Victory
Posted on November 17, 2010 11:33 am
Remembrance Sunday is a solemn occasion in the United Kingdom.
Roughly analogous to Memorial Day in the US, it’s observed on the Sunday closest to November 11, the day we over here observe as Veterans Day, which was originally Armistice Day, marking the end of the insane carnage that was WWI.
Most British teams wear an embroidered poppy on their shirts that day, representative of the line from the famous poem (written by a Canadian, actually, a Major who had just buried his best friend on the battlefield) that says “On Flanders fields where poppies blow”*, with the little red flowers representing the over one million UK men who brainless, incompetent and idiotic British Generals callously fed into German machine guns in the First World War.
All across the nation, people observe a full minute of silence, in this case including the players on the pitch.
Little Scottish second division club Airdrie United always proudly participates and this year, seeing as how the match day was sponsored by a railroading firm, they dispatched some flunkie to come up with a photo of soldiers on a train to grace the cover of the match programme. This was dutifully done.
So when the patrons of United arrived at The Diamonds for the match, they were handed this:
Apparently cable TV outfits over there don’t offer what my bride dismissively refers to as “The Hitler Channel”, else he surely would have noticed the somewhat unusual uniforms those Tommies were wearing.
And they also urgently need to rush a showing of Victory onto the air, where they’ll notice that the really nasty ferret-faced stadium announcer (and all the other bad guys too) who sneers as the absolutely wooden Sylvester Stallone does possibly the worst goalkeeper impression in history, is wearing a surprisingly similar outfit.
Club Chairman Jim Ballantyne has since issued possibly the most ABJECT APOLOGY of recent memory.
Which brings me to a confession:
Unlike a lot of guys around this corner of the Interwebs, I don’t begin to understand what the deal is with Celtic and Rangers.
The various religious, cultural, national, regional and God-only-knows-what-else influences which cause the fans of both clubs to behave like loathsome clods are beyond my poor power to comprehend. And frankly, I’m pretty sure I am happy about that.
Nevertheless, Celtic fans have decided to take particular umbrage at Remebrance Sunday. Last year, for example, they decided that singing a Republican song during the moment of silence was a good way to demonstrate what classless anal openings they truly are:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5y2-U6Ll1Q"]YouTube – Celtic’s Remembrance Day Shame 8.11.09[/ame]
This year, they brought art:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugN03pPOXxQ"]YouTube – Celtic Remembrance Day Poppy Banner Protest[/ame]
I know that many of you won’t be happy until every single solitary facet of a true European footballing experience isn’t slavishly duplicated at every MLS match, and while I understand the sentiment there are times when I’m happy that our fans, and our sport, aren’t being publicly shamed by this kind of crap.
* You may have heard it as “grow” and you’re not necessarily wrong. The writer himself doesn’t seem to have been at all clear about it himself, but the original handwritten piece, penned while sitting by a ditch looking at the poppies interspersed amongst the fresh graves, clearly says “blow”.
It is a very small section of supporters that participated and supported both the banner and the singing of Republican songs during the minutes silence.
It’s a very small percentage of Americans who keep voting for Bristol Palin on “Dancing With The Stars,” but that’s embarrassing to the rest of humanity as well.
Or would be, if anyone gave a sh**.
Er, um, that’s a pretty darn big set of banners, so I will wager that it is a much larger group then you think…
“Here, hold this.”
“What’s it say?”
“…It says Yay Team.”
“Oh, okay. Cool beans.”
“I know that many of you won’t be happy until every single solitary facet of a true European footballing experience isn’t slavishly duplicated at every MLS match, and while I understand the sentiment there are times when I’m happy that our fans, and our sport, aren’t being publicly shamed by this kind of crap.”
Ditto.
Despite the fact that I’d prefer single table and such. Hooliganism and the insane level of tribalism that a significant chunk of European supporter culture espouses is something that we are far better off without.
I’d be quite happy not to emulate Scotland in pretty much any sense, though I often jump on the Aberdeen bandwagon just to mess with the Old Firm.
I know they’re less sectarian than they were in the past, but still … it’s too much.
If I am recalling my Hitler Channel properly Ireland wasn’t in WWI. So I assume this is some nationalistic crap that falls in with the religious crap that has fueled this rivalry. Pretty damn classless.
They were, the same way Scotland and Wales were.
Besides, 1916, Easter, GPO, England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity, etc.
I love how Americans of Scottish heritage mistakenly think of Celtic as “Scotland’s team.”
My experience in England was the complete opposite. I was at Fulham-Liverpool in 2005 and they had a minute of silence for Johnny Haynes, a great Fulham player from the 50s and 60s who had just passed away. This was a full minute, not just a “moment of silence” like they do in the US, and crowd was completely still and quite. It was remarkable. I’ve been to games in the US where there is a moment of silence and the crowd was much less well behaved.
So Scotsmen cannot read English?? Please.
Have you heard them talk?
You’ll excuse me for pointing out that YOU obviously “give a shit”
You angry haters need to chill; you’re clearly headed right down this guys’ alley:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documen…-palin-dancing
This is funny considering you hate the Irish. A dick move is a dick move.
It’s also surprising considering how successful Celtic apologists are in convincing people that its only the Huns that make the Old Firm secterian anymore in the first place. Where in Ireland is Glasgow indeed…
I’m not trying to justify those fans – quite the opposite – but you try reading a forty-foot banner upside down…that’s part of a longer series of forty-foot banners.
Not well enough to know there are two Ds in “bloodstained”, apparently.
My office’s IT helpdesk is in Glasgow. I think you may have solved the question.
That’s why you look at the in-stadium TV to see what you are holding. I think it’s clear that the people holding the banner were of the same mind as those who wrote it. Let’s not marginalize what these fans are doing. It may not be all Celtic fans, but it surely is not a “small” group either.
Some people have to be driven crazy. This guy was close enough to walk.
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