Racist Letters Sent To Irish Football Stars...

[Peadar]

Taken from BreakingNews.ie (http://breakingnews.ie/2006/01/19/story240523.html)


Racists sent vile hate mail to members of the Irish football squad while Brian Kerr was manager, it emerged today.

Former team boss Kerr, who was pushed out of the post last autumn, revealed that a handful of racist letters were sent to some of Ireland’s top players.

International stars such as Clinton Morrison, Stephen Reid and coach Chris Hughton were targeted.

The letters have been passed on to gardaí.

Speaking ahead of a seminar organised by Sport Against Racism Ireland, Mr Kerr said the hate mail was vile and abusive.

“While I was manager of the Irish team I had to put up with a series of letters, very vile and abusive letters, about the multi-culturalism of the Irish team,” Kerr said.

“I had Chris Hughton, a very Irish black man on the staff and I had black players on the team Clinton Morrison and Stephen Reid.

“It was vile stuff, but it was sad really and it just shows you that there are some twisted minds around the place.”

[Tired&Emotional]

I am horrified that mindless idiots have gone to the trouble of writing letters to our senior international players (or any player) for their own far right extremists agenda ...I hope they can be traced and they're locked up (or better still, shot).....no place for this in football or society....SCUM:mad:

[the 12 th man]

Fits in with other senseless stuff that goes on out there like Child abuse etc.
Warped minds will do anything for a reaction.We've had a few threads about racism on here before but this one really rams it home.:mad:

[Dodge]

Obviously scum of the earth and of course this is a terribly serious matter BUT...

Anyone else find it sllightly amusing he called Highton "very Irish" but not the other two? :) BTW Kerr has always been involved ion this kind of campaigning, going way back to when he first sign Curtis Fleming for Pats

[Tired&Emotional]

Is this (& obviously it is) the NEW Ireland we have become????
When CH and the Legend that is Paul McGrath were playing i don't seem to recall anything like this? The days of cheering on the Boys in Green in Euro 88 etc. seems a world away to what is apparently happening now. I think it a very sad state of affairs when this kinda stuff hits the headlines and an extremely unwanted dimension of Irish football etc.

[finlma]

Its a disgrace but hardly suprising - a large amount of Irish people are inherintly racist.
Just look at the way immigrants are treated in this country. There is a letter in today's Galway Advertiser written by a black guy who went into a car dealership in the city. The first thing the salesman said to him was "Sorry, we don't sell any cheap cars." Thats the mindset you're up against.

[pete]

Anyone else find it sllightly amusing he called Highton "very Irish" but not the other two? :)

Don't you think it makes sense? To call Morrison irish devalues the honour.

[Peadar]

I'd be interested in these people/this person coming in front of us and explaining their actions. As it is, I can't understand any of this.

We're not talking about someone losing their temper and shouting racist abuse, which is bad enough, but someone has taken the time to sit down, write a letter, put it in an envelope, address it, stamp it and post it.

[jockser]

Fooking cnuts whoever it was!

[Dublin12]

Maybe it was the racist cnut out of Fair City,seriously though sad to see in Ireland,I hope they get found out and strung up by the nuts:mad:,pathetic morons.

[Dotsy]

I'd be interested in these people/this person coming in front of us and explaining their actions. As it is, I can't understand any of this.

We're not talking about someone losing their temper and shouting racist abuse, which is bad enough, but someone has taken the time to sit down, write a letter, put it in an envelope, address it, stamp it and post it.

Peadar you won't get any rational explanation, only bigoted and warped views. I wouldn't give these idiots a platform for disseminating their hate filled messages.

[beautifulrock]

good idea not to give them a platform and by discussing it here i suppose gives them more publicity. However, to ignore it is worse, it is the kind of thing that needs to be stamped out early. We should learn by the mistakes of othes(and there has been plenty) e.g London 80's) LA 90's, Paris 2000's when it comes to dealing with the new arrivals to our countries i.e no ghettos, a police force that mirrors our makeup , an educational system that understands that there may be children where English is not their first language. I think we can do this without changing too much.

[sligoman]

Just seen it on Sky News Ireland their. He claimed that Morrison and Stephen Reid received "racist hate mail" while he was in charge of the team. He has since handed over these letters to the Gardai.

EDIT: It's on elevenaside now, see here (http://www.eleven-a-side.com/offthefield/irish_soccer_detail.asp?newsid=20797).

[John83]

They can write now? I knew the Star having a letters to the editor section would only cause harm.

[Feech]

an educational system that understands that there may be children where English is not their first language.

Yeah, native Irish speakers have only just had their rights upheld on that one!

[Mayo Red]

I'd be interested in these people/this person coming in front of us and explaining their actions. As it is, I can't understand any of this.

We're not talking about someone losing their temper and shouting racist abuse, which is bad enough, but someone has taken the time to sit down, write a letter, put it in an envelope, address it, stamp it and post it.

Ignorant scumbags whoever they may be!:mad: Years ago I remember Cathal Dervan writing in The Title about how he had received a letter from a fella saying that it was a disgrace that black players like Phil Babb etc were allowed play for Ireland along with a few other racist remarks. At the end of the article Dervan said something like "Bigots name and address with editor, supplied upon request so you can go around there and put a brick through their window"!

[sonofstan]

1,700 at the SARI tournament match tonight in Dalymount between 'China' and 'Poland' - incredibly noisy support on both sides and some reasonable football too. Plenty of Bohs fans and others there also - so pervasive was the atmosphere of tolerance and inclusion that I spent much of my time talking to a Rovers fan. .... we can all do our bit in building a new Ireland

[Mayo Red]

1,700 at the SARI tournament match tonight in Dalymount between 'China' and 'Poland' - incredibly noisy support on both sides and some reasonable football too. Plenty of Bohs fans and others there also - so pervasive was the atmosphere of tolerance and inclusion that I spent much of my time talking to a Rovers fan. .... we can all do our bit in building a new Ireland

Brian Kerr was on the news saying that some of the talent on show in this tournament should be looked at by EL clubs.

[Peadar]

Brian Kerr was on the news saying that some of the talent on show in this tournament should be looked at by EL clubs.

I can see another Irish Ferries situation arrising when Rovers sack all their players and replace them with cheaper Eastern European players. :D

[lopez]

Having done my Masters thesis four years ago on the experience of non-whites in Ireland, this doesn't come as a surprise. However, one should also look at the positives. Members' reaction on this forum; a desire to set up inter-community projects as mentioned by sonofstan; and a story from 1998 when a black couple's neighbours stood up to the local Garda against their continual harrassment of these people.

Sadly racism in Irish soccer isn't new. I remember reading about Paul McGrath while still at Pats in the Irish Press (remember that paper? Appaling spelling?) about the racial abuse he was getting. A few years later there was another story of a former Irish army NCO/officer who was abused by a conductor on a bus (I think with this story the passengers shouted down the w*nker). Nor are letters to Irish managers about players groundbreaking. Eoin Hand's autobiography tells of the 'anti-English' abuse he got. One said: 'If you play any more of these English b*stards the only capping they'll get will be knee-capping.'

Anyone interested in knowing where these c*nts reside could do no worse than check out http://www.**********.org/forum/showthread.php?t=263810 . Be warned though, this is stomach churning link and under 18s are advised to stay away.:mad:

[Tired&Emotional]

I don't know if i would be better off cocooning myself from sites like this or reading them to see what kind of mindless idiots are actually out there.....Thought that site was sick and i didn't even stay too long on it for that reason!

The contributors seem to be so full of there own importance; arrogant ****s.....my blood is boiling now:mad:

[Risteard]

Nothing more than a hunch but I'd guess that it might be more anti-2nd generation than anti-black.

[pete]

Brian Kerr was on the news saying that some of the talent on show in this tournament should be looked at by EL clubs.

Kerr quotes in the IT today as saying "...sure theres more here tonight than at an eL game here all last season..."

:rolleyes:

[Peadar]

Kerr quotes in the IT today as saying "...sure theres more here tonight than at an eL game here all last season..."

:rolleyes:

He meant there was more than you'd see at Richmond.

[OwlsFan]

Why does everyone say "they". It was probably one neo-Nazi who wrote the letters and yet it appears in most newspapers, including the Daily telegraph in the UK. Amazing.

Like the story SKY and the BBC ran at the top of their programmes a couple of days ago. "PLot to kidnap's Blair's Son". After much agonising and debate it all came down to the fact that there wasn't a plot, there wasn't even a plan. Someone at a "Fathers for Justice" meeting suggested that it would be a great publicity coup but it was discounted by the others. No one was changed, no action was taken" and yet, it was front line news.

Amazing.

[Tired&Emotional]

Reading back on what kerr said it appears there was more than 1 individual sending these abusive letters.

To dismiss issues such as these out of hand as "sure it's only this or only that...big deal" would be very naive at best. There's no smoke without fire...

[OwlsFan]

But is it really worth sports headlines in Irish and foreign newspapers that a couple (possibly) of unknown racists penned some letters to some of our players? I am sure they are thrilled with the notoriety they are getting. We are all aware there are plenty of racists about - I remember watching Ireland lose 2-1 in Wembley (or was it 2-0) some years ago (70s or 80s) and the black players for England were booed by a section of the Irish fans.

In the words of one famous politician: "they haven't gone away you know". Unless it is news that they can write, I am unsure what the newsworthy value of this item is.

[Tired&Emotional]

Ah, ok understand where you are coming from now.

I agree it would be better not to give these people the satisfaction of seeing their exploits in the headlines if for nothing else than that their warped minds will see it as encouragement....but unfortunetly that won't happen in the press.

Had thought you were dismissing them as false or in a "so what.." way...

[Fergie's Son]

Tough call. Sadly, there are idiots out there and maybe this does give them too much exposure.

As someone who is very opposed to the current asylum/immigration policies of the Irish government (I think they are far too lax) this sort of nonsense does immeasurable harm.

That said, there is something to be said for exposing these people and allowing their ideas to be thoroughly ridiculed. I'm reminded of an excellent article in the Chicago Tribune about a supremist group ran by a "Reverend" Matthew Hale. The writer approached the article by taking their positions seriously and then went through one of them and just destroyed them via economic, social and historical analysis. It was extremely effective.