Friday saw the passing of one of the game's greats. A man generally regarded, irrespective of partisan bias as one of the most precocious talents ever to grace a football field. The decision was quickly made to honour Best with a minutes silence at every league game up and down the country played this weekend. Some decided to use the minute to applaud the great man.
So, thank you very much to the supporters of Leeds United, Liverpool and Manchester City who decided to honour the passing of a true great with abuse and disrespect as they failed to observe the minutes silence.
I'd denounce this behaviour by anyone. If my fellow Manchester United supporters did the same thing, I'd write a piece here saying how objectionable and distasteful I find that action. And I hope all Leeds, Liverpool and City fans out there feel the same way.
So, thankyou to Kevin Blackwell, Rafa Benitez and Stuart Pearce for having the balls to come out and criticise (admittedly a minority of) their own fans. And perhaps, one day, clubs will decide to ban these pathetic excuses for human beings who haven't even the capacity for dignifying the memory of a true football legend.
Yes, it was a minority. But, as Kevin Blackwell rightly said, it is time to stand up to this cretinous minority. In the name of a civil society I'd love to go even further and kick these bastards out of the game for good.
8 comments:
I kind of agree with what they were talking about on Match of the Day - it should be a minutes applause and not silence.
I can't remember where or when it was but I distinctly remember someone in the crowd near to where I was standing making a noise during a minutes silence once.
The person was silenced by a shout from within the crowd..."Shut up - you are disgracing the club."
I wholeheartedly agree with you & I genuinely deplore the actions of some of my clubs "supporters".
That said, wasn't the reverse true when Billy Bremner died?
Manchester United are not excempt from having fuckwits in the crowd.
...That was precisely the point I was trying to make! Read it again - I was saying that there is no place for this type of behaviour in football irrespective of who it is, our fans included.
Why don't we just all condemn these imbeciles, not enter into a "well your lot did it as well" slagfest?
frankly I think a minute's silence is asking for trouble. Who here can deny that in these situations you often have the overwhelming urge to cough, or something? I'm not defending what these idiots did, but I think the whole concept is flawed, and has been weakened over the years by all the silences we have for any cause, large or small (as we've discussed here before). The players seem to be wearing black armbands at pretty much every game.
Whilst I'm not disputing that George Best was a brilliant player and was worthy of some show of respect before this week's round of games, who is it that decides who gets them? What gives them the authority? Which players merit one and which players don't? What about the ones for non-footballers? We had one for Kenneth Bigley a few month's ago. Horrible way to die, no question, but worthy of silence at a football match? Hmmm. Not sure about that.
I'm not sure a minute's noise is the answer either. I liked it for John Peel, but does the idea stretch? Seems a bit forced.
Yes, those people are morons, but I think we should look at the concept as well.
ST.
As ever, Swiss manages to put my erratic thoughts into some sort of sense.
We had a minutes silence once for a previous chairmans (who had died in the 60's) daughter who died when she was in her 80's.
The minutes silence on the anniversary of Cloughies death was destroyed in the Upper Trent by phone's ringing and message alerts going off.
I much favour the new idea of a minutes applause - lets drown out the morons.
There were no City fans disrupting the silence - it was a just a handful of Scousers who started to sing "We are the Champions" 20 seconds into the silence and some City fans tried to get them to shut up, thus making it worse unfortunately.
It reminded me of moronic kids in cinemas who spoil it for everyone by making noise, but sadly football has its fair share of morons.
Lord B has asked me to tell you that our previous discussion on holding a minute's silence is here
Where are the media to lambast those people who don't buy a poppy or observe the remebrance day silence?
The media are silent on this themselves, and yet a footballer dies, a man who played a game, and they dish out their self-righteous nonsense.
Yes, those not wanting the minute's silence should have stayed in the bar until it was over, but this Dianafication of public grief is really stomach churning.
The silences should be kept relevant to the clubs concerned, and not become some kind of nationwide weep-fest. There were enough avenues for those wanting to respect Best & to "honour" him in his death without imposing a nationwide silence that was obviously going to be disrupted by the tossers of the world.
Personally, I don't see the point of silences anyhow. I think it would have been better to ask people to donate to some charities the Best family requested rather than spend thousands on flowers.
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