Hows Everyone coping after last night?

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Originally posted by JonR:
Well let's face it Steve, you're not exactly doing yourselves proud at rugby either are you?

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We're possibly even worse at that than we are at football.

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Originally posted by Steve G:

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Originally posted by JonR:
Well let's face it Steve, you're not exactly doing yourselves proud at rugby either are you?

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We're possibly even worse at that than we are at football.

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On the evidence of recent 6-Nations competitions, maybe, but I think they did enough against the Wallabies over the weekend to suggest they are on the way up again. The next Calcutta Cup match could be interesting....

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Originally posted by JonR:
On the evidence of recent 6-Nations competitions, maybe, but I think they did enough against the Wallabies over the weekend to suggest they are on the way up again. The next Calcutta Cup match could be interesting....

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No it won't, especially if it's at that shithole Murrayfield.

well, henrik larsson proved last night once again just how good a striker he is.
thank goodness sweden aren't in our group in this campaign!
with larsson, ibrahimovic, and ljungberg in the side, and a solid defence, they can go far.
regarding bulgaria, and as a liverpool supporter after watching what happened against france, I'd rather have stilian pertov in the liverpool side than gerrard.
what a tossers pass that was!
henry must have thought christmas had come early.
and what the feck was heskey doing making that challenge with only minutes to go?
not one of sven's better substitution ideas.
we're just not good enough defensively to hold onto a 1-0 lead against a team of france's quality.
oh well, we should beat switzerland and croatia.
they look even more crap than we are.
oh, and rooney needs to cut out the chips.

TN

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Originally posted by Steve G:

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Originally posted by JonR:
On the evidence of recent 6-Nations competitions, maybe, but I think they did enough against the Wallabies over the weekend to suggest they are on the way up again. The next Calcutta Cup match could be interesting....

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No it won't, especially if it's at that shithole Murrayfield.

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Like to wallow in it don't you, Steve?

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Originally posted by JonR:
Like to wallow in it don't you, Steve?

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Realism mate. Murrayfield doesn't look that bad and access and parking are good considering how close it is to the city centre, however the supporters are just too far away from the action. From the top level of the stand you need binoculars to have any idea of what's going on.

On the football front I think the Scottish game may have bottomed out at it's low point now (and last season was a particularily poor one from my club) and hopefully we'll have a better season for 2004/05.

Mathew,

Afraid it most definitely happened. My partner was at the election count and had to be hauled back inside as she was making her way to the car park with a colleague.

Interesting that we tend to assume that there is media bias (as I do) but never a complete blackout. I have been accidentally caught in football riots that apparently never happened too.

Mike

I'm not sure why you think the media would wish to suppress news of a "football riot". Indeed, the reality is quite the opposite and if anything they are more likely to make one up when there isn;t one (as famously happened in Charleroi).

Matthew

Was there a football match or something??? I thought all the St George flags this weekend were in support of TVR and Morgan at Le Mans - both TVR's and the Morgan finished the race (unlike just under half the 50 cars that entered). The TVR's did especially well coming in 22nd and 23rd out of around 30 finishers despite having penalty air restrictors fitted (due to low sales volumes)

Footballers are the most overpaid idle tossers and the English team never win anything! Yet look at other sports which receive a fraction of the financial support eg rugby, ice skating, tennis, cycling and the UK fares much better!

Jonathan

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Footballers are the most overpaid idle tossers and the English team never win anything! Yet look at other sports which receive a fraction of the financial support eg rugby, ice skating, tennis, cycling and the UK fares much better!

Jonathan

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Tennis and rugby are rolling in it and if any sport in this country gives a lousy return for money invested it's tennis. Who do we play in the Davies Cup again?

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Originally posted by DLF:
Tennis and rugby are rolling in it

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In Scotland the rugby governing body have been doing particularily badly financially since the farce that was going professional, to the extent that they may have to sell Murrayfield for housing development (the site is worth a fortune) and build a smaller stadium out of town.

Unfortunately it's too late now for the football and rugby governing bodies to get together and build one good national stadium (like the Welsh one) so no doubt we'll have to continue with two crap ones.

Mathew,

What, so no-one here has been to an event that wasn't reported?

Football riots are reported nationally if they are at Premiership or international games i.e. it would be difficult to suppress. More locally I have been stuck in the middle of roting Chester, Oldham, Blackpool and other fans whilst at games and the local press are asked to suppress by the clubs and the police as it avoids the story becoming something that people want revenge for later on. Happens all the time I'm afraid.

Ditto the BNP on Sunday. Football stories easier to report than the many layers of problems around flag waving, the BNP, European elections etc. So, no story. Five people in hospital but no story.

Your faith in the media is touching though.

Mike

Mike,

I have several friends who work for national newspapers and a couple at the BBC. None of them have heard of this story. My mate at The Sun said "News to me guv and I haven't seen anything anywhere. If something like that had happened we would definitely have written about it".

So either it didn't happen or it was such a minor indcident that didn't make it onto the newswires or into any newspaper. If your theory that it was deliberately suppressed by a media conspiracy keen to promote thier pro-English agenda is true I'll give you a million pounds.

Matthew

"I'll give you a million pounds"

Is that the million pounds that someone will owe you when the Old Firm do not join the Premiership?

He's still not paid up you know despite the fact that, unless the SPL are keeping it very quite, it seems that Rangers and Celtic will not be in the Prem next season.

Matthew

Mathew,

Then your "mate from the BBC" is as naive as yourself on such matters IMHO. The media were in the town hall during the count and were well aware of what went down. It would have been rather hard to miss really. You underestimate the power of censorship from whatever source.

Now, sounds like your mate has got himself a scoop. Let's see what he does with it then shall we? Shouldn't be short of people to talk to who were there on Sunday night.

Mike

PS: Obviously I don't want to be involved or quoted in such a scoop although I am touched by your offer of a million pounds. We do, of course, have several witnesses on this forum although as they were not there it may not have happened. I have since been advised that there may have been no ambulances but probably around double the number of police cars by the way.

Still, I like the idea that minor incidents don't get reported. I though that was the whole idea behind papers like The Sun.

PPS: I wouldn't boast about knowing someone on The Sun.

Mike,

You are claiming that a conspiracy of a number of disparate news sources suppressed a story about a nationalism/football related BNP riot at an election despite the fact that a) they reported other stories of similar disturbances elsewhere on the same night and b) they have shown a great interest in reporting BNP/riot related stories previously and c) You have offered no credible reason as to why they should do this.

Personally I think your theory is several orders of magnitude less likely than the incident not actually being that interesting or significant or just somehow slipped under the radar.

"I wouldn't boast about knowing someone on The Sun"

I wasn't "boasting" I was offering his view as credible given that he has access to Reuters, AP, etc. and hasn't seen anything about your story.

Although, FWIW, my mate at The Sun is a deeply fine individual who I am proud to count as one of my best friends. I've also met a fair few other Sun employees and I would take them over many people I've met via this forum any day.

Matthew

How did they "steal" the game? If we'd been more on the ball we'd have not been kicking back and chilling in the second half, and might have won. I don't know much about football, but I DO know you don't let up until the fat bloke whistles...

As for how am I coping? Fine. Unlike those two French guys who needed a police escort through Exeter high street, or the 4 women who's husbands battered them on returning from the pub, or the people who had to deal with the fallout from that. Animals - there's no need for it. It's only a game...

Mind you, if they stuff it up tonight, I'll be really gutted...

__________________________
Don't wanna be cremated or buried in a grave
Just dump me in a plastic bag and leave me on the pavement
A tribute to your modern world, your great society
I'm just another victim of your highrise fantasy!

Mathew,

I wasn't aware I had to justify anything on the part of the media. They can do that all by themselves.

Bottom line - several hundred people, directly outside Manchester town hall, eight police cars, Nick Griffin et al, the BBC too. It's not for me to explain. I don't think it was "missed" at all. I know two people who were there and locally the story is well known. Do you believe people giving you facts or do you believe the media or your friends in the media?

Didn't Watergate get picked up by two relatively minor journos because everyone else couldn't believe it was true because they couldn't possibly have missed it.

I strongly recommend you go see 'Shattered Glass' without your friends.

Incidentally, I meant don't boast about knowing people from The Sun on this forum. They're probably left wing compared to many here so you probably should take them over people on the forum!!!

I think we're together on that one!!!

Mike

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I have to admit that after watching France "steal" a win from us last night that I feel completely drained and struggling to find any motivation this morning.
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Feelin much better this morning

NB

Hmm, took a while but I found this thread again. Why, you may ask?

Well, an update...first of all some choice quotes from someone who didn't believe me.

"So either it didn't happen or it was such a minor indcident that didn't make it onto the newswires or into any newspaper"

"You are claiming that a conspiracy of a number of disparate news sources suppressed a story about a nationalism/football related BNP riot at an election despite the fact that a) they reported other stories of similar disturbances elsewhere on the same night and b) they have shown a great interest in reporting BNP/riot related stories previously and c) You have offered no credible reason as to why they should do this.

Personally I think your theory is several orders of magnitude less likely than the incident not actually being that interesting or significant or just somehow slipped under the radar."

Now, guess what happened next?

Well, for a while nothing? Then...all of a sudden all is revealed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/programmes/2001/bnp_special/default.stm

The programme in question was most interesting. It showed, in part, the events surrounding the European elections in Manchester. Indeed, it features quite specific footage from both within Manchester Town Hall and the fighting that subsequently broke out outside. These are the events that Mathew and his media friends surmised were unlikely to have ever taken place because the media were there and would have reported them if they were of sufficient import.

In reality, the BBC appear to have worked with the local authority and used the privilege of a contract ("we're making a programme, go away or we'll sue") to prevent the item being reported until it suited their agenda i.e. within their programme.

Given that the BBC based a whole programme around it the incident I previously described clearly did take place and clearly was suppressed. Gosh, media cencorship for the pursuance of ratings and controversy. Fancy that!!!

So let me get this straight, you are citing as evidence of a media conspiracy to suppress this information the fact that it was shown on, erm, the BBC?

Crikey!

Matthew

You're all bleedin conspiricy theorists on a Grand scale.


Fritz Von It'sraininganyway&football'sontelly

Mathew,

I think my point was pretty clear actually.

I said at the time that there was a conspiracy of silence and I was invited to speculate on why that was. You challenged that and we were both wrong.

You couldn't believe that something major had kicked off if it wasn't reported. The Panorama programme clearly shows that to have been incorrect.

I speculated that the reason for the silence was political. I was wrong. The reason for the silence was that a particular media company very effectively suppressed the story for a specific period of time as it necessitated substantial re-editing of the programme prior to broadcast (they couldn't believe they had the fight footage) and the whole thing would have been undermined as an exclusive if it had been reported elsewhere.

My acquaintance on the MEN confesses that he was aware of the incident and the casualties; was aware of the score re: why it was being suppressed and couldn't tell me until post broadcast.

Interesting.

Mike