I heard nothing and if it hadn't been for the Cas' fans there'd have been no crowd and no atmosphere.
Why didn't Mr Negativity, instead of moaning, choose to praise the magnificent travelling Cas' support on a day when the M62 was like Ice Station Zebra ?
Andy Wilson is a member of rl fans as his post on here a week or so ago asking us to read his bile online. I wonder why he isnt defending his hatred of Cas on here ..................
I have no view on if this particular bloke is right or not, but I expect to get abuse for this post – but it is a free country:
I actually do have a problem taking my wee boy to our games and particularly at away games where there is no getting away from the particular brand of chanting in question. I have never been to an away event where we have not chanted something incorporating F-Bombs and B-stards at least - ever in a lot of years. Now, I do swear, that is a fact, but I do moderate my language for the lowest common denominator around me. Now an outburst of a person in the heat of the moment is different to a significant group of people chanting - we all have the odd outburst.
Oddly recently I attended a couple of football matches and although the noise was greater and the atmosphere more hostile, there was not the systematic swear chants, the language was moderated, but it didn’t detract from the spectacle. There was liberal use of the word scum, which though unpleasant isn’t the worst. I actually feel like we are about 5 years behind the curve on the trend of behaviour change. It is not a tennis match of insulting chanting and abuse particularly anymore, it is a sporting event for families. Hence "you don't know what you're doing" for bad ref calls replaced our fans favourite of "w@nk3r, "w@nk3r, "w@nk3r, "w@nk3r, "w@nk3r, w@nk3r, " or on other sports the old questioning the parentage of the one in the black chant.
I actually think that we have a reputation that we have earned, our support though vociferous, and I am a working class man from a working class family and I appreciate that people swear, I actually DO think that in order to change how people treat and view you, you have to start with yourself and thinking about ALL the people who can hear what is being shouted before you shout it should give you a clue as to if it is appropriate or not? It is too easy to say that the idea of support is just that, not to deride, insult and generally degrade. Only my opinion of course, but if we are going to change, evolve and develop, maybe we all have to consider that?
If we are going to be honest then I think that it's only fair that we recognise that offensive and lewd chanting goes on at every rugby ground. Cas do appear to be bearing the brunt of some sort of moral crusade at the moment, but it this does not detract from the fact that it is happening and we either change what is sung or accept the criticism. It is worth noting also, I think, that these sort of offensive chants are something most people have done, but grow out of. I would much rather hear songs in support of my team than go on about the opposition or the referee (would you change your mind and give someone the benefit of the doubt if they were abusing you!?!?). At the moment a certain section of cas fans do seem to be undermining the reputation we have amongst fans of other teams.
If we are going to be honest then I think that it's only fair that we recognise that offensive and lewd chanting goes on at every rugby ground. Cas do appear to be bearing the brunt of some sort of moral crusade at the moment, but it this does not detract from the fact that it is happening and we either change what is sung or accept the criticism. It is worth noting also, I think, that these sort of offensive chants are something most people have done, but grow out of. I would much rather hear songs in support of my team than go on about the opposition or the referee (would you change your mind and give someone the benefit of the doubt if they were abusing you!?!?). At the moment a certain section of cas fans do seem to be undermining the reputation we have amongst fans of other teams.
I agree with you and your view seems balanced one of course, but I think there are a couple of things that are definitely worth noting in general.
1: To change anything and especially opinion, you have got to start with yourself. So the supposition that others do it is relevant, but in order to make things better and to make a serious change - start with yourself and take care of your own business, that’s all you can do.
2: I thought about the grow out of it thing and almost typed that myself. But I think perhaps we are similar ages and it just seems that way - If you are between 28 and 40, then it could seem that we grew out of these chants, but actually I think as well as that happening, society changed as well, so it is no longer acceptable in society and we have to catch up, I think if you are of a certain age it felt like we were growing up, but society did while that was happening.
We would not be bearing any brunt, if it didn’t happen? I remember those around me at the football when I was a kid making monkey noises at John Barnes, even though there were black people in my own team? Didn't make it right and abusive chanting and swearing is no more acceptable in public like that than racism. I didn't do it then, none of the people I went with did and I wouldn’t do it now.
I agree with you and your view seems balanced one of course, but I think there are a couple of things that are definitely worth noting in general.
1: To change anything and especially opinion, you have got to start with yourself. So the supposition that others do it is relevant, but in order to make things better and to make a serious change - start with yourself and take care of your own business, that’s all you can do.
2: I thought about the grow out of it thing and almost typed that myself. But I think perhaps we are similar ages and it just seems that way - If you are between 28 and 40, then it could seem that we grew out of these chants, but actually I think as well as that happening, society changed as well, so it is no longer acceptable in society and we have to catch up, I think if you are of a certain age it felt like we were growing up, but society did while that was happening.
We would not be bearing any brunt, if it didn’t happen? I remember those around me at the football when I was a kid making monkey noises at John Barnes, even though there were black people in my own team? Didn't make it right and abusive chanting and swearing is no more acceptable in public like that than racism. I didn't do it then, none of the people I went with did and I wouldn’t do it now.
Interesting stuff.
I think I'm probably a similar age to you and one thing I remember distinctly from being a youngster was that communities tended to be more self-policing; adults would readily tell kids they weren't associated with to mind their language for example, so in the setting you're discussing, if a group of youths were swearing at a rugby match, there'd be no shortage of adults telling them to button it - and in my circle at least, we generally did moderate our behaviour when adults intervened, through a mixture of fear (clip round the ear, telling your Dad etc) and respect.
Thesedays, it seems there's a reluctance to intervene when people behave anti-socially - perhaps it down to a fear of reprisals? The media has convinced us all that if we look sideways at a young person for example, we'll either be stabbed or accused of being a paedophile. There also seems to be a kind of 'stare straight ahead and ignore it' approach to a lot of this type of behaviour, perhaps born out at least in part by the fact that communities tend not to exist in the way they did in days gone by; many of us don't see or speak to our neighbours from one week to the next, we tend to work with people who travel from all over the place and we don't shop or drink with these people, as our high streets and boozers are shutting down. As a result, maybe we just don't care about each other in the way we used to?
Either way, I think you're absolutely right when you say that any resolution to these problems begins with your own behaviour - I'd also suggest that specifically in RL terms, we all have an additional responsibility to point out to our sweary/offensive fellow fans that it's not really acceptable; if everyone did that, peer pressure would eventually bring about a change of culture.
I think I'm probably a similar age to you and one thing I remember distinctly from being a youngster was that communities tended to be more self-policing; adults would readily tell kids they weren't associated with to mind their language for example, so in the setting you're discussing, if a group of youths were swearing at a rugby match, there'd be no shortage of adults telling them to button it - and in my circle at least, we generally did moderate our behaviour when adults intervened, through a mixture of fear (clip round the ear, telling your Dad etc) and respect.
Thesedays, it seems there's a reluctance to intervene when people behave anti-socially - perhaps it down to a fear of reprisals? The media has convinced us all that if we look sideways at a young person for example, we'll either be stabbed or accused of being a paedophile. There also seems to be a kind of 'stare straight ahead and ignore it' approach to a lot of this type of behaviour, perhaps born out at least in part by the fact that communities tend not to exist in the way they did in days gone by; many of us don't see or speak to our neighbours from one week to the next, we tend to work with people who travel from all over the place and we don't shop or drink with these people, as our high streets and boozers are shutting down. As a result, maybe we just don't care about each other in the way we used to?
Either way, I think you're absolutely right when you say that any resolution to these problems begins with your own behaviour - I'd also suggest that specifically in RL terms, we all have an additional responsibility to point out to our sweary/offensive fellow fans that it's not really acceptable; if everyone did that, peer pressure would eventually bring about a change of culture.
Agree entirely with just about every word, society has changed while we have been growing up. I genuinely cannot see a scenario where people will reprimand each other, there are too many people who think the answer is to prove their manhood and get into a penis measuring competition.
Only my view that the only way to make a lasting chnage to improve matters for everyone is with yourself.
"fun time frankie" that is great news, I am not particularly talking about bother because thankfully I dont think it is a big issue in our sport - but offensive chanting is, whether we like it or not for a lot of clubs - Including our own and given we did have a judgement against us for past misdemeanors, we are going to be looked at more closely.
I am more shocked that a balanced adult discussion has broken out - it wont last.
Not to do with Gareth Thomas but the idiots who had a pop at him for his sexuality.
A group of lads were chanting things along these lines at our friendly a few weeks back. As your team were walking back after scoring they were chanting something like "Gay in the team, we have a gay in our team..." Some of the players heard this and looked up at them, they didn't seem very impressed. There's always some spoiling it for the rest, I found everyone else to be spot on.
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