Here's an article on those anti-Semitic Chelsea vs. Tottenham football chants mentioned below. Apparently the "kill the yids" chanting is sometimes augmented by "an elongated hiss, supposed to emulate the sound of the gas chambers." Swell...
(via au current's Jackie, who has a good post on the subject.)
Posted by Dr. Frank at June 19, 2003 09:12 AM | TrackBackah, the 'elongated hiss.' I've heard that one more frequently from Highbury (home of Arsenal).
It's not just Chelsea!
Hey, I knew there was a reason I hated ARSEnal, too...
Frankly, I live in fear of the day when I hear such things at City of Manchester Stadium (now that my Blues have played their last at Maine Road). That said, City have a pretty substantial Jewish following, and since our fans are the best footy fans in the world, I doubt they'd get up to any of that rubbish.
Being from the Cleveland, Ohio area, though, I'm still stuck on Frank's comment about how we Americans get so annoyed over the Tomahawk Chop. I've genuinely never known which side to come down on in that whole debate -- both sides make good points.
Posted by: Jackie D at June 19, 2003 09:02 PMEver heard the Atom and his Package song about native american team names? Damn funny song (against using the names).
I'm not convinced that the issue of the Tomahawk Chop genuinely divides Americans; it's a minor issue. It's still used at FSU and in Atlanta, and I think the furor over it has basically died down. And from what I can tell, there really ISN'T any furor over the Auschwitz Hiss used at Stamford Bridge and Highbury.
And Jackie, yeah, the Man City fans haven't gone quite as far as the Chelsea supporters, but these two aren't exactly sporting:
"oh I'd rather be a Paki than than red" or
"snow, snow we want more snow
the stuff that brought the plane down
the stuff that brought the plane down"
(Man Utd's team was killed in a plane crash in the 60s).
Ugh. An article on football racism:
http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/stories/122002_story04.htm
Nasty, nasty stuff. I'm sure you could find similar stories from Holland or Germany, but it's pretty amazing at how widespread it is in England. Also of note for this classic quote: "'It seems to be English clubs who're suffering more than most at present,' noted the BBC football journalist Alan Green. 'It's more shocking for the players because racist abuse has all but disappeared from grounds in this country.'"
Well, problem solved. Move along, nothing to see. Boy am I glad THAT'S over.
Hey, arrogant maybe, but I always said that America actually is about as un-racist as it gets if one considers other countries.
I do believe I recall an incident where Liverpool FC traveled to Europe for a game only to see bananas thrown on the field, targetting black forward Emile Heskey, of Liverpool. I've heard of Neo-Nazi banners put up in Italian league games, particularly with the by fans of the Roman team, Lazio, who's insignia strangely resembles Nazi Standards (well, themselves rip offs of ancient Roman symbols, so I guess I'm being unfair about that).
Posted by: Matt from Vegas at June 19, 2003 10:28 PMmarc, point taken about Man City -- I've heard the snow chant but not the anti-Pakistani one. How disappointing. The season ticket holders around us usually just slag(ged) Schmeichel off the whole time.
Mark Holland posted a link to this in my blog, which is worth a look.
I dunno. I'm still trying to get over the fact that this stuff is being said in this country, in such large numbers, in 2003. Madness.
Posted by: Jackie D at June 19, 2003 11:35 PMAnd here's that link: http://www.spectator.co.uk/bookreview.php3?table=old§ion=back&issue=2003-01-18&id=1384
As for the Tomahawk Chop, yeah -- minor issue. But (and I need to look up the fine details of this, as I don't remember them all) a group of Native Americans recently filed lawsuits against a bunch of schools in Ohio to get them to change their school mascots from Native American-inspired ones. So some people still care about it passionately.
Posted by: Jackie D at June 19, 2003 11:37 PMYeah, some people still get upset about team names like 'Redskins' - and understandably so. But I've not seen many references to the tomahawk chop specifically in quite a while.
Even the team name controversy seems to have reached a different level of debate; thus, we see a basketball team of native americans adopting the moniker 'The Fightin' Whiteys,' and getting besieged with t-shirt requests.
http://www.robotwisdom.com/issues/whities.html
And Schmeichel deserves to be slagged off.
Posted by: Marc at June 20, 2003 07:14 AMHeh, well, he's gone now...Personally, I'm not too thrilled about having Seaman replace him, but then I didn't get a vote on this issue.
Posted by: Jackie D at June 20, 2003 05:39 PMHello folks nice blog youre running
Posted by: lolita at January 20, 2005 04:24 AM