I do expect certain standards to be maintained however and derogatory remarks about gender, race, ethnecticity religious beliefs, misogyny and sexism are unwelcome.
My two regular readers will be aware that this author is a lifetime supporter of Birmingham City Football Club and I occasionally have to apologise to them when I have a rant on the subject. It is not an easy life being a supporter of, “Blues” who have staggered from crises to crises throughout their history and the one rule that I apply to them is always to expect the unexpected. One consolation however is that we do possess the finest football supporters anthem in the land, “Keep Right on to the End of the Road, courtesy of Harry Lauder and Alex Govan. The song includes many apposite lines:-
Ev'ry road thro' life is a long, long road,
Fill'd with joys and sorrows too,
As you journey on how your heart will yearn
For the things most dear to you.
With wealth and love 'tis so,
But onward we must go.
Chorus:
Keep right on to the end of the road,
Keep right on to the end,
Tho' the way be long, let your heart be strong,
Keep right on round the bend.
Tho' you're tired and weary still journey on,
Till you come to your happy abode,
Where all the love you've been dreaming of
Will be there at the end of the road.
Most football fanatics, saddos that they are subscribe to fans forums to exchange banter about issues concerning the club. I am also a member of The Blues Trust which campaigns for fan ownership of football clubs or at least some form of dialogue with the club, or representation on the board. Sadly most football forums remain the last bastions of sexism and misogyny. This is a shame because not ony are some of the comments deeply offensive but women subscribers should be encouraged but it is my experience that they soon tire of, in Trump’s immortal words " locker room gossip".
I post to the footymad site ( see “ Places I Visit - Singing the Blues “ in the sidebar ) which for many years was the leading Blues supporters site. It had a lifelong Blues supporter as its moderator, who although he allowed the odd inevitable disputes was stringent on clamping down on racism, religious intolerance, foul or abusive language, homophobia, sexism and misogyny, and rightly so, as these fan sites are read by young children and teenagers, searching for the latest information or gossip about the club. The site was formed a very long time ago and was at its heyday in the 1990"s with a massive following and posters from all over the world, including a former New Zealand international centre back. The site however took a massive hit when the advertising became so intrusive whilst drafting posts and viewing the comments of others that people left in droves. Back in the 1990's blogging was in its infancy but, to its credit, the site listed " The Blues Bloggers " across the top of the forum and included such illustrious posters as FatBuddah, Rags, Kwaky, BlueTitch and yours truly.
Some members of this fanzine migrated to a new kid on the block, Small Heath Alliance, which was also commercially run, but had a reputation for some abrasive posters and laddish behaviour and I am aware of at least two former STB posters who gave up after suffering all kinds of dogs abuse in response to their posts. There are rules in place for the Forum but I am afraid sexism and misogony have driven away most of the few female contributors. There was a recent example of this when Birmingham City F.C. announced that their female team was, in line with political correctness and modern thinking, henceforth to be called " Birmingham City Women" and not the more gentler, "Birmingham City Ladies" which this old berk, stuck in the past, has a preference for.
The announcement was placed on Small Heath Alliance and resulted in a discussion thread in which a number of laddish but also deeply offensive sexist and misogynist posts were included. The thread can be read here, but I caution regular readers of this blog that terms and words are used which would not be permitted here.
So there you go, even with the increasing popularity of women"s football and female referee's assistants, the neanderthals like Andy Gray and male posters on fanzines continue to mar the contribution to the sport for women with their remarks. I would suggest that one answer, as with the former STB moderator, is for the owners of these sites to make clear in their rules that this type of language will not be tolerated and for the moderators to enforce the rules.
There was one peculiar and amusing anecdote to this tale, the irony of which would not have been lost on the likes of Oscar Wilde. With political correctness creeping into most areas of life, and certainly in the remit of the chiefs of the BBC, I posted the afterthought, tongue in cheek, that perhaps in some Orwellian future, the F.A. might make it obligatory that there should be mixed sex teams, plus members of the LGBT community, with the odd priest, vicar and mullah thrown in for religious equilibrium. Much to my surprise the post was banned with the moderator giving the reason that, " What is being a member of a LGBT community anything to do with it ? No religion on the main board either, thanks". Ah, such is life.
Addendum:-
I offered the site proprietor the right of reply and this was his response, which I thank him for. In response to his final paragraph the answer is that I have always been prepared to challenge the views of posters, that I strongly disagree with, and if he cared to browse this site, and his, he will quickly see that I challenge those things which are abhorrent to me. He well knows the type of abuse that I would have got , if I challenged/ confronted the people concerned. They can answer for their posts on here if they wish to do so. I will, of course, accept his invitation to link to this blog from Small Heath Alliance.:-
I actually agree that football fanzines / forums can be misogynistic and homophobic but I feel that this is just a reflection of football and society in general.
However I think that football forums in particular are a great agent for change, it allows people with wildly different values and beliefs to correspond with each other and talk about the issues at hand. Hopefully after reading or contributing to threads like the one linked some will change their minds. Surely people having that discussion is one of the main reasons that Blues Women changed their name so publicly.
In the 17 years that I have run SHA it has always been my policy that so long as people could stay civil and within the laws of libel then no conversation was off limits. This policy has been pushed to it's absolute limits at times but in general it has worked and the community has flourished.
The fact is that while some people have drifted away over the years there has never been a major schizm in the community. The fracturing of communities is a massive problem for forums and society in general, but as a believer in multiculturalism I think that it's important to listen, understand and confront the views of others. How can we do that if we actively prevent those views from being aired? By refusing to allow differing opinions to be aired then these people are ghettoised into smaller like minded communities where a filter bubble is created and views become more extreme as time goes by due to a lack of challengers. You can see this in action on sites such as Facebook and Reddit where communities like Britain First and r/The_Donald hold toxic groupthink views which then cause real problems in 'The Real World'.
I actually think that your blog post is part of the problem, would ask you is why you felt the need to write a blog post criticising people from afar to an audience that you are confident will share your views, but you won't directly and publicly confront the people whose views you find so abhorrent. You should actually post it on the site and give the people who contributed to the conversation in question a right to reply too.
