NEWSNOWWrong Mentality
By Dave Hall
I was out of town on the last home game at West Ham working. But unbeknown to me my old mum decided to take a trip from Essex to see if her friends were in Upton Park. Now although my ma and me come from the area, she has no interest in the game and doesn’t obviously follow when games are on. She’s not a young woman bless her heart and didn’t realise it was the last game of the season and didn’t know there was even a game that day, so she headed to her friends. At about 6.30 she was in traffic outside a pub in Green street when a fight broke out. A lump of wood was used and bottles smashed, beer spread across my mums windscreen, which frightened her and her elderly friend in the passenger seat. Thankfully a young lad tried to help get the cars moving and out of there. Eventually she got to her friends safe. If I had known she was going I would have told her not to. In saying all this, some guy on a website has put an article up with a video of partly what happened but didn’t show the full extent of it. He even commented on how he thought the film Green street was good. I sent him a message and told him how getting caught in the middle of the violence had affected my mum. His dumb answer was she shouldn’t have been there and people shouldn’t be there after the game. A totally dumb comment from him and added more by insulting my mum. I don’t want this level of mentality at our games or by people like him, lets hope people like him and the violence will oneday fade out altogether. Our game is about football, and our club has great support and fans with family traditions. Thankfully it’s only a minority that cause aggro, but it’s still too much.
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Well said Dave, i take my 11 year old boy to the games along with his 27 yr old brother, and i have to admit, we haven’t come across many fights at the Boleyn ground or on our way back to the Ferry, but to those idiots who do fight before or after the game, i hope one day your kids dont turn out like you, and go support Millwall not the Hammers.
PS tell your Mum to get the Kettle on when the 1st home game starts next season.
oh and does she make scones?
Yes mate she makes scones, shes great at cooking cakes, although she won’t make walnut cake anymore because my Dad took the mickey out of the cake for a laugh, so she won’t bake one now.Lol
I was really interested to read this Dave, when I worked for WHU and would go to games invariably I would take my wife. If the language around us got too ripe I would ask the people to please respect the fact that a woman was there, if that didn’t do the trick I used to speak to the stewards. This might seem a bit fussy, but unless we show our disapproval how are people going to understand that in this instance they are crossing the line. We are all there to have a good time, that doesn’t mean to say that we have to accept the poor behaviour of a few, or that we should be forced to stay away.Well done for bringing this to our attention.
Sympathies with your mum dave, this really doesn’t need to happen anymore. I know football isn’t really a family game but there is a point where ordinary people have the right to at least be in the area without fear. The website glorifying this is a disgrace and anyone in agreement needs to let them know…. please pass these comments on to them to hopefully shame them into some sense….
Big Sauze, how can you even begin to compare people swearing inside the ground with fighting outside a pub after the game.
There are many things that do not belong in football, and one of the primary ones is violence. I echo the sentiments of Dave and Joe with regards to violence, but to compare violence to ‘ripe’ language inside the ground is nonsensical.The majority of supporters inside a ground on a match day are male and believe it or not when a group of guys get together ‘ripe’ words sometimes get used. Football didn’t begin with Sky cameras, it has a history of being a working mans game followed by working men. I think you’ll find that the majority crowds of up and down the country from the premiership to the conference are made up of men who go to games with their dads, their grandads, their mates. Many of whom have stood for years on terraces supporting their teams before all seater stadiums were introduced. If you take that element away then grounds will become very empty very quickly or at the very leat will be void of any atmosphere whatsoever.If you and your wife don’t like ‘ripe’ language at football games then may I suggest you take up a different hobby…. maybe take in a few west end shows instead?