Ron Atkinson.................

[Northerner]

And his 'f*king lazy thick ni*er' comment live on air.

Discuss please.

Do any of you non-pinko liberals remember the case of the black man in a Southern state who was dragged by 2 whites behind a pickup truck for miles - just because he was black? Or Rodney King (?) who was beaten by police in LA - just because he was black? And do I need to say "Stephen Lawrence"? (His killers fit nicely into ks's ashamed to be English thread too.)

Maybe his reasoning to bring on black players in the 70s/80s was to win footie matches and not to be a great leader in bringing on black players??

Do you know it is funny you bringing up the teenagers who killed steven lawrence - I live very near to where they come from and where it happened and that is the first thing that people say when I tell them where I live - I just hope that people are intelligent enough to not to tar me with the same brush just because I am white, english and live in the same area - some of my family actually think I live in a place akin to harlem - it is actually safer than the nice little town in essex where they live!!

Twinkie that is exactly what I was saying on the English thread. It's all about respecting other nationalities/races and doing as you would be done.

(that referred to you post on this thread at 12:52:28 PM btw)

Janh! I am suprised! Obviously I am not racist. ]

just dislke middle class socialists!

Codret Thatcher

I'm possibly going to be involved in a court case in which several white youths (in England baseball caps) beat a black man to a pulp on a (fairly busy, mid-afternoon) bus. The charge is Racially Aggravated GBH, so without an insight into what passes for these people's minds I am assuming that their victim's ethnicity was what triggered the attack. It happened about a mile and a half from where Stephen Lawrence was killed.
If Ron Atkinson saying this kind of thing on air gives just one person the impression it's OK to insult or hurt someone from a different ethnic group then he deserves to lose his job and face disgrace. I was absolutely appalled.

Lol cd
(puts wooden spoon away)

Marina lets not confuse partiotism and agression

(regarding the hats only)

Even if those were his thoughts, the fact that he thought it was acceptable to use those terms in a professional context, in front of colleagues, makes him extremely thick, amazingly arrogant and completely ignorant in my book.

I agree ron was wrong and should have been sacked as martha said

yes odd
even if I was off air (LOL)I would never use that term.. wouldtn even occur to me

Think all forms of discrimination or abuse because of difference are wrong but do think everyone deserves equality of opportunity. Ithink RA was totally wrong to even be thinking in those terms it just shows how ingrained things can be or how narrow minded some people are ( not a pinko liberal but am for equality for all regardless of sexuality, gender, race, creed and anything else)

ooh well said

The fact that that word is even in his vocabulary is horrific. Only wish Anne Winterton had been sacked as well. Oh sorry, forgot, that was said in private!

I agree coddy. Tell that to the victim who spent over a week in hospital recovering from injuries inflicted with a snooker cue, not to mention the youths who attacked him. I think there is plenty to be proud of in being British but there is a serious, horrible problem with violent racism in some parts of the country - until quite recently the BNP had an actual shopfront presence not far from where all this happened.

coddy, did not see hats afterthought but they were virtually naked (hot day) apart from their hats, which inevitably featured large in evidence.

ooh why do they do it?
(the naked bit)

sorry that sounds flip

new thread

positive reinforcemnt

role models etcetc

Batters, I've been thinking about that one. I think you are right that he was interested in encouraging good players who happened to be black, and that doesn't let him off the racist hook at all - the fact that he was able to use the word n*gger shows that it came naturally to him (I couldn't say it at all, let alone in company) (sitting here going "nnnnnnnni!".

There used to be a few teams who were notorious for having racist fans (throwing bananas and grunting) and no black players. The fans have been discouraged from behaving like that but I bet they still feel the same, and his encouragement of black players was presumably purely pragmatic but he got a lot of credit for it. (But, still, he did do it when others didn't. The Graun (of course!))

It'll be interesting to see if anything else comes out following this (about others as well as him).

accidental winky, sorry.