultancy role for the FAI in Dublin, where his contribution was greatly appreciated.
Further, there is no evidence that Wright ever had any problems with regular Catholic teammates like Gerry Taggart. Indeed, when his playing career ended, he and Michael Hughes were two of the "Prague Five" who were arrested in 2001, for an altercation which occurred whilst they were out on a post-match piss-up. I've never met Mikey H, but I simply don't believe he would freely choose to go out socialising with a known bigot.

Packie Bonner said it was ten times worse than anything he'd experienced at Ibrox
Perhaps, but GSpain who was there with the travelling support has stated on this very website that he had experienced worse at other matches and that in his opinion, the abuse at Windsor was hugely exagerated.

and Eamon Dunphy switched his allegiance from unionist to nationalist/republican in 90 minutes.
Eamon Dunphy. Says it all. 

Once again it emphasises the unwillingness and inability of those who claim to support football for all to recognise the depth of the problem, instead they adopt the nutter with a 20p piece or a few dozen Ranger supporters excuses.
If the IFA and supporters were refusing to acknowledge there was a problem, then why would they even bother with a solution ("Football For All") in the first place?    People in denial invariably carry on as before. (Then again, you'd know all about that)

That is the reason why I consider the FFA campaign to be a complete sham
No, you consider it to be "a complete sham" because you are an out-and-out bigot whose prejudices have become so ingrained that they do not permit you to give credence to anything which might challenge them

and unworthy of any credit whatsoever.
The day we get credit from you is the day we know that we've gone seriously wrong. Not only have numerous credible organisations like UEFA, the City of Brussels, the Sports Council and the NI Community Relations Council etc consistently acknowledged the good work being done by FFA, but also individuals like Neil Lennon and Dessie McGinnis are also on record as endorsing it. What was it you termed these latter two? "Disgraceful"? 


I have no doubt whatsoever that if the FAI team was to play at Windsor Park tomorrow it would encounter the exact same level of sectarian abuse as in 1993.
Coming from someone - even a former NI supporter  - who hasn't set in Windsor in years, you are in no position to make predictions. I seem to recall that you confidently predicted (and hoped) that England would stuff NI when they last played us. Were you happy to be lumped in with loser bigots like Johnny Adair that night? 

The old adage about leopards and spots holds true.
Only in your tiny mind. Or did you think everyone was hallucinating when Paisley and Adams sat down to agree how they would share power last month?

What this play explores is the deluded supremacist mindset (that thinks taigs never wash, nor work, breed like rabbits etc) that pervades those who attend Windsor Park and by extension the unionist community in general. It is a chord which anyone from the North, especially a nationlist reared and living in a loyalist area, will surely find familiar.
"Deluded" and "Mindset". Need I say more?

To that extent it is a drama well worth seeing and I hope Kielty doesn't obscure the message by trivialising it. He more than most knows well the tragic outworkings of such naked bigotry

It is a work of fiction, written on the basis of media reports, by an author who wasn't even there.
Of course, if people wish to see it, they should. However, they should also appraise it in the context of the enormous changes which have occurred since in NI generally and NI football in particular.
And who knows, if audiences do possess a sufficiently open mind, perhaps they will be persuaded to see for themselves how much things have changed at Windsor since those dark days of the last century.

After all, the author and her family have themselves since become members of the Green and White Army! Or do you consider that makes them sectarian bigots, too? 

[Main Street]

Perhaps, but GSpain who was there with the travelling support has stated on this very website that he had experienced worse at other matches and that in his opinion, the abuse at Windsor was hugely exagerated.

I dont know how it was reported.
In a GAA board it's sinisterly ironic that the witness you drag up is GS pain, does the GS stand for  - glass spreader
GSpain did acknowledge that there was sustained loud vile sectarian abuse throughout the game. Other supporters reported worse, though there could have been a hint of exageration of the peril they faced
However I think mild mannered Packie Bonner's statement of 10 time worse than Ibrox is quite damning.

[Evil Genius]

Perhaps, but GSpain who was there with the travelling support has stated on this very website that he had experienced worse at other matches and that in his opinion, the abuse at Windsor was hugely exagerated.

I dont know how it was reported.
In a GAA board it's sinisterly ironic that the witness you drag up is GS pain, does the GS stand for  - glass spreader
GSpain did acknowledge that there was sustained loud vile sectarian abuse throughout the game. Other supporters reported worse, though there could have been a hint of exageration of the peril they faced
However I think mild mannered Packie Bonner's statement of 10 time worse than Ibrox is quite damning.

Nowhere have I denied that there was deplorable sectarian/political abuse from a significant section of the crowd that night - I was there and I heard what went on myself.

But I have more than enough experience of football crowds to know that different people in different situations may have differing experiences of the same event. Unfortunately, that game was played at a time when the political atmosphere in Belfast was particularly tense. Consequently, it attracted a particularly virulent "Loyalist" element, including Rangers supporters, who were determined to make their "point". As such, they were concentrated at the Kop End behind the goal where, for 45 minutes, Glasgow Celtic's Bonner will have been a particularly isolated target for them.
He has my sincere sympathy for having been subjected to such an ordeal and I don't doubt his integrity. However, since it was a minority of the crowd who engaged in this, predominantly in one section, it is entirely consistent for another witness (GSpain), in another section of the ground, to gain a different impression. Which, in response to Fearon's blatant lie that "the vast majority" of the fans behaved like this, was the only point I was trying to make. ("Ussuns is not all the same, you know")

When I think about this, however, I am actually quite pleased that you've taken me up on this point. Fearon originally posted a whole catalogue of lies and deceits about that match, which I took the trouble to address one-by-one. Am I to assume that you don't/can't object to the rest of my rebuttals and corrections?

I would appreciate your opinion on this, since I don't expect any comeback from the Fat Bigot himself, a poster who always chooses to open the debate, then retreats back up his hole into silence when his initial bile is challenged... 

[Main Street]

So based on my own experience of that night, a surprisingly clear mw rte radio commentary some 1500 miles away, the commentators were regularily drowned out by the bigots. And with the Kop End, loud and sustained, 10 times worse than ibrox. Then where GSpain was located in the stands, vile sectarian abuse were the words he used. You could conceivably see our intrepid fictitious civil servant getting the shock of his life which triggered a fundamental self examination.
Where fantasy is stretched beyond any credible limit is that a football fan would switch allegience, that just shows that Marie Jones knew feck all about soccer.
My own feelings about that night are dominated by the equaliser and getting to the world cup. Probably angry that there was the media hype before, that Irish fans couldn't or wouldn't go, that the team were left on their own, that sport was infected in this way.
Charlton has gone on record as being shocked at the level of hostility and bigotry. But immediatly after the game he was invited to give an award to some young lads and he received a standing ovation from a packed room of NI fans and many well wishes, probably confused him totally.
I can seperate the then basic hostile Ni fan who wanted to beat us from the fans who were out and out bigots. I'm glad they are gone.
But I don't get the idea put out that the play will have the opposite effect than its intention. I would have to see proof of that.

[SammyG]

Charlton has gone on record as being shocked at the level of hostility and bigotry.

Charlton is also on record talking about armed guards on the bus and going being terrified driving through the 'mountains' to get to the match. Inspite of the fact that the bus had no guards (armed or otherwise) and the bus didn't go near any mountains (or even small hills) on the way to WP. I suppose if you talk enough shite some of it sticks. Charlton was pissed off because we didn't just roll-over and allow the RoI to qualify, as he expected us to.

[his holiness nb]

Considering he got the result we needed I cant see how he would be pissed off enough to lie about the whole thing.

Maybe he did, I dont know, but doesnt seem like a good enough reason.

[MW]

I can seperate the then basic hostile Ni fan who wanted to beat us from the fans who were out and out bigots.

That's more than most have done. A significant vocal minority engaged in unjustifiable sectarianism. Those who created an atmosphere 'hostile' to the opposition were behaving like football fans at a derby game do, by and large.

By the way folks, the Kop was shut that night.