That's a good line to use when you realise your argument can't withstand even casual scrutiny.
Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action
- Thread starter cogg
- Start date
That's a good line to use when you realise your argument can't withstand even casual scrutiny.
Yup, you got me beat again LLETSA. Well played sir!
EDIT: I can't resist
Supporters of football clubs aren't a homogenous group, so political action "en masse" isn't something that crops up very often, but there definitely has been political activity centred around football fans. For example, the way in which Rangers football club has been used a nucleus for recruiting into Loyalist and other right-wing groups over a period of decades, is well documented, such as the recruitment of strike-breakers from the terraces of Ibrox during the general strike of 1926. That's just one example, but if I had the time or effort or if I could be arsed I'd search out some more.
As for the football clubs themselves, what i'm trying to point out is that the decision to become a professional football club and pay their players wages is itself a political decision, one that has to be seen in the context of a wider political working class culture that existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So the idea that professional football clubs are totally apolitical, when they owe their existence to some quite historically specific political tendencies, isn't true. Exactly the same can be said of the split between Rugby League and Rugby Union.
I'm not actually trying to disagree with your statement that football clubs are/were capitalist enterprises supported mainly by Labour voting socially conservative working class people, just trying to point out some of the political background to professional football.
EDIT: Besides which, since when were capitalist institutions, even ones propped up by Labour voters, incapable of a taking a political stance?
If you're posting anyway, you might as well answer the above simple questions.
You'll notice that I refer above specifically to clubs in England (apart from the aside about Russia). The Glasgow clubs are absolutely untypical for obvious reasons. But if, as you admit, 'supporters of football clubs aren't an homogenous group,' and attach themselves to capitalist enterprises, then it's clearly nonsense to suggest that a given club has 'a history on the left,' or whatever.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Well yeah obviously, the clubs themselves can't really be said to to "have a history on the left" but I haven't been claiming that they have.
And why exclude glasgow? Is it not part of Britain any more or something? Excluding it just coz it doesn't suit your argument is what it looks like to me. What about Barnsley fans joining in pickets and demo's after matches during the miners strikes of the 70's and 80's, does that count?
I'd really like to get off this merry-go-round, I've got the crown prince of pedantry butchers to one side of me, biding his time, taking aim, and LLETSA being fucking inane dragging the argument out to the other, and boring me to death in the process.
My ego can't take the thought that I'd lose an argument to any man born out his mothers arse, so if I do fuck off at some point and stop answering the same questions it's because it's a nice day and I don't want to spend it on here all day arguing the toss over this.
My ego can't take the thought that I'd lose an argument to any man born out his mothers arse, so if I do fuck off at some point and stop answering the same questions it's because it's a nice day and I don't want to spend it on here all day arguing the toss over this.
I'm not necessarily arguing with much of what you're saying, just the notion that a political identity can be attached to clubs in this country.
Rangers and Celtic are excaptional due to the unique set of social circumstances in Glasgow when they were formed and which were perpetuated down the decades. And like I said, I'm talking about the game in England.
Oh I agree on that point, you couldn't call Manchester United a left-wing club unless you were deranged, but it's correct to say that the area of Salford/Trafford United drew most of their support from had a longstanding left-wing tradition.
They might be exceptional, but it's no reason to exclude them from the list of possible examples. You asked for an example of a football club which provided the basis in civil society for political actions, well Glasgow rangers being a recruiting ground for scabs in the 1920's fit's that description perfectly. So does the Barnsley fans and the miners strike example. Can we drop this now or do I have to keep finding more examples and jumping through more hoops?
You bastard, that's your fault.
Maybe, although I'd say that it was simply a labour movement, rather than left-wing, tradition-and no more so than the areas where most other big city or industrial town clubs drew their support from.
disagree ever so slightly on that, just coz I've lived in Ordsall and there's very few places I've lived where you're as saturated in working class heritage as round there, I think only a few other major port cities like Newcastle, East end of London, Liverpool and Glasgow really had a political culture like that anywhere in Britain.
Riklet
procrastinación
How is it any more 'soaked in working class heritage' than any other area where industry-based working class communities existed in the region? And again, this heritage was merely left-of-centre rather than radically left-wing.
What? It was a legitimate enough question in light of what you're saying. Anybody who knows Manchester and Salford would recognisthe claim that Ordsall is any more 'soaked in working class heritage' than most other working class neighbourhoods to be ridiculous.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
The reference to club fans identifying with 'No Surrender to the IRA' ditty after the pub bombing in 1974, is wrong on two counts. First off it is overwhelmingly an Engerlund anthem with a provenance from the late '80's at the very best. The quote from Spike (not the author's fault I know) where Hann says that he routinely fought alongside 'loads of football hooligans' is fiction, while the statement that Hann was in the SWP is also untrue. None of them might undermine the central thesis but at the same time they hardly help either.
It's a legitimate question sure, but a petty one that I'm not really interested in answering. I'm not trying to put Ordsall on a pedestal, I'm not trying to play lefty top trumps, I'm just pointing out the obvious fact there's a lot of left-wing history in that area, that's all. This is the archetypal working class community at the end of the day, from Engels conditions of the working class in england, to Robert Roberts the classic slum to Walter greenwood's love on the dole, amongst many others, and it is true to say there's not many places in Britain that have a political history like that, probably only other major port cities, like I said.
You are putting it on a pedestal, though. It's no more steeped in that culture than most other working class communities in the area.
OK fine Ordsall is better than anywhere else in the world, in every concievable aspect.
Red Storm
M14
Are the thoughts on Ken Loach and AFA sound?
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
Being on the bins as a professional activity is in itself a political stance.
aye, it was for eddie whicker and his 'binmens delights'
aye, it was for eddie whicker and his 'binmens delights'
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
anyway forget soccer teams, everyone knows badminton or 'badders' is the only true working class anti-fascist sport! can we get back to fascists now please?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Why on earth - after recommending those books - are you reducing working class culture to political culture?
Probably to do with the fact by the time I'd got round to typing that reply I was losing the will to live, I really can't be arsed having a long tedious discussion about the differences between working class culture and specific political culture with LLETSA, infact I'd rather spend the evening drilling holes through my own head. Consider it an oversight, if it was a topic I had any enthusiam for discussing in great detail here I'd have probably made the distinction clearer.
I take your point though.
Nice one
Well-Known Member
few well known professional football clubs started by anarchists. All foreign, granted.
RNK Split, Club Atlético Colegiales, Argentinos Juniors, Chacarita Juniors,Club Atlético Progreso http://uncomradelybehaviour.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/anarchism-and-football-tackling-from-behind/
Spirit of Shankly dare to put the word socialism on their website header, and they call themselves a union. It's a start.
RNK Split, Club Atlético Colegiales, Argentinos Juniors, Chacarita Juniors,Club Atlético Progreso http://uncomradelybehaviour.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/anarchism-and-football-tackling-from-behind/
Spirit of Shankly dare to put the word socialism on their website header, and they call themselves a union. It's a start.
Nigel
For A Degenerates' Workers State
Don't know if Liverpool FC would come in as having a left wing fan base but their players and elements of their fan base have given support to left wing courses and been hostile towards right wing Media eg The Sun and Murdoch Press.
For instance Robbie Fowler, Stan Collymore et al showing Liverpool Dockers T-Shirt after scoring Goal.
' The Spice Boys was a media term used to describe a group of Liverpool F.C. .....
to reveal a mock Calvin Klein T-shirt in support of striking Liverpool dockers. ...
Stan Collymore, notorious for failing to turn up for training, refusing to play for the ...'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_Boys_(footballers)
http://www.bebo.com/c/photos/view?MemberId=505900984&PhotoAlbumId=5297986879#photoId=4401373964
http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/liverpool_fc.html
For instance Robbie Fowler, Stan Collymore et al showing Liverpool Dockers T-Shirt after scoring Goal.
' The Spice Boys was a media term used to describe a group of Liverpool F.C. .....
to reveal a mock Calvin Klein T-shirt in support of striking Liverpool dockers. ...
Stan Collymore, notorious for failing to turn up for training, refusing to play for the ...'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_Boys_(footballers)
http://www.bebo.com/c/photos/view?MemberId=505900984&PhotoAlbumId=5297986879#photoId=4401373964
http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/liverpool_fc.html
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
let's not forget that much of the scousers' hatred for the murdoch press comes from the sun's coverage of hillsborough.
I think we'd find that elements of most clubs' fanbases have given support to left wing causes at some time or other.
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