A couple of years ago I complained to the BBC after Jim Traynor defended The Famine Song, saying that those "pious" people who complained about it were dangerous. Their response (below) takes a markedly different approach to the recent response on the "sectarian singing" at the cup final, and didn't come close to apologising for backing the worst song in Scottish football. In both cases they seem to be at odds with the Scottish courts which have explicitly found the Famine Song to be racist, and The Boys of the Old Brigade NOT to be sectarian.
I have said elsewhere that I don't think The Boys of the Old Brigade should be sung, but doesn't mean that it's sectarian, and I object to words being redefined. I can believe that if someone one has led a sheltered life they could believe that "sectarian" means "anything to do with Irish politics, or the Old Firm". However, they would be wrong (regardless of what they believe the "common usage" to be - people commonly refer to Britain and England interchangably - the BBC don't think affects the constitutional position of Scotland, do they?).
Had Rob McLean said "Some Celtic supporters have been singing offensive songs" I would think it was disproportionate to mention it at that game and no other, but I couldn't have argued with the factual accuracy. Instead, they are clearly in the wrong. When you're wrong you should apologise, instead of this ridiculous wriggling.
A question - the BBC are now saying only The Boys Of The Old Brigade is sectarian, and not The Soldiers Song. They are both about the same thing, and both have add-ons. The fact they are treating the two differently, I suspect because one is the Irish national anthem and that would cause a diplomatic row. So the differentiation is for political reasons... or are they now sectarian?
Dear Mr McGuire
Thank you for your e-mail about 'Your Call With Jim Traynor'.
Firstly, I apologise for the delay in our reply. We know our correspondents
appreciate a quick response, and it is a matter of regret to us that you
have had to wait for so long on this occasion.
The producer of the programme has requested I forward the following
statement with regards to your complaint:
"Jim Traynor said that he did not know the song and that he was only
familiar with a small section of it, which he clearly said was offensive
and insensitive. The definition of what constitutes 'racist' is more often
than not a legal one. With hindsight, Jim should not have opined, on air,
as to the nature of the song, given his lack of knowledge of it.
What is unquestionable is that the song is offensive to the vast majority
of our audience. In the context of a fast-moving programme, please be
assured that Jim Traynor did not intend in any sense to offend any of his
listeners."
I hope this helps to clarify the situation however I appreciate that you
may continue to hold a different view.
I can assure you that I've registered your complaint on our audience log.
This is a daily report of audience feedback that's circulated to many BBC
staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers
and other senior managers.
Thanks for taking the trouble to contact us with your concerns.
Regards
James Kelly
BBC Complaints
__________________
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Being a walloper is not a crime.
After years of ignoring The Famine Song, knees bathing in Fenian blood, etc, Scotland seems to have had a knee-jerk reaction in the opposite direction. The supposed Sectarianism bill outlaws rudeness, while Hearts have asked fans not to bring Red Hand of Ulster flags to their stadium (they can't be arrested for possession of a flag, but can for waving it, supposedly).
I am not a waver of flags, and I don't think football stadia should be used to glorify violence of any sort. I believe that the whole concept of national football teams rather dubious, which will be looked back on in future years as one of the last vestiges of racism, but that's a subject for another time. I'm also not a libertarian who believes people should be able to get away with as much as possible. Inciting racial hatred is rightly illegal, and clubs have a right to decide what can, and can't happen in the ground, within reason. What is acceptable in the street is not necessarily acceptable in a football stadium because of the increased chances of a riot breaking out.
However even I find these recent developments concerning. Hearts fans have a right to wave the Red Hand of Ulster if they want. I know that normally they are doing to annoy, but do they really intend to remove annoyance from the game? Why ban one national flag and not another? Do they intend to announce a similar prescription on the Irish tricolour just before Celtic's next visit? To my mind it sets a very dangerous precedent. As a nation we have a sensible think about what we tolerate, and what we don't. As the supposed target of this dastardly flag-waving, I am perfectly happy to tolerate a flag of a neighbouring country being waved in my general direction. Indeed football fans of all persuasions tolerate this all the time. Even with all the rancour at the last Hearts vs Celtic game, I'd be surprised if one Celtic fan approached any kind of official and said "gonnae stop them waving that flag?". What I don't think we, or anyone else, should have to tolerate is incitement to racial or sectarian hatred, death threats, or (and I think this is possibly the most dangerous of all) the defence of these actions by influential people in the media.
The sectarianism legislation (if it can even still be refered to as such) in theory outlaws anything that the police deem to be offensive, in a football stadium or various other places. This is something of a sea-change from a position of acquiescing with blantant widespread sectarian singing in recent years. The serious stuff was already illegal, so why make trivial things illegal too? I think the answer lies more in publicity stunts than anything else. The police aren't going to arrest everyone who annoys the opposition at a football match, but giving them the power to do so is almost certain to lead to abuse of that power, either through malice, or ignorance. Someone will be arrested for singing "God Save The Queen" or "The Soldiers' Song" and it will make matters worse, not better. A bill that was supposed to tackle hatred on the internet doesn't seem to understand the internet. Those vexatiously arrested will become martyrs on their various football forums. Meanwhile those on the forum will be wanting everyone who supports of plays for their opposition to be arrested under the legislation. The ludicrous Lennon-racism allegations of last reason will played out every week with "he blessed himself coming the park! lock him up!". Or "that guy's waving a Union Jack at Lennon, why's he not locked up??".
Being a walloper shouldn't be illegal. Like adultery, it should be seen as wrong, not illegal.
While all this bill is all for show, it distracts from two more important matters:
1. The thing that really stops fans from misbehaving is serious sanctions against their club. The docking of points, or closing of stands, change mass behaviour. Punishments for individual fans don't.
2. It doesn't address why people want to misbehave. By making almost all fans potentially guilty, it muddies the waters about the actual moral arguments to do with sectarianism and racism.
I fear that next season is actually going to be worse than this year because of this legislation
I am not a waver of flags, and I don't think football stadia should be used to glorify violence of any sort. I believe that the whole concept of national football teams rather dubious, which will be looked back on in future years as one of the last vestiges of racism, but that's a subject for another time. I'm also not a libertarian who believes people should be able to get away with as much as possible. Inciting racial hatred is rightly illegal, and clubs have a right to decide what can, and can't happen in the ground, within reason. What is acceptable in the street is not necessarily acceptable in a football stadium because of the increased chances of a riot breaking out.
However even I find these recent developments concerning. Hearts fans have a right to wave the Red Hand of Ulster if they want. I know that normally they are doing to annoy, but do they really intend to remove annoyance from the game? Why ban one national flag and not another? Do they intend to announce a similar prescription on the Irish tricolour just before Celtic's next visit? To my mind it sets a very dangerous precedent. As a nation we have a sensible think about what we tolerate, and what we don't. As the supposed target of this dastardly flag-waving, I am perfectly happy to tolerate a flag of a neighbouring country being waved in my general direction. Indeed football fans of all persuasions tolerate this all the time. Even with all the rancour at the last Hearts vs Celtic game, I'd be surprised if one Celtic fan approached any kind of official and said "gonnae stop them waving that flag?". What I don't think we, or anyone else, should have to tolerate is incitement to racial or sectarian hatred, death threats, or (and I think this is possibly the most dangerous of all) the defence of these actions by influential people in the media.
The sectarianism legislation (if it can even still be refered to as such) in theory outlaws anything that the police deem to be offensive, in a football stadium or various other places. This is something of a sea-change from a position of acquiescing with blantant widespread sectarian singing in recent years. The serious stuff was already illegal, so why make trivial things illegal too? I think the answer lies more in publicity stunts than anything else. The police aren't going to arrest everyone who annoys the opposition at a football match, but giving them the power to do so is almost certain to lead to abuse of that power, either through malice, or ignorance. Someone will be arrested for singing "God Save The Queen" or "The Soldiers' Song" and it will make matters worse, not better. A bill that was supposed to tackle hatred on the internet doesn't seem to understand the internet. Those vexatiously arrested will become martyrs on their various football forums. Meanwhile those on the forum will be wanting everyone who supports of plays for their opposition to be arrested under the legislation. The ludicrous Lennon-racism allegations of last reason will played out every week with "he blessed himself coming the park! lock him up!". Or "that guy's waving a Union Jack at Lennon, why's he not locked up??".
Being a walloper shouldn't be illegal. Like adultery, it should be seen as wrong, not illegal.
While all this bill is all for show, it distracts from two more important matters:
1. The thing that really stops fans from misbehaving is serious sanctions against their club. The docking of points, or closing of stands, change mass behaviour. Punishments for individual fans don't.
2. It doesn't address why people want to misbehave. By making almost all fans potentially guilty, it muddies the waters about the actual moral arguments to do with sectarianism and racism.
I fear that next season is actually going to be worse than this year because of this legislation
Monday, 23 May 2011
Refereeing stats
When @fitzpas posted the stats below, I got a bit excited about them, partly as they matched my worldview
However, when I thought more about it, I'm not sure it was really reliable. Both the graphs are related to the number of red cards, and the number of red cards in each case is a very small number. Two more sendings off would entirely change the nature of the graph. The sample size for sendings off is too small to be conclusive - it might be a sign that refs are going easy on Rangers, or it might be a statistical anomaly.
So I decided to process the data from the year before to see if stood up to scrutiny. Also added some new metrics, for example for each team i also processed data for the team playing against that team. So Celtic's opponents are the all the other teams in the league, but just in their games against Celtic. I also added stats for all home teams and all away teams, and, because the rest of Scotland go on about it, the combined stats for the "old firm" and their opponents.
Here's a league table sorted by fouls per red card
the first thing to point out is that Falkirk had no sendings off, so though I artificially made it 1000 to keep my spreadsheet happy, technically their rating is "infinity". In general, the stats are all over the place. It takes Aberdeen 47 fouls to get a sending off, and Hamilton
507. If referees were 10 times stricter with Aberdeen than Hamilton, we would know about it.
So I think this stat has little practical value. The only possible exceptions are that home teams have to do a lot more fouling to get a man sent off than away teams. This can be backed up because cumulatively there is a lot more data to back that up. To a lesser extent you could argue that there is no evidence that the old firm combined are treated more leniently than their opponents, as there is quite a lot of data for that too.
here's the league table sorted by Yellows Per Red. Again, Falkirk have infinity, and the other results are similar to the previous table, so I'm not going to go in to that in detail.
Now on to Fouls per Yellow
the advantages of this sorting is that there are a lot more yellows than reds, so there is enough data to suggest that it might be reliable. One thing I would point out is that Celtic's opponents can commit over 10 fouls before it leads to a bookings. With Rangers' opponents that is cut by a third. The stats for Celtic and Rangers are similar to each other, but the way their opponents are treated are significantly different. People were also slow to get booked in Motherwell; both Motherwell and their opponents. The home team are slightly favoured over the away team, and Aberdeen are not treated particularly well (though there opponents are treated in a neutral way).
The strength of this measure is the amount of data available in one year, but the downside is it has less impact on the outcome of the game. The number of sendings off would be more significant, but you would have to process about 10 years of data to make it reliable, which I haven't done.
However, when I thought more about it, I'm not sure it was really reliable. Both the graphs are related to the number of red cards, and the number of red cards in each case is a very small number. Two more sendings off would entirely change the nature of the graph. The sample size for sendings off is too small to be conclusive - it might be a sign that refs are going easy on Rangers, or it might be a statistical anomaly.
So I decided to process the data from the year before to see if stood up to scrutiny. Also added some new metrics, for example for each team i also processed data for the team playing against that team. So Celtic's opponents are the all the other teams in the league, but just in their games against Celtic. I also added stats for all home teams and all away teams, and, because the rest of Scotland go on about it, the combined stats for the "old firm" and their opponents.
Here's a league table sorted by fouls per red card
the first thing to point out is that Falkirk had no sendings off, so though I artificially made it 1000 to keep my spreadsheet happy, technically their rating is "infinity". In general, the stats are all over the place. It takes Aberdeen 47 fouls to get a sending off, and Hamilton
507. If referees were 10 times stricter with Aberdeen than Hamilton, we would know about it.
So I think this stat has little practical value. The only possible exceptions are that home teams have to do a lot more fouling to get a man sent off than away teams. This can be backed up because cumulatively there is a lot more data to back that up. To a lesser extent you could argue that there is no evidence that the old firm combined are treated more leniently than their opponents, as there is quite a lot of data for that too.
here's the league table sorted by Yellows Per Red. Again, Falkirk have infinity, and the other results are similar to the previous table, so I'm not going to go in to that in detail.
Now on to Fouls per Yellow
the advantages of this sorting is that there are a lot more yellows than reds, so there is enough data to suggest that it might be reliable. One thing I would point out is that Celtic's opponents can commit over 10 fouls before it leads to a bookings. With Rangers' opponents that is cut by a third. The stats for Celtic and Rangers are similar to each other, but the way their opponents are treated are significantly different. People were also slow to get booked in Motherwell; both Motherwell and their opponents. The home team are slightly favoured over the away team, and Aberdeen are not treated particularly well (though there opponents are treated in a neutral way).
The strength of this measure is the amount of data available in one year, but the downside is it has less impact on the outcome of the game. The number of sendings off would be more significant, but you would have to process about 10 years of data to make it reliable, which I haven't done.
Friday, 20 May 2011
Neil Lennon, racism, and me
Back in March, the BBC ran this story in the aftermath of "that" Celtic-Rangers game http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12659077 along with front page headlines in many papers. It seemed odd to me that the police would publicise unsubstantiated allegations in this way, especially when the defendant was the victim of death threats. This case seemed particularly odd as the complainants had already published their "evidence" on youtube and it was clearly farcical. Maybe this level of exposure was normal; I'm not a media person or a police spokesman.
Around the same time, the RST were given the freedom of the BBC to speculate as to what other crimes Neil Lennon may have committed when no-one was looking. This monologue was only interrupted when Paul McBride joined the programme and pointed out that the man they were impugning was at the centre of death threats (this was before they were known to be "viable") and that maybe that should be given some attention. The latest batch of suspect devices had hardly merited a mention in the media, and I was told this was because it had happened before and it was old news.
The media did at least report that Diouf was distancing himself from the allegations of racism, but there the matter was left. There was no follow up to say whether the Celtic manager was guilty or not, and no statement from the police as to the results of their much heralded investigation.
(Lest my interest be considered too partisan, I think the same is true of Steve Jennings of Motherwell who denied allegations of betting fraud. Those allegations were widely reported on and then forgotten without his name being cleared. I don't know what organisation is responsible for that investigation, so i don't know who should be pestered).
Months later the Lennon racism situation had still not been cleared up and various internet "facts" and grown in the vacuum, such as if Celtic didn't sack Lennon, Rangers were going to produce proof he wasn't born in Hawaii. So I approached a few journalists on twitter asking about that and the Jennings case, but got nowhere. Eventually I contacted police spokesman and pillar of the establishment Rob Shorthouse, who was very helpful and looked into it for me and then released a statement to the press. Hence the story in today's Daily Record (which I'm not going to link you to as it's still the Daily Record) clearing up that Lennon was not guilty of racially abusing Diouf. I know we all knew that but, I think it's important to have the police put it to bed.
Here are some quotes from the article:
Strathclyde Police: "The matter was investigated and reported to the fiscal. The file was returned marked 'no proceedings' due to a lack of evidence."
Paul McBride QC [PMQC]: "This has been a waste of time and money. The alleged victim didn't even make a complaint"
Sources close to Diouf branded the claims "nonsense".
Around the same time, the RST were given the freedom of the BBC to speculate as to what other crimes Neil Lennon may have committed when no-one was looking. This monologue was only interrupted when Paul McBride joined the programme and pointed out that the man they were impugning was at the centre of death threats (this was before they were known to be "viable") and that maybe that should be given some attention. The latest batch of suspect devices had hardly merited a mention in the media, and I was told this was because it had happened before and it was old news.
The media did at least report that Diouf was distancing himself from the allegations of racism, but there the matter was left. There was no follow up to say whether the Celtic manager was guilty or not, and no statement from the police as to the results of their much heralded investigation.
(Lest my interest be considered too partisan, I think the same is true of Steve Jennings of Motherwell who denied allegations of betting fraud. Those allegations were widely reported on and then forgotten without his name being cleared. I don't know what organisation is responsible for that investigation, so i don't know who should be pestered).
Months later the Lennon racism situation had still not been cleared up and various internet "facts" and grown in the vacuum, such as if Celtic didn't sack Lennon, Rangers were going to produce proof he wasn't born in Hawaii. So I approached a few journalists on twitter asking about that and the Jennings case, but got nowhere. Eventually I contacted police spokesman and pillar of the establishment Rob Shorthouse, who was very helpful and looked into it for me and then released a statement to the press. Hence the story in today's Daily Record (which I'm not going to link you to as it's still the Daily Record) clearing up that Lennon was not guilty of racially abusing Diouf. I know we all knew that but, I think it's important to have the police put it to bed.
Here are some quotes from the article:
Strathclyde Police: "The matter was investigated and reported to the fiscal. The file was returned marked 'no proceedings' due to a lack of evidence."
Paul McBride QC [PMQC]: "This has been a waste of time and money. The alleged victim didn't even make a complaint"
Sources close to Diouf branded the claims "nonsense".
Friday, 13 May 2011
Why does Neil Lennon attract more trouble than Martin O'Neill?
Both are from Northern Ireland. Both are from a Catholic background. Both managed Celtic. So why does Neil Lennon get it in the neck more than Martin O'Neill did, or indeed Anton Rogan did?
Those abusing Neil Lennon most often cite his abrasive nature. Certainly, he's not a shrinking violet. He was more of an abrasive player than Jackie McNamara or Shaun Maloney. However, he was certainly no more abrasive than say Robbie Savage, Dennis Wise, or Darren Jackson. Not to mention Diouf, McCullouch, and Novo. I can't think of a player that was seriously injured by Lennon during his playing career. In his managerial career he has sometimes been outspoken. Again, is this any more the case than with Ferguson, Wenger, or Mourinho? Smith? I think not. He is occasionally abrasive but not unusually so. Not enough to attract the kind of vitriol he does at matches, never mind the death threats.
I suspect that the main reason Lennon and O'Neill are treated differently is that Lennon played for Celtic and Northern Ireland at the same time. Lennon was booed by Northern Ireland fans, and then Hearts fans decided to follow suit partly out of their own bigotry, and partly out of a childish desire to boo along as if they were at a pantomime. Soon almost every team in Scotland were booing a man they hadn't booed before, and who hadn't been booed in his time in England. It's harder to randomly single out a manager (do you boo a substitution?) but there was also never the catalyst of O'Neill being booed at Windsor park because he never played for Celtic. Football is often blighted by copycat crimes; when there is one pitch invasion, there is often another the next week. coin-throwing begets coin-throwing, laser pens beget laser pens. The whole Lennophobia campaign started out as an anti-Catholic anti-Celtic anti-Irish copycat "lark".
The other main difference between O'Neill and Lennon is that Lennon is more defiant in the face of bigotry than O'Neill was. But only slightly. Many people in Scotland think that when Lennon is abused he should put his head down and walk away in order to keep the public peace. By challenging fans who rain abuse on his, he is seen as throwing oil on the fire. While Martin O'Neill didn't tackle these things head on as often (possibly because he wasn't faced with them as often), he wasn't entirely meek in the face of confrontation. In 2004 he marched Neil Lennon himself over to the Celtic fans at Ibrox after "sectarian and racist abuse" and lambasted for it by many in the Scottish media. (You can read Jim Traynor's response here; http://kerrydalestreet.co.uk/topic/8213827/48/). The " irrepressible Taig" as Roddy Forsyth refers to it in his criticism of the Scottish bigot's mindset is unacceptable to many in Scotland and when anyone shows defiance to their world view the victim becomes the cause.
So, why was Anton Rogan not treated the same way as Lennon? He was booed by Northern Ireland fans, but this didn't really spread. Partly, this is because Anton Rogan wasn't as good. Beyond that though, they played in different eras. Partly this is because Lennon played in at a time when the newspapers were in the habit of inventing bogeymen and then telling us all to hate them. Or in Jade Goody's case, hatethemthenlovethemthenhatethemthenlovethem. more importantly, though Neil Lennon played and managed in an era where internet forums were used to whip up hatred, and in recent times have come to be seen as mainstream. Do you remember the first time you looked at followfollow? I don't really go in for football forums; there's too much reading through "we should play a 3-2-3-1-7 formation and sign Drogba and play him in the hole" nonsense. When I was first pointed towards followfollow i was genuinely gobsmacked. There were phases of shock, amusement and disgust, but above all bewilderment. It didn't seem to reflect the country I lived in. While Rangers always seemed to have a sectarian basis the rest of Scottish society didn't. I was called a fenian in the street before I knew what one was, but in terms of bigotry that actually held me back in life I can only think of one incident in a golf club, which was soon fixed when we complained. I played football with Rangers supporters; I worked with Rangers supporters; I was friends with Rangers supporters - hardly any of whom exhibited any sign of extremism. Followfollow was awash with delusional hatred and death threats. It was, however, surely the lunatic fringe of Rangers supporters.
Nowadays FollowFollow and similar organisations are courted by the media. They are invited on the radio, and many opinion pieces in newspapers look as though they have FollowFollow as the target market. Extremism has become mainstream and legitimatised. It's against this backdrop that Lennon is different from Rogan. The hatred and fear of Lennon has been whipped up by sections of the media as well as fans groups to the extent that when a man is sent bombs in the post or assaulted on the sideline thousands celebrate. Openly.
The question is not really about how Lennon is different from anyone, but how we are different from a civilised society.
Those abusing Neil Lennon most often cite his abrasive nature. Certainly, he's not a shrinking violet. He was more of an abrasive player than Jackie McNamara or Shaun Maloney. However, he was certainly no more abrasive than say Robbie Savage, Dennis Wise, or Darren Jackson. Not to mention Diouf, McCullouch, and Novo. I can't think of a player that was seriously injured by Lennon during his playing career. In his managerial career he has sometimes been outspoken. Again, is this any more the case than with Ferguson, Wenger, or Mourinho? Smith? I think not. He is occasionally abrasive but not unusually so. Not enough to attract the kind of vitriol he does at matches, never mind the death threats.
I suspect that the main reason Lennon and O'Neill are treated differently is that Lennon played for Celtic and Northern Ireland at the same time. Lennon was booed by Northern Ireland fans, and then Hearts fans decided to follow suit partly out of their own bigotry, and partly out of a childish desire to boo along as if they were at a pantomime. Soon almost every team in Scotland were booing a man they hadn't booed before, and who hadn't been booed in his time in England. It's harder to randomly single out a manager (do you boo a substitution?) but there was also never the catalyst of O'Neill being booed at Windsor park because he never played for Celtic. Football is often blighted by copycat crimes; when there is one pitch invasion, there is often another the next week. coin-throwing begets coin-throwing, laser pens beget laser pens. The whole Lennophobia campaign started out as an anti-Catholic anti-Celtic anti-Irish copycat "lark".
The other main difference between O'Neill and Lennon is that Lennon is more defiant in the face of bigotry than O'Neill was. But only slightly. Many people in Scotland think that when Lennon is abused he should put his head down and walk away in order to keep the public peace. By challenging fans who rain abuse on his, he is seen as throwing oil on the fire. While Martin O'Neill didn't tackle these things head on as often (possibly because he wasn't faced with them as often), he wasn't entirely meek in the face of confrontation. In 2004 he marched Neil Lennon himself over to the Celtic fans at Ibrox after "sectarian and racist abuse" and lambasted for it by many in the Scottish media. (You can read Jim Traynor's response here; http://kerrydalestreet.co.uk/topic/8213827/48/). The " irrepressible Taig" as Roddy Forsyth refers to it in his criticism of the Scottish bigot's mindset is unacceptable to many in Scotland and when anyone shows defiance to their world view the victim becomes the cause.
So, why was Anton Rogan not treated the same way as Lennon? He was booed by Northern Ireland fans, but this didn't really spread. Partly, this is because Anton Rogan wasn't as good. Beyond that though, they played in different eras. Partly this is because Lennon played in at a time when the newspapers were in the habit of inventing bogeymen and then telling us all to hate them. Or in Jade Goody's case, hatethemthenlovethemthenhatethemthenlovethem. more importantly, though Neil Lennon played and managed in an era where internet forums were used to whip up hatred, and in recent times have come to be seen as mainstream. Do you remember the first time you looked at followfollow? I don't really go in for football forums; there's too much reading through "we should play a 3-2-3-1-7 formation and sign Drogba and play him in the hole" nonsense. When I was first pointed towards followfollow i was genuinely gobsmacked. There were phases of shock, amusement and disgust, but above all bewilderment. It didn't seem to reflect the country I lived in. While Rangers always seemed to have a sectarian basis the rest of Scottish society didn't. I was called a fenian in the street before I knew what one was, but in terms of bigotry that actually held me back in life I can only think of one incident in a golf club, which was soon fixed when we complained. I played football with Rangers supporters; I worked with Rangers supporters; I was friends with Rangers supporters - hardly any of whom exhibited any sign of extremism. Followfollow was awash with delusional hatred and death threats. It was, however, surely the lunatic fringe of Rangers supporters.
Nowadays FollowFollow and similar organisations are courted by the media. They are invited on the radio, and many opinion pieces in newspapers look as though they have FollowFollow as the target market. Extremism has become mainstream and legitimatised. It's against this backdrop that Lennon is different from Rogan. The hatred and fear of Lennon has been whipped up by sections of the media as well as fans groups to the extent that when a man is sent bombs in the post or assaulted on the sideline thousands celebrate. Openly.
The question is not really about how Lennon is different from anyone, but how we are different from a civilised society.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Football's just a branch of science
Written over a year ago, before DougieDougie etc...
In reaction to Celtic's dossier of dodgy refereeing decisions, I've
seen a few people recently say "any team could come up with a list of
decisions that have gone against their team". This led to me thinking
"Well, could they? if they could, would all the lists be equally
compelling?". It's easy to list anecdotal evidence from far-off cup
finals, but is there any way to make it more scientific?
I think there could be, but it would require a TV station to
orchestrate some scientific endeavour. Here is my experiment.
The TV company approach the most popular fans website for each SPL
team. They ask them to nominate incidents from this season's SPL where
they think that their team has been hard-done-by. let's say 20 per
team. how they decide on the 20 is up to them (an internet vote might
be hijacked by other teams, for example).
We now need to have these incidents evaluated by bona fide neutrals.
I'm going to assume that no-one in Scotland is neutral, not even Chick
Young.
So, the TV company go to mainland Europe and get people to rate them
for outrageousness. 0 being "the referee was absolutely right", 10
being "that goal in a Watford game that was well past the post". The
volunteer is shown a clip at random, and asked to rate it. this is
repeated till they get fed up. If a Falkirk incident against Hibs is
given a 10, Falkirk are given 10 points, and Hibs lose 10. each have
their "incidents voted on" increased by one.
after lots and lots of ratings, each team's average number of points
per incidents voted on is put in to a league table. those at the top
are the teams most sinned against, and those at the bottom, those most
favoured.
for people to do the rating, I would think people at five-a-side
centres would do, but if you want to increase the newsworthiness,
maybe people taking UEFA coaching classes would be better. but less
likely to volunteer, perhaps. foreign referees would probably still
back the referee, but having them as a different sample might be
interesting too.
this would of course involve people in said TV company going on a trip
to europe, but i don't think that should be a problem, somehow.
The results would lead to lots of discussion and hits on the relevant
website i'm sure, and would actually add to the sum of human
knowledge.
in short, it would be a bit like hotornot.com for refereeing
decisions. dallasorgallus if you will.
Until some sort of scientific measurement is attempted by the media,
the words "paranoia" and "conspiracy theory" should be stricken from
lexicon.
In reaction to Celtic's dossier of dodgy refereeing decisions, I've
seen a few people recently say "any team could come up with a list of
decisions that have gone against their team". This led to me thinking
"Well, could they? if they could, would all the lists be equally
compelling?". It's easy to list anecdotal evidence from far-off cup
finals, but is there any way to make it more scientific?
I think there could be, but it would require a TV station to
orchestrate some scientific endeavour. Here is my experiment.
The TV company approach the most popular fans website for each SPL
team. They ask them to nominate incidents from this season's SPL where
they think that their team has been hard-done-by. let's say 20 per
team. how they decide on the 20 is up to them (an internet vote might
be hijacked by other teams, for example).
We now need to have these incidents evaluated by bona fide neutrals.
I'm going to assume that no-one in Scotland is neutral, not even Chick
Young.
So, the TV company go to mainland Europe and get people to rate them
for outrageousness. 0 being "the referee was absolutely right", 10
being "that goal in a Watford game that was well past the post". The
volunteer is shown a clip at random, and asked to rate it. this is
repeated till they get fed up. If a Falkirk incident against Hibs is
given a 10, Falkirk are given 10 points, and Hibs lose 10. each have
their "incidents voted on" increased by one.
after lots and lots of ratings, each team's average number of points
per incidents voted on is put in to a league table. those at the top
are the teams most sinned against, and those at the bottom, those most
favoured.
for people to do the rating, I would think people at five-a-side
centres would do, but if you want to increase the newsworthiness,
maybe people taking UEFA coaching classes would be better. but less
likely to volunteer, perhaps. foreign referees would probably still
back the referee, but having them as a different sample might be
interesting too.
this would of course involve people in said TV company going on a trip
to europe, but i don't think that should be a problem, somehow.
The results would lead to lots of discussion and hits on the relevant
website i'm sure, and would actually add to the sum of human
knowledge.
in short, it would be a bit like hotornot.com for refereeing
decisions. dallasorgallus if you will.
Until some sort of scientific measurement is attempted by the media,
the words "paranoia" and "conspiracy theory" should be stricken from
lexicon.
A reluctant football blog
I love football - it's the best game to watch, and I would (and will) go mad if I couldn't play it. I'm not really that keen on talking about it though. Almost everything interesting to say about formations etc, I have said by the age of 22. And to talk about football I have to pretend to give credence to other people's opinions on football, which is rarely the case. If I was living in France and a fan of PSG or whoever I don't think I would ever feel the need to write about it.
For that reason I'm not on any football forums (fora, in case John Bollan is reading this). Only when DougieDougiegate took off on twitter did I become active because it seemed more like campaigning that just opinions. (Sometimes too campaigny - sometimes permacampaigny). Football never makes me angry, really. I'm a Celtic fan, but when Celtic lose the league on the last day of the season makes me a bit grumpy, but doesn't necessarily ruin my day. I'm 36 and have never been booked. I'm by no means a firebrand. The things that do make angry and bias to do with Celtic, Rangers and religion, from fans, media, referees, and wider officialdom.
So, when i feel forced to write something here, it's likely to be on those topics, and not the photography stuff that went before, and proved rather fruitless
For that reason I'm not on any football forums (fora, in case John Bollan is reading this). Only when DougieDougiegate took off on twitter did I become active because it seemed more like campaigning that just opinions. (Sometimes too campaigny - sometimes permacampaigny). Football never makes me angry, really. I'm a Celtic fan, but when Celtic lose the league on the last day of the season makes me a bit grumpy, but doesn't necessarily ruin my day. I'm 36 and have never been booked. I'm by no means a firebrand. The things that do make angry and bias to do with Celtic, Rangers and religion, from fans, media, referees, and wider officialdom.
So, when i feel forced to write something here, it's likely to be on those topics, and not the photography stuff that went before, and proved rather fruitless
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