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SEEING EVERYTHING IN BLACK AND WHITE 22-11-04
There's a nasty rumour going around that Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink will walk off the pitch if he receives any racial abuse from Villareal fans on Thursday night, which is exactly the right way to encourage the barbarians to carry on making their monkey chants.
The people, if you can call them that, who are behaving in this despicable way are looking for a reaction and if any player walks off the field on Thursday night, then they hand victory to these imbeciles and that must not be allowed to happen.
Last week, for probably the first time ever, I agreed with something that Sven Goran Eriksson did. When the racist chanting started during England's game with Spain at The Bernabeu last Wednesday, he threw all of his coloured substitutes into action and I absolutely applaud him for that. It was a brave move designed to show the idiots that they weren't getting to us and my opinion of Eriksson as a person has now risen dramatically.
It is however very disappointing to learn that FIFA have stated that they would back a walk off in the event of a repeat, and I quote;
"Such a movement I would have understood. I would have supported their walking off," Sepp Blatter told BBC Radio Five Live's Sportsweek. "We have to maintain discipline and respect on and off the field. When such a threat is in football in the future I think this would be a good remedy," he added.
A good remedy? I think not. Such an action would only serve to enflame the situation further and if any Boro players do it on Thursday night, I will be incredibly disappointed as walking off is an act that I would expect from a team of quitters and cowards and Boro most definitely do not fall into that category.
We all hate prejudiced bigots but surely it is far better to stand in front of them and show them that their jibes cannot hurt you rather than walking off the field when under fire from this sort of behaviour and consequently letting the racists win the day?
Most people I know have been the victim of some form of prejudicial abuse before, be they British people abroad, foreigners in Britain, friends of a certain musical persuasion or even people lower down the ranks in a work situation and of all the scenarios that I could name, never once have the bullies won the day when their 'scapegoat' has either stood up to them or risen above the taunts.
A friend of mine walked into a London bar once and was greeted with heckling along the lines of "You fucking black bastard". He approached his protagonists and offered to add their drinks to his order if they could handle a 'fucking black bastard' buying them a pint. They didn't know what to say and he ended up having a most pleasant evening in the same establishment whilst his assaillants were eventually forced to leave through embarrassment.
How many times have you heard terrace chants along the lines of "You dirty Northern/Southern bastard" or something similar? Most will disagree but I see no difference between that and insulting someone's skin colour?
Should inter regional chanting also be a reason to protest because we feel deeply offended when someone calls us something designed to bracket us as a lower human form because of the place that we are from? No way, because then we show that we care about it and consequently encourage more of the same.
What would have happened if the Boro team had chosen to leave the field during the game when Newcastle fans turned up in chemical suits and smog masks a few years ago? We would have been branded as cowards and rightly so. But we didn't do that. Instead we totally disarmed them by adopting a self deprecating stance. We won that day because we didn't cave in and run away and if coloured people who receive the type of vile abuse that the England players got in Madrid on Wednesday would adopt the same approach, then perhaps their persecutors would also be disarmed. There is very little difference between the two situations.
If the monkey chants do start on Thursday, Jimmy would be making a far bigger statement by actually standing face to face with the ring leaders of the chanting and finding out if they have the bottle to do it to his face. This is easier said than done of course and especially easier said by a white trash honkey like me but I would love to see it happen. But of course, it never will because you can't really do that kind of thing as a professional footballer.
So the only course of action left open to us is to treat the jibes with utter contempt and in doing so, we will be making a statement that they cannot get to us and that we are above these grievous insults. It takes a lot of strength to do that but if we do react then we give the monkey chanters the reaction they want, it's as simple as that.
We can however all rest assured about one thing on Wednesday. If Jimmy, Joseph Job, Ugo or The Boat do get any stick of that particular nature, then there will be around four thousand Teessiders in Villareal who will be willing to stand behind them and back them up as they belittle the scumbag boo boys by staying on the pitch and rising above the taunts.
Until next week...
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