Foul language - your
views
We've received some interesting mails in
response to our article on 'foul language'. We'll publish the
best ones here.
Yes, I do disagree with you!
I don't know you personally, but am I right in
suspecting you are standing on your soap box as a non -parent?
As a father of three kids ranging from 16 to 8
years attending matches, I don't want to have them listening to a two hour stream of
Anglo-Saxon invective, usually issuing from the mouths of a sad souls who can't think of
more imaginative vocabulary. This is at a sporting event I have probably paid over £40 in
total to watch.
So what if they hear it on the street / in the
playground / on various programmes or videos they watch without my knowledge? It's not
acceptable in my house (even though I sometimes swear myself) for the simple reason that
we are trying hard (against the general tide) to set some standards of decency. Just
because some people enjoy paedophilia or drug abuse, does that mean I have to embrace it
and put up with it? Of course not! How else can children learn what is and what is not
acceptable?
Yes, maybe it is hypocritical, but I am old
enough to remember when standards of public behaviour were generally higher, people were
more considerate, people threw less litter, people were (generally) more polite, people
swore less (aloud), people stood up for little old ladies on buses and, believe it or not
- shock, horror - people didn't want to punch each other's faces at football grounds just
because they happened to be wearing a different coloured scarf!
I can even remember pre-segregation at matches,
when supporters changed ends at half-time on the same terracing without a full-scale riot
ensuing!
You mention 'industrial language'. It is not a
misnomer. Not all that long ago, industrial language was just that - used in the
workplace, on the shop floor in an almost totally exclusive male environment. Even then,
many men did not join in. It certainly wasn't acceptable in offices where women worked. We
now live in an age where if you don't use foul language every other word, you're regarded
as some kind of oddball, if not a total wimp.
Now, if you're thinking I'm in Ron Manager mode,
jumpers for goalposts, etc etc, and seem to come from a different planet, I'm not and I
don't! Yes, things have changed and we all have to endure aspects of modern life which we
don't like and, whilst not pretending they're not there, we don't have to accept it's okay
they are.
I take your point that football matches have
always been the scene of bad language - yes they have, but again football matches were
almost exclusively male territory and as you rightly say, on terracing you could always
move away from the foul-mouthed.
If football wants families and children to
attend, and most children attend their first matches with parents (we're talking turnover
here, folks ) then it needs to provide a family atmosphere. This doesn't necessarily mean
majorettes, streamers and popcorn stands, but if that brings the punters in, why not?
Believe it or not, even in this day and age, most parents are not happy with adults effing
and blinding in the (particularly young) children's ears.
As a Birmingham comprehensive schoolteacher for
the last 25 years I have seen the language of kids get steadily worse. In the 70's you
rarely heard the 'F' word in the playground or in school football matches. In the 80's it
became more frequent and staff took action - detention if you heard it, exclusion if it
was deliberately and calculatedly directed. Nowadays it's so commonplace we cock a deaf
'un and walk on.
I can't change this and some (you?) would say
'so what?'. It doesn't mean I like it or want it. One of the major problems of our society
is that the loud-mouthed, aggressive, tattooed, in-yer-face yobbo gets his way. Why?
Because he's in the right? No, because the rest of us are scared that if we dare to say
anything we'll get a punch in the face.
When we have a language as richly endowed as
ours, with wonderful vocabulary and expressions not requiring swearing, it makes my heart
bleed to hear adolescents effing this and effing that and even inter-effing-upting words
to assault my lobes. If they can't think of something more inventive, they can keep their
mouths firmly closed!
Eddie Lea
I fully agree with everything Firmo said in this
article.
We all swear, chant and curse at matches. I do
not know any racists at Turf Moor but would like to know what the Club is doing to
encourage a representative cross section of the community to attend matches and even join
the staff (players and backroom staff).
Bring back the terraces. I hate having to sit in
cold seats next to strangers, kids or people I don't like. I used to love going on the
Turf and meeting up with old friends. No need to plan who's going, where to sit and how to
get tickets together. Seats = no atmosphere.
Seats and safety? I myself have gone tumbling
over two rows of seats when Burnley scored and my neighbour banged into me with
excitement. Broken specs, sprained wrists, cut and bruised shins, wrenched shoulders. All
this from the seats. Should I have sued the Club?
I could go on all night but I've got to stop
now.
Liam
I had seen the press on this on the club
website. Being of a particularly emotive nature at BFC games (which I feel comes about
from wanting them to win soooo badly) my language is sometimes not the Queen's English.
Having lived abroad, and therefore lost all my
Burnley accent and acquired one from a different country, my encouragement (my friends
tell me) stands out
Now am I beginning to have the stewards look at
more than before or am I becoming paranoid?
Seriously, you are correct again on all points:
BFC implemented all seater ground and removed
the Longside. Lovely stand though the new one is, I feel it has ripped the heart out of a
large section of the real supporters. Has the vocal nature of the old Longside been
removed? I think it has. Has anybody heard "Beehole, Beehole, give us a song" in
the last couple of years? I haven't. The passion of the old Longside has been destroyed.
I was fortunate enough to go on the Longside for
nearly seven years upon returning to this country, and almost always stood in the same
place. We only didn't when we arrived too late and couldn't get through the crowd ( who
remembers fighting through a packed standing crowd just to get to a place on a terrace you
considered 'yours'). Now this sounds ridiculous, but the really surprising thing is that
almost everybody around us on the Longside was also in the same place every second
Saturday - on terracing! Who determined where people stood, I wonder?
By going on the Longside you knew what you were
going to get: pushed around at exciting moments as the crowd moved to see the action;
jumped upon / hugged / patted on the back / shoulder when we scored; the struggle to get
to the 'toilets' at half time; the consideration of the line for the pies at the little
booth at half time, and weighing up whether you would be served in time to be able to get
back to your spot before the second half; and most importantly, match commentary from
fellow supporters that would often be earthy in tone. And this was important and amusing
and sometimes annoying if you didn't agree with the sentiment expressed.
I myself was almost filled in by someone who
took exception to me making a very loud negative expression of opinion about Jimmy M
bringing on Liam Robinson before Liam even got on the pitch. And do you know what? He was
right. I should have been getting behind the team, not slagging off the diminutive porky
lazy fat bastard. (What did Scarborough do to deserve him - poor buggers.)
I digress. The point is that the Longside was
filled with emotion, and if that expressed itself sometimes in bad language, well that was
ok. The emotion was a large part of the game. Everyone knew that bad language was a chance
of going on; if you didn't want to take that chance, sit in the 'posh stand'.
Indeed bad language was, I remember for a couple
seasons, an attraction for going on. Does anyone else remember a certain redheaded girl in
the Longside who always stood a number of yards behind where I stood, and when she was
annoyed at a BFC player, or if the game went quiet, or when an opponent got injured, she
would shout VERY LOUDLY a string of expletives that would have put a sergeant major to
shame. She could use swearwords in ways most of the blokes around us had never, ever
considered. And she used to have everybody around us in howls of laughter.
Since, I would wager, the directors of the club
never enjoyed these experiences, they now do not know how they added to the game.
And let's be honest, on a cold, wet, 0-0
Saturday against Lincoln city, you weren't really getting much fun from the game, but you
knew you would be there in a fortnight's time, as much for being there for the 'crack'
with the others around you.
The recent New Year's Day disaster against
Wolves had nothing to offer on the pitch, and unfortunately had nothing to offer from the
crowd around us in the upper Longside either. OK, so I have a season ticket so I'll be
back, but will others that buy on the day?
Taking a fascist attitude to standing (it's a
football game for Christ's sake) and now this police state attitude to 'swearing' will be
another step along the road to the sanitisation of Turf Moor. The trouble is, where do
they think the loyal, lifelong, passionate supporter will be? Sitting meekly, quietly
murmuring 'oh jolly good show'? Not a chance. If they start threatening bans, the really
passionate fans - the ones who pay to go on to the FA cup third round against Scunny after
Blackburn at home, Bolton at home, Preston away, Barnsley away, Wolves at home in just
over a month's time - I think they will eventually give it up. It won't be the same.
Let's be frank, at the risk of being non PC, I
am sure lots of supporters WANT to go on ,get overly PASSIONATE, release some steam, and
yes, SWEAR at the exciting and depressing moments of a FOOTBALL game. (Take a straw poll
of who didn't swear at some point during the Blackburn game.)
Get BFC to either reverse this daft policy, or
get the upper Longside to be non youngsters / children, so that supporters can be
passionate without an atmosphere of looking over their shoulder being created. I THINK
THIS IS IMPORTANT.
Lumberjack
When I was little, my Mum used to say 'sticks
and stones...' and, cliché though that is, swearing is only words. As you say, kids know
them anyway. My six year old nephew recently discovered the real words to 'No, Nay,
Never'. His Mum (my sister) has asked us to sing Blackburn instead of Bastard when the
song starts up. We do. But, when we are leaving the ground, Harry always wants to walk
over to the Welly with me. Why? Because when we get split up (as usually happens) I let
him have one quick sing of the song. He is learning the appropriateness of swearing. Julie
knows we do this and turns the proverbial blind eye. It's far more important that he would
be devastated if somebody hit somebody else just because they were black. He would be
equally devastated if somebody hit somebody just because they were wearing a blue and
white shirt. But the songs are part of the tradition, as is the swearing. Which is only
words.
When applied to some racist abuse (black bastard etc) it differs because
when the comments are about race they (at some level) support violent actions that involve
sticks, stones, paraffin soaked rags and horrible things up dark alleys. I suspect that
good old Rock Steady ignore racism because they don't even recognise it. Do we have any
black stewards? And how would they be treated if we did?
Accy Sue
Being a person who has never written to
complain, not even a letter to the editor, and being a new member of the London Clarets, I
had no intention of writing regarding Firmo's views on foul language. Until someone writes
in defence of it that is.
Yes I use the f word as often as anyone else, but not in front of kids.
Mine or anyone else's.
About five or six years ago I took my daughters, aged ten and twelve, to
Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day to watch them play Man Utd. One daughter supports Man Utd
and the other Chelsea, so this seemed like a good family Christmas outing, at a good
Christmas cost of £100+. I phoned Stamford Bridge to ask for good, fairly neutral safe
seats, explaining the divided loyalties.
When Chelsea went one down and then two down, my twelve year old cheered
in an innocent way that twelve year olds do, and was met with a barrage of abuse and four
letter words (all of them).
A painful way for a twelve year old to learn to smirk quietly and have the
last laugh. Was this acceptable as it was football?
My most recent
outing was to the rained
off promising match at Vicarage Road. Luckily my daughters weren't with me this time
(they're older and wiser) as I arrived at the ground sodden to the skin to hear people at
the bar screaming for another pint using the f and c words. WOMEN using the f and c words
demanding a pint or two before the match was supposed to start. Not a pretty sight with
all that mascara running.
Oh well, off to the Rat and Parrot to watch England beat Argentina (in the
pouring rain). On the way I was accosted by a middle aged man who shouted in my face in
his heavy (I avoid the word thick here) Lancashire brogue 'Ya soft southern bastards'. I
apologised profusely, explaining that I was a Clarets fan and originated from Nelson. 'Oh,
sorry pal, I thought you were one of them southerners'.
Fortunately at Watford there weren't too many kids around to hear this
Burnley poetry. We might have dropped our H's but we can surely sometimes watch the rest
of our language. Whatever happened to industrial humour?
By the way, who was the skilled cameraman who can still take a good
picture despite being manhandled by the local police? Maybe the local old bill are just
soft southern b*******. Oh well, back to Vicarage Road in March...
Peter Hebden
After reading the first reply you posted
on the site and talking with my cousin, who I go on with (who has two kids aged four and
six who he is considering taking on), I would say to them: I can understand some people
with children being in favour of the concept of going to an event where their kids aren't
going to be next to 'foul and abusive' language. But I feel the point is - isn't this what
family areas are for?
I understand people not wanting their children
to be next to swearing, but I would repeat what I said in my original e-mail: you knew
what you were getting on the Longside, therefore you took the kids into the Cricket Field
Stand.
The problem, it seems to me, isn't any increase
in swearing, or even the all-seater stadium. It is that BFC have now dispersed all the
fans who had a tradition of going on to the ground in a certain place and have mixed
everything up.
I never stood next to a six year old girl
previously in all my years of going on the Longside, but now I sit next to her all season.
(Nothing innately wrong with that, but the atmosphere is more restrained and thus some of
the enjoyment has GONE.)
After consideration, my suggestion is to bring
the atmosphere back with a larger family area, say behind one goal, and let the upper
Longside be adult only: standing if we want, singing if we want, and yes, even swearing if
the people want.
The club should think about why Stan says the
away support is fine but it isn't the same at the Turf. Ask anybody who was at the
Tranmere game.
Lumberjack
In defence of foul
language
