Gascoigne.....

[max power]

For displaying a little compassion? I know, it's not exactly de rigeur in these parts, but there you go...

PP

well i agree with ur comments, i seen the doc on him and i read his book, if u see the behind all the rubbish maybe more people would have a different view of him

[Plastic Paddy]

Heathrow could be as bad. Anyone notice how you have to walk about 2 miles down all those corridors, round the baggage, down to the holding area if you're going to Ireland?

Yeah. Have to agree with this, discussed it at length recently with friends. it smacks of penning us togeher in the farthest reaches of the airport where we're easily contained.

Ahh, c'mon now lads. It's not as if we don't all find the little extra exercise useful, is it? We have to work off all that booze somehow...

PP

[Peadar]

it smacks of penning us togeher in the farthest reaches of the airport where we're easily contained.

Being the type person that I am, I actually like this.
Everyone down there is going to Ireland.
There's always a nod, a smile and a few words with fellow passengers.
Like a little club.
It's nice and relaxed down there.
I pass through Heathrow on average 50 times a year and have never once ever had any hassle.
I always have a big "How's it goin?" and a smile for everyone I meet.
That is usually met with positive response.
People have jobs to do and I try not to make that difficult for them


What's the betting I'll get hassle tomorrow night!

[green goblin]

Ahh, c'mon now lads. It's not as if we don't all find the little extra exercise useful, is it? We have to work off all that booze somehow...

PP

They do at least they have the decency to stick a bar half way along, which is the hallmark of a civilised society I suppose... But even the suits and popstars quaffing complimentary g'n't's in the Gold Circle Lounge have to take the Long Walk.

[green goblin]

Being the type person that I am, I actually like this.
Everyone down there is going to Ireland.
There's always a nod, a smile and a few words with fellow passengers.
Like a little club.
It's nice and relaxed down there.
I pass through Heathrow on average 50 times a year and have never once ever had any hassle.
I always have a big "How's it goin?" and a smile for everyone I meet.
That is usually met with positive response.
People have jobs to do and I try not to make that difficult for them


What's the betting I'll get hassle tomorrow night!

As an illustration of how much it's changed since the bad ol' days..
Me, my wife, and our two small children, were off to Cork. I went looking for biscuits, and (stupidly ) wandered through the sliding doors of no return. The guard wouldn't let me back in again and insisted I had to go back into the main terminal and come back in again- he had no phone or radio (Which I thought odd) and so I had to do as he said or wrestle him. So there I am in the main terminal, no ID, no ticket, no passport, and with my wife and kids in the lounge, wondering where I am. Plane takes off in 10 minutes. I roll over to the Aer Lingus desk and tell them what's happened- they can't help me. They ask my surname, I tell them. They says "Are you XXXX's son?" Yes, I say. (My Dad's through the airport twice a week for 15 years) Oh that's fine, come with us we'll get you though, no worries.

[Plastic Paddy]

Serves you right for going to Cork, GG. You well know what type of people live down that way... Is it any wonder the Anglos are unhelpful?

PP

[Closed Account 2]

I was lucky, was too young during the height of the bother for it to affect me going through airports etc. I’ve never really faced that many problems, a couple of times at school it wasn’t great, but overall I think I missed the major hassle by around 10 years. It was lucky too that my Dad didn’t have to experience it that much as were in America in the early 80s. But his dad had a bad time way back in the 50s and 60s, looking for houses in the UK lots of places said, "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish". Around 200,000 Irish fought and 35,000 died on the side of the British in World War I. Around 70,000 people from the south volunteered for the British armed forces during WWII (and many others joined Canadian, Australian and South African battalions)... It might be better now, but its a damn shame that a few more of the "establishment" didn’t remember those facts when they were all too keen to label every Irishman as an enemy of the state in the 70s and 80s.

But yeah that’s water under the bridge now, like I say its improved, and I don’t bear any grudges. I still don’t think that a huge number of ordinary Brits, even during the 80s, were anti-Irish. Its just there were a lot of ********s in the government, and the upper echelons of the police, and above all in the media. Most of them are gone now.

[liam88]

I was lucky, was too young during the height of the bother for it to affect me going through airports etc. I’ve never really faced that many problems, a couple of times at school it wasn’t great, but overall I think I missed the major hassle by around 10 years.

Exactly the same boat
I didn't really exagerrate-just pointed about about 4 incidents that have happend to me-going on the fact that i'm now 16 that's pretty good
Was talking to a chap from Cork I met in the high street the other day and he was saying how nice it was round here, i'd rather be in Cobh but hey....we still got the old banter going when I told him I was a rambs fan

Around 200,000 Irish fought and 35,000 died on the side of the British in World War I. Around 70,000 people from the south volunteered for the British armed forces during WWII (and many others joined Canadian, Australian and South African battalions)... It might be better now, but its a damn shame that a few more of the "establishment" didn’t remember those facts when they were all too keen to label every Irishman as an enemy of the state in the 70s and 80s.

Well said!
The only thing I really find now is that people are very mis-informed about the troubles; a lot of my generation at least. They have been brought up with the IRA being known as 'the scum' and as murderers yet many I've spoken to have never even heard of the UDA, Dublin/Monaghan bombings, Rising Sun massacre....
They also group everything into one boat 'the IRA bombed London, GUildford and Omagh and are still about killing people'....different groups, different times..

Think PP was right about moving on after all

[lopez]

I'd like to move on myself but if the SB are up to their old tricks again at Holyhead or terminal 1 because not enough mullahs fly in and out of Ireland, then f*ck em. GG, you talk about instruments. I had a copy of 'The GAA' by Marcus De Burca which may as well have been a pound of Semmy for all the tw*t at HH could make of it. Perhaps that's why I passed on a copy of 'Antes la Madrugada', Uncle Gerry's autobiog, at Barcelona airport for the mother, seeing the seizure that would have caused if meeester immmiiiiigraaation man was to place his eyes on it. Come to think of it I can't see my mother's reaction being much better.

[green goblin]

The sign of the cross is not associated with Christianity, but with Catholicism, and you hardly need to be spoonfed the signifigance of religion in the context of the Glasgow derby.

Mmmm.... to be pedantic, the High Church of England use it all the time, but it's seen as a bit Cathlolicky by low church evangelicals. I go to (low) C.of E. myself and it's really only wheeled out for special ocasions or visits from uppity smells'n'bells clergy.
I seem to remember His Holiness J.P.II famously pausing to do it the Rev Dr I.P. It's actually biblical to bless those who curse you

[liam88]

Are you still asserting that it's only big bad Rangers players who make offensive gestures?

Pretty much aye.....

I'm still failing to see the sign of the cross as offensive whereas the flute blantantley is!
Having said that I know our fans have made the odd gesture-one of 'em cocking his klasnichkov behind the hun taking the corner in the last old firm game......

[Duncan Gardner]

It's offensive if others see it as offensive.

Well I'll leave Sylvo to tell you the story of his schoolboy experience

I'm quite happy to listen to Sylvo's tales, yours, or Liam's grandad's. No-one disputes there was a lot of prejudice against the Irish, often violent, and some remains. But you are still exaggerating, and completely out of context. Paul Gascoigne doesn't represent the English fan abroad or the bigot at home- but even if he did the worst excesses you're moaning about are 20 or 30 years ago!

FPB, who doesn't understand what he's talking about

He offers a perfectly reasonable argument. Your anecdotes don't disprove it- actually they bear it out. There was a lot of prejudice, some of it institutionalised- but it washed over many in England then and is largely history now. It doesn't typify the Englishman abroad etc. etc.

people like the w*nkers who run the FSA and the Scum's other self-appointed 'spokesmen' spent more time on condemning their fellow countrymen hooligans rather than every police force in Europe, we might have a bit more respect

The Football Supporters Federation actually spend most of their time arguing for- and often achieving- better conditions for fans. Vis a vis games abroad, that much more often means co-operation with foreign authorities, not condemnation of them. They do criticise violence but are much more interested in the positive. You seem to be confusing them with the hooligan book industry, most of whose content is exaggerated or plain fantasy.

John Junor (I won't grace this tit with the suffix that he received from Brenda)

Why mention it? Your Brit establishment fixation is worrying- and it's 'prefix', if anything? John Junor (a Scot, btw) was a complete cnut and his column in the Express drivel. You're giving him attention he don't deserve.

[sylvo]

[QUOTE=Duncan Gardner]It's offensive if others see it as offensive.



I'm quite happy to listen to Sylvo's tales, yours, or Liam's grandad's. No-one disputes there was a lot of prejudice against the Irish, often violent, and some remains. But you are still exaggerating, and completely out of context. Paul Gascoigne doesn't represent the English fan abroad or the bigot at home-


DG you'll find that me, Lopez or Liam are not trying to play a game with yer of who got caught up in the troubles more. FPB asked about who's media was against us and so on. Well headlines like ''kick them all out'' amongst others and the hystria it brings from its readers may not have made the news stands of Cork or Belfast for that matter, as well as the remark made by the Met Police that we were a ''suspect community'' a term that was later to be used as the name to a book but it certainly sent a shiver down the spine of Irish people living here.
I know that our realtions with mr Pole eccce man have improved greatly and gone are the days when area's like Kilburn and The Archway took on the look of Seperate Police states at weekends rather then districts of North London as well as us not being public enemy to the media, that's left now to Eastern europians who get free everything according to large sections of the media as well as the laughable press of them killing all the Swans, not forgetting anyone who prays five times a day to the East. They are now the treat they want to sell to their readers.
You seem to think it's just me and Lopez who have problems with inguuurlund fans. DG Seen and been caught up in to many unsavoury incidents to be bothered who's the good guys and the bad ones, a bit like their media and Police responce to the Irish over the years, but it also turns out a lot of young Blacks seem to have a problem with them according to the Voice newspaper, despite the Claims that Beckham is mad into Rap music and a couple of more Black people are turning up at tan games, they claim that up to 85 per cent of young blacks like seeing them lose and can't stand their fans.
Maybe meself and Lopez have something in common with them all.
As for Gazza, Wife beater, end of.

[lopez]

It's offensive if others see it as offensive.

Quite frankly flute whistling hardly is offensive to me. It's the only significant cultural icon of loyalism and without it we wouldn't have had Seamus Gaillimh. But what is so offensive about the cross? Armalite pose and the waving of the number of people killed in a recent bombing/sectarian attack is offensive. Reminds me of the excuse for a Linfield v Derry riot of the fifties/sixties. Apparently some of the crowd saw a Derry player take 'a religious object' out of his pocket.

I'm quite happy to listen to Sylvo's tales, yours, or Liam's grandad's. No-one disputes there was a lot of prejudice against the Irish, often violent, and some remains. But you are still exaggerating, and completely out of context. Paul Gascoigne doesn't represent the English fan abroad or the bigot at home- but even if he did the worst excesses you're moaning about are 20 or 30 years ago!

Not out of context: We are talking about stereotyping. Exaggeration?: Was a thirteen year old not sentenced (wrongfully) to four years on 'terrorism' charges?

He offers a perfectly reasonable argument. Your anecdotes don't disprove it- actually they bear it out. There was a lot of prejudice, some of it institutionalised- but it washed over many in England then and is largely history now. It doesn't typify the Englishman abroad etc. etc.

The ironic thing is that being middle-class Irish and having a middle class circle of friends was far more better than working class and having working class workmates. People were less likely to associate someone like Tony O'Reilly as Sammy O'Semtex. It's another stereotype and generalisation to say that all the English masses were anti-Irish, but it certainly contained a lot. As Sylvo says, it's now moved onto the Muslims.

The Football Supporters Federation actually spend most of their time arguing for- and often achieving- better conditions for fans. Vis a vis games abroad, that much more often means co-operation with foreign authorities, not condemnation of them. They do criticise violence but are much more interested in the positive. You seem to be confusing them with the hooligan book industry, most of whose content is exaggerated or plain fantasy.

Last time I saw one - in Portugal - he was saying that excessive noise was 'just English fans being English.' Yeah? Has he been on public transport in this country as opposed to Spain or Portugal. Is that why you get letters in my local rag when Spanish students come to town complaining about the noise they make on the local bus?

Why mention it? Your Brit establishment fixation is worrying- and it's 'prefix', if anything? John Junor (a Scot, btw) was a complete cnut and his column in the Express drivel. You're giving him attention he don't deserve.

Sorry, amigo. Its a suffix if he were foreign. Correct though on all three counts about him. Trouble was it was this kind of drivel that the masses believed.