Huns in trouble after song mocking the famine

[updown9194]

If you aren't willing to look closer then please refrain from posting with any feigned authority on the subject.

He was offered the pools job. Wim Jansen wasn't offered a new contract. Celtic have fucked over employees for years, but this is what gets me- you name one single incident of the Celtic boardroom not wanting to promote Stein, who was of course a known revolutioniser. The Celtic board appointing him to the top table would have been akin to Turkeys voting for Christmas. He would have frightened the f**king life of them. Even if there was a sectarian motive in the first place, which I accept that there could have been, how does not giving someone an honourary seat in a dead-end boardroom compare to a 50 year record of no taigs playing for a club? The difference makes it incomparable.

Motioning that the "individual" who placed a death threat doesn't deserve the epithet "fan" is possibly one of the most cowardly and disgusting white-wash jobs I've ever heard. The death threat was the culmination of a history of abuse towards Catholic players, catholic victims of loyalist/British atrocities and more recently the continued abuse of Lennon (Booing him as well as singing "we've got a provo on our team"). Indeed if this incident is to be downplayed then why the "Football for All" campaign?

And you'll also excuse me if I'll take Lennon's comments with a pinch of salt-- the last time he tried to be outspoken about areas regarding Northern Irish football and its fans he was issued with a death threat.

Jim Boyce said after the match: "Sectarianism and bigotry are a plague on our society, a plague on our country. What has happened to Neil Lennon is a reflection of what we are seeing every night on our streets."
Typical IFA weasel-words. I'd like to think that the plague is best summed up with the general conduct of a significant portion of Northern Ireland fans, to which I have been a wonderful guest to on the streets of Belfast on numerous occasions.

I'd also like to ask if your sources stretch farther than a wikipedia article.

[Donagh]

Fine. I take it from that reply that you feel it was correct for the Strabane woman to be required to remove the Tyrone flag from her car whilst parked in her Employer's carpark. Why couldn't you have simply said so in the first place? 

Tyrone flag? Yes I agree she be required to take it down as an affront to public decency. If it was any other county flag then it would be wrong. You see you missed the bit about 'public life'. The womans car is her private possession, not something that should come under rules of emblems in public places. Its similar to those soccer stickers you see on car windows or the orange and white ribbon I have on my rear view mirror. No one else's business.   

Is it the (Loyalist) Red Hand of Ulster you object to, by any chance? 

I wasn't aware the Red Hand of Ulster was a Loyalist thing. My God what will I do with those all-Ireland medals I have with the Red Hand on them? 

[saffron sam2]

Ironically, following hot on the heels of their sickening display of anti-Irishness, the Ibrox faithful have arranged an 'Ulster Day' for Ibrox tomorrow. This is to ostensibly acknowledge the role of the Irishmen who have worn the light blue of Rangers with distinction throughout the years.

I wonder does this event merit mention on owc?

We have tried to come with a list in work and so far it numbers Sam English, Jimmy Nicholl, John McClelland, Kyle Lafferty and Steve Davis. Wikipedia helpfully gives us Alex Craig, Bob Hamilton, Bert Manderson, Billy McCandless, Whitey McDonald, Alex Stevenson and Billy Simpson. Any others? Any of the Feeneys for example.

[nifan]

Stibhan

Motioning that the "individual" who placed a death threat doesn't deserve the epithet "fan" is possibly one of the most cowardly and disgusting white-wash jobs I've ever heard.

So you are 100% certain it was a fan and not perhaps an england supporting loyalist? He probably was but how can you be sure? The point is if he is a fan he certainly isnt a welcome one; I dont feel that I should be held responsible for his actions either. Do you feel responsible for the actions of every individual GAA fan or player - the idiont who have recently partaken in sectarian or racist abuse that have been discussed frequently on here?


"we've got a provo on our team" I have never heard that sung at windsor in my life. When was it sung at lennon? If it was the night of the Norway game It was certainly by an extremely small portion of fans as I certainly didnt hear it at all.

As for his comments re. football for all, he could quite as easily not have made them. But as someone who has suffered due to bigotry perhaps he is keen to congratulate those working against it, perhaps he is a bigger man than many of the rest of us.

[updown9194]

Stibhan

Motioning that the "individual" who placed a death threat doesn't deserve the epithet "fan" is possibly one of the most cowardly and disgusting white-wash jobs I've ever heard.

So you are 100% certain it was a fan and not perhaps an england supporting loyalist? He probably was but how can you be sure? The point is if he is a fan he certainly isnt a welcome one; I dont feel that I should be held responsible for his actions either. Do you feel responsible for the actions of every individual GAA fan or player - the idiont who have recently partaken in sectarian or racist abuse that have been discussed frequently on here?


"we've got a provo on our team" I have never heard that sung at windsor in my life. When was it sung at lennon? If it was the night of the Norway game It was certainly by an extremely small portion of fans as I certainly didnt hear it at all.

As for his comments re. football for all, he could quite as easily not have made them. But as someone who has suffered due to bigotry perhaps he is keen to congratulate those working against it, perhaps he is a bigger man than many of the rest of us.

Oh my f**king God. Eyewitness accounts are easily found of the "provo" song if you look hard enough. The Alliance website in particular has a few choice songs that one MLA or Councillor heard and I don't think that's a party with an anti-Northern Ireland agenda.

The point about me being responsible for every GAA moment of shame is obviously redundant. No, I don't feel responsible for actions like some fans ruining a minutes' silence for the London bombings at the Ulster final in 2005. The difference is that individuals are involved in these, and whilst I'm entirely sure that you had no part in either abusing or threatening Neil Lennon, the fact that Northern Ireland fans racially and sectarianly abused him in significant portions and for a significant amount of time was in my opinion the chief reason for the threat. We're not talking about one or two people at the Cyprus game, even if it wasn't a majority.

What really gets me is that the history of sectarianism and the Northern Irish football team's fans towards Catholics is well-documented. There's even a play about it. And you can apologise all you want for the actions of fans but as a Catholic nationalist I wouldn't me or any of my relatives anywhere near that team, to support or play for them, because I'd be so afraid of the consequences for me in terms of both verbal and physical abuse. And I too, having been the victim of sectarian abuse from a number of NI fans going towards a game, can appreciate that it is getting better, slowly but surely.

But for someone to tell me that "I didn't hear this" and take the Arsene Wenger approach is f**king cowardly. As a Celtic fan I'll tell you that I've heard some pretty sick chants from one or two my team's fans outside a ground but that when I go to a stadium the only "rebel" songs I've ever heard are dated by at least 60-70 years-- I'm talking about the Boys of the Old Brigade, Sean South, The Soldier's Song etc. What I've never seen is one of our best players hounded out of my team by any fans on the basis of religious discrimination bordering on racism. I've also never heard chants anything like "Trick or Treat" or "Greysteel 7 Ireland 0." And I ccouldn't give a f**k if you heard those chants or not, because there are plenty of people who did.

[nifan]

But for someone to tell me that "I didn't hear this" and take the Arsene Wenger approach is f**king cowardly.

I didnt hear it, and I was there. I did hear the booing and abuse he took, and also the support he received.
It is hardly cowardly. I simply stated it must have been a tiny minority as I did hear most of the abuse dished out.

as a Catholic nationalist I wouldn't me or any of my relatives anywhere near that team, to support or play for them, because I'd be so afraid of the consequences for me in terms of both verbal and physical abuse.

That is your perogative, but I dont know what sort of abuse you reckon you would receive for stepping foot in windsor. My catholic friends havent had a bother.

[updown9194]

It doesn't matter if you didn't hear it. Other people and Neil Lennon did.

I think the entire issue is best summed up in this article:

IRISH FOOTBALL FEEDS OFF THE SECTARIAN EVIL THAT HAS DRIVEN OUT LENNON

24/08/2002

When they've tortured and scared you for 20-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working-class hero is something to be.

John Lennon

THERE is nothing to laugh about in the Neil Lennon tragedy except the black joke wrapped around its very soul.
The one-liner trotted out by the Northern Irish players, managers, ex-pros, pressure groups and politicians when asked to condemn those noble bravehearts who have ripped their country's shirt off their captain's back: "Sectarianism has no place in football."
And they have either said it so often they no longer hear the words or have convinced themselves, in drawing a used Elastoplast over an amputated limb sort of way, that what they are uttering is not cowardly, empty rhetoric.
In Belfast and its big footballing brother Glasgow, sectarianism is its defining point.
At Celtic and Rangers, Linfield, Cliftonville and Glentoran, division on religious grounds is the bedrock of those communal institutions. And Windsor Park falls into the same category.
It stands in a Loyalist area, is the home of protestant Linfield, and whenever Northern Ireland turn up it is populated predominantly by protestants, many draped in The Red Hand Of Ulster flag, singing about the sash their father wore.
It is why Neil Lennon's signing for Celtic was seen by some as treason, and why many Catholics give their allegiance to The Republic.
Throughout Northern Ireland and west Scotland, wearing your team's colours means wearing your religion on your sleeve.
Ask the family of Catholic Gerard Lawlor, the 19-year-old shot dead weeks ago for daring to walk past Loyalist gunmen in a Celtic shirt.
Or Christopher Butler, the 14-year-old Protestant left unconscious in Belfast city centre by four thugs in Celtic shirts last May, simply because he wore a Glentoran necklace as he went to buy a present for his granny.
But sectarianism, say the men who matter, has no place in football.
The most alarming aspect of the Lennon tragedy is the way he, and his family, have been let down by those same men. It has been 18 months since the anti-Lennon hate campaign started, yet what have the professionals and politicians done to lance the putrid boil?
After Lennon left Windsor Park under police guard this week, manager Sammy McIlroy was concerned that his preparation for the friendly against Cyprus had been spoilt.
However McIlroy has since issued an outright condemnation of the recent bigotry.
But this is the same McIlroy who in February last year, after Lennon suffered torrents of abuse and chants of "We've got a Provo in our team" every time he touched the ball against Norway, said: "It's part and parcel of the game. I didn't think it was as bad as certain people were making out."

In the aftermath of Lennon's retirement decision, he claimed the death threat was probably a hoax and implying that once Lennon realised this, he would come to his senses.
Well, Sammy, the graffiti on the Lisburn wall - "Neil Lennon RIP" - accompanied by a hangman's noose was real enough. As is the abuse his father receives on the streets of Lurgan and the death threats which drop through his own door in Scotland.
The political response leaves you despairing. As Lennon said months after the Norway game: "I had a dreadful feeling of isolation and fear on the pitch before the game, unlike anything I had ever known. But none of the MPs asked me how I felt or took time to grasp the reality of my predicament and what I intended to do."
Of course the politicians said nothing for fear of losing their jobs. But now there is a big story about a broken man whose dream of captaining his country has been shattered, they rush to get their condolences on the front page.
David Trimble now says the situation is "totally unacceptable." Which means absolutely nothing, upsets none of his Protestant constituents, and virtually gives the bigots the thumbs-up.
Yet what has football done? The Irish FA has thrown a few extra security men at Windsor Park, roped up a few "Give sectarianism the boot" banners, and its president Jim Boyce is finally unleashing his anger against the disease which blights his country.
But where are the actions which will isolate and shame the bigot? Where are the mass arrests for sectarian chants at Windsor Park? And why was that game against Cyprus allowed to go ahead on Wednesday?
Many decent fans turned their back on it when they heard of the death threat, as effectively did most of the players.
Why didn't the IFA take a stand and say 'if our captain has to leave our home ground under police escort, we all do. The game's off.'?
The first time I saw Northern Ireland play, they were at home to England. At Goodison Park. Forced to host an international match in Liverpool because security forces felt people might die if it went ahead at Windsor Park.
That was 30 seasons ago. What has changed? Certainly not the empty soundbites about sectarianism having no place in football.
It would be nice to think that Celtic and Rangers, the focal point of British religious bigotry, were committed to somehow changing the entire landscape, but it would be naive.
Both sides will not take any radical steps because they either lack the guts, or they realise tribal hatred is profitable.
How many pay-packets do Celtic fill by their insistence on playing so many away-day friendlies in front of stadiums packed exclusively with Catholics in Ireland?
What is the size of the bonus that awaits the marketing whiz-kid who persuaded Rangers to make their new away kit orange?
Maybe the Old Firm should be spoken to in the only language they understand. Told that if they continue to brand themselves as exclusive religious sects, they will never find a place in a lucrative British league.
There is one glimmer of hope to cling to in the Lennon tragedy. During the World Cup the Roy Keane fiasco made Ireland look at its soul.
His walk-out, claimed some, had been a stand for the new professional Celtic Tiger against a happy-go-lucky Old Oireland. And people were asked to make a choice between the past or present.
What is happening north of the border is different. It's a battle between ancient neanderthals and civilised homo sapiens.
And maybe, just maybe, Lennon might have made some of his compatriots who are still unsure work out which end of the evolutionary scale they want to belong to.

The article lets itself down when it tries to implicate Celtic in this by packing "away-days" in Ireland with "stadiums packed exclusively with Catholics." I should hardly think that Celtic look for your rosary beads before they sell you tickets, and to compare friendly trips to Ireland for the thousands of fans there with an orange away strip is pretty ludicrous. Nonetheless there are some fantastic points about the Northern Irish football team you'd all have to take a good look at and acknowledge, even if some of these are being addressed by decent community action.

[Main Street]

Actually I like the Sash, good tune.
Ronnie Drew did a good version.

[nifan]

The norway game aside, where those booing lennon also did a bit of the sash, when was the last time the sash was sung at an NI game?

[updown9194]

I don't know. I haven't watched a Northern Ireland game in its entirety since that happened to Lennon, and I haven't even wanted them to win since a number of your fans subjected me to sectarian abuse because I had the audacity to wear my uniform walking home from school.

[nifan]

I had the audacity to wear my uniform walking home from school.

Aye its a problem in NI when so much stuff marks you out as something - school uniforms, sports clothing, names. My school received similar treatment, even though it was relativly mixed it was perceived as a prod school.

[Evil Genius]

Maybe you were replying to a challenge that nothing has changed.

Indeed. In fact it was Baile an tuaigh, who introduced the NI team into a thread dealing with Scottish football. More precisely, he ventured that not very much had changed over the years re the NI support, based on his experience of having watched a game on TV 15 years ago, and then highlights of an NI game last week (where, incidentally, he didn't even realise that it was an away game...). When faced with such blind prejudice, derived from abject ignorance of the topic, repeated in such a way as to denigrate me and my fellow supporters, is it any wonder that I get angry and feel the need to refute this sort of tripe

I don't know exactly where I got the impression from that every "incident" at WP was divided in intensity by a figure of around 10 by most here from the OWC 
(not everybody -  Nifan)

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

You outlined what has changed.
AFAIU  you claimed the achievement was in the complete transformation of the atmosphere at Northern Ireland games.
I merely point out that the GAA had no problem in that regard.
Who ever attended the GAA games, did so peacefully and did not create an atmosphere that had to be transformed totally in order to be boasted about as an achievement at a later stage.
Well done and all that for the effort that went into making the (almost) complete change at WP and probably against hostile elements.

Thank you. The transformation is by no means complete and may never be, but as Hard Station noted following his visit to Windsor last week, whether one feels anything for the team/sport or not, we are now at the stage where no spectator need feel endangered/intimidated/deterred from attending any NI game, should he wish. I am confident that this will prevail. And should anyone doubt this, here is a clip from a certain famous game three years ago, which gives an idea of the joy, passion and colour etc, which characterises a wet Wednseday night at Windsor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ajduHx5hc
(The crowd scenes in the second half, and at the very end of the clip give maybe a 10% impression of what it was really like!)

I merely point out that the GAA had no problem in that regard.
Who ever attended the GAA games, did so peacefully and did not create an atmosphere that had to be transformed totally in order to be boasted about as an achievement at a later stage.

I have never denied that soccer could learn in several respects, including this one, from GAA (or rugby, for that matter). Indeed, I have always accepted and admired reports e.g. of how family-oriented GAA is.
By the same token, I have never denied the problems which soccer has had from time to time. But if we can hardly ask for "credit" for (finally) achieving a state of affairs which should always have been a "given", I'll be fcuked if we are also going to accept the continuing blind refusal of others to acknowledge that we are now putting our house in order, and especially from idiots (Baile an tuaigh) and bigots (Fearon).

Now you appear to be mentioning the achievement of inclusion.

I only mentioned "inclusion" in repsonse to people who claimed, in the face of all the evidence, that Catholics are "excluded" from soccer in NI. This is patent nonsense and would be hard enough to take at the best of times. But when it comes from adherents of a sport which, over the course of over 100 years had failed entirely to find a way of "including" one fifth of their fellow Irishmen and women, then the old phrase about "motes", "beams" and "eyes" comes to mind. Certainly, I will debate this topic openly and freely with anyone and (hopefully) will own up to our own shortcomings in that respect. But again, I'll be fcuked before I take lectures from people whose own preferred sport's record is one of abject and craven failure.

GAA folk are naturally sporting.
The participation of Nationalists in soccer may well have been a credit to their determination, desire and their unprejudiced natural sporting ability. That has been the case even in the time of the Ban and for decades before the FFA.

I must say, I find these comments curiously revealing of your state of mind. When in such a context, you assert - correctly, no doubt - that GAA folk are "naturally sporting", the clear implication is that folk who follow other sports may be less so. Really?
And then we come to the nub of an attitude which I have detected elsewhere on this Board. We all know that many NI Nationalists/RC's play soccer, yet virtually no NI Unionists/Prods do so. Why might this be?
Regarding the former, you are effectively saying that NI Nats/RC's are so open-minded that they will play soccer despite the prejudice etc which they face.
Whereas, since you would assert that there is no good reason why Unionists/Prods cannot play GAA, then the only remaining reason why they don't must be because they are essentially narrow-minded, even prejudiced. (As well, perhaps, as not being "naturally sporting"?).
Well let me put an alternative rationale to explain this. Due to its origins as a political, as well as a sporting movement, Gaelic Games adopted Rules, practices and customs etc which effectively told Unionists that they "need not apply".
Whereas, soccer being the "world" game imported from elsewhere, had none of this political baggage, and so was was less likely, certainly on a Constitutional level, to deter any group, sect or race. Which is not to say that in a divided island like Ireland, that the game could ever be totally immune to the external influences of politics and religion etc. Nonetheless, over the great majority of its 128 year history, soccer in Ireland has managed to steer a sufficiently even course so as to attract goodly representation from all communities on the island.
Or, to give an example from my own experience, when I was young, I played soccer for a number of teams. All of these were mixed as regards religion etc, and this was in an evenly mixed part of NI, where community relations were generally excellent. Before every season, we would often ask some of the GAA players in our team if they had any other GAA pals who might like to join us - they invariably made good soccer players and so were a great asset to the team.
Whereas, I don't ever recall even one instance of the GAA boys asking one of "us" to come along and give GAA a try. Now I'm not denying that many of "us" might not have wanted to, often for less than "good" reasons. Nor would I claim that this because the GAA/soccer boys were prejudiced in themselves. Rather, I have come to conclude that they just accepted, as we did, that GAA simply "wasn't for Unionsits/Prods" - nothing personal, nothing pointed, just that's the way it was (and apparently still is).
And I have to say that whilst I understand why that might have been so at the time of the foundation of the GAA, and even for many decades afterwards, for that state of affairs to continue into the 21st Century whereby e.g. a Polish immigrant or a Nigerian etc is more likely to take the field in a typical GAA game in NI, than someone from a community which has been on the island for 400 years, is frankly a disgrace to the name of "sport". Unless, of course, you think it all "our fault"... 

At the most senior level, who did Pat Jennings have to be thankful to in order to take his place in goal at WP long before the FFA did their work to silence the boo boys?

PJ didn't have to "thank" anyone, other than, perhaps, his own natural ability and absolute dedication, for his taking his place in the NI team. As for his interest in the game, he has always acknowledged that this came from his father, who was an avid NI fan, regularly bringing Pat and his brother Brian (an IL player) to Windsor from an early age.
As for the booing he received, I can only assume this was the actions of individuals early in his career (1st cap 1964), abusing a player in an exposed position (keeper) for being "a Fenian from Newry" etc, from the safety of a packed Kop. Which is not to defend or condone such despicable behaviour in any way, nor to downplay the hurt and anger he must have felt.
However, by the time of my first seeing him in 1970, I can honestly say I never heard anything other than respect, admiration and affection for Big Pat. and the fact that that he extended his career after his natural retirement from the game, purely to play for NI, plus the fact that he has since worked for the IFA (twice), is proof enough for me that such episodes are firmly in the distant past, with no possibility of returning. Besides, his own son, Patrick Junior, was proud to represent NI at junior level, when he might just as easily chosen ROI, for example.

Out of curiousity, do you have statistics about the increased participation of catholics in soccer sports since the FFA began their work.

No. And i doubt if there are any, and even iof there were, any increase could be attributed to any number of factors, such as Peace, the increasing popularity of soccer generally, or the recent success of the NI team.
But you completely misunderstand what FFA is all about if you think that it is just to get more RC's playing the game. The point of FFA is to get to the stage where no-one who is interested in the game should feel excluded by reason of religion, politics, race, disability, gender or any other circumstance. Consequently, FFA runs any number of workshops, schemes, programmes etc, including teams and leagues etc representing women and girls, Chinese, Homeless, Cerebral Palsy, Immigrants etc etc etc.
As for the Prod/RC aspect, there is work being done on this every day of the week, the length and breadth of NI, which hardly gets a mention. To take some recent examples, you might be interested in these:
http://www.irishfa.com/grassroots/football-for-all/overview/

I do believe that the Sunday ban was only recently was voted out of the IFA constitution. Even though the vast majority of fans wanted it removed, constitutional change come slow.
That was my point.

Yep, the formal lifting of the ban came exactly 50 years from the first time it was ignored entirely by the NI team, when they played in the World Cup finals in Sweden in 1958. I suppose the IFA "spotters" must have got lost that day...
Anyhow, anything else objectionable in the IFA's Constitution or Rules you feel could do with reform?
No?
Oh well, isn't it good that we've finally got to the elevated plains enjoyed e.g. by GAA, which has no political aspirations anywhere in place, nor bans on the use of its facilities, nor any issues with the naming of clubs, pitches and cups etc...

[his holiness nb]

Not sure how this moved from a vile song sung by Rangers fans to Celtic fans to criticism of the GAA, that it itself says a lot. I dont know how many times I've been told my posts have nothing to do with the title topic.

I'll stick to the title topic so.

What a despicable song to sing, absolutely vile. The more people that complain about this the better. This is the best way to get this vile behaviour into the public arena where the club will be shamed into action. If no complaints were made, you can be sure nothing would be done.

An absolute disgrace, ignoring these idiots is to allow them to continue, and more or less suggesting its acceptable behaviour.

Outright and utter bigotry and racism. And some people suggest we shouldnt even complain.
Depressing thread from start to finish.

[T Fearon]

Facts about atmosphere, ethos at North of Ireland home games

1.Atmosphere, paraphernalia etc resembles a 12th of July Field

2.Negligible catholic/nationalist suport for the team

3.Players like Darron Gibson opting to play for FAI sides

4. OWC at the forefront of the anti Maze campaign because it does not want a shared space arena

This is the truth. This team neither represents the entire community in the 6 counties nor genuinely aspires to represent the entire community. In that respect the IFA prmotes unionism first and football second and should be investigated fully by FIFA/UEFA.

Reading a great book currently about the legendary Charlie Tully. Astonished to read that this legend only received 10 IFA Caps. His brother is quoted in the book as saying "We all know what that was"

[nifan]

Recent reports from members of this site who have attended recent games would disagree that the atmosphere resembles a 12th of July field

The support of catholics/nationalists is increasing, but really people cant be made to support the team. Nationalists may support the ROI team if they feel it represents their view of an "Ireland" team. That is certainly the view of those I know who support them, not simply thsat the NI team has anything wrong with it.

Ditto gibson, with the added point about his trial being screwed with. There is plenty of counter examples of catholics in the NI team.

The maze is a solution we dont want. Your assumption as to why flys in the face of everything youve been told. I didnt want the maze, are you suggesting it is because I dont want a shared space?

In that respect the IFA prmotes unionism first and football second

idiocy