Disappointing post from Mackem Dave. I don't wear a poppy for reasons that are nobody's business but my own. To suggest that if people don't conform they should 'walk away' says a lot about you.

Mackem_Dave wrote:


They issue passports to money nowadays?

Sorry Lincoln, but you prove my point. Seville if they did that were wrong to pander to one persons view. Donemundo, I have no interest whther you wear or don't wear a poppy that is your personal view and if McClean chooses not to wear one at another time that is his choice. What should not be his choice is telling Sunderland what the club should or should not do.
If we are not carful we could end with eleven players wearing differnt kit, poppy, no poppy, sponsor, no sponsor, kit brand, no kit brand. No doubt someone out there will have a problem with Nike making their money off the back of supposed sweat shop labour.

Mackem_Dave wrote:


Are you serious or just on a wind-up?

The poppy is not an intrinsic component of any club's kit. It references something outside of football. Unless I'm mistaken England is a democracy so nobody has the right to force McClean or anyone else to wear the fucking thing. And McClean hasn't 'told the club what they should do or not do', where did you get that idea from?
He comes from a city where an act of barbarism was carried out on its people by the army that the poppy is supposed to represent. He probably has family or friends who knew people that marched on Bloody Sunday. He has nothing to apologise for for not wanting to wear that emblem and what it's come to represent.

Mackem_Dave wrote:

Says who?

As opposed to Sunderland telling him to make a political statement he may or may not agree with?

So?

I should hope they do.

THC- my apologies, I did (though carelessly, not deliberately) replace 'history' with 'politics' when quoting you. I don't think it changes the point you were making very much. Certainly not egregiously.

I didn't misquote or misrespresent you at all on the Lachey quote. The thread is largely about him, after all. If he wasn't threatening to kill people and throwing a playground challenge to An Phoblacht, there wouldn't be a thread.

I know that WSC and most commentators on it are to the left of Lenin. But since when was 'Bloody Sunday' the only issue during the troubles in Ulster? Everyone keeps quoting the history, no doubt some budding David Starkey's out there. Sorry but I thank the brave soldiers who did their duty for Queen and Country while serving in a trouble stroon corner of the United Kingdom. I choose to remember those troops and brave UDR/UDA men who lost their lives not the terrorists and harbourers of terrorists who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Who's doing him?

Dave- suggest ye take cover pronto. Wanna borrow a tin hat? ;)

Mackem_Dave wrote:


Ah ye almost had me there for a minute ;)

Dave and others might be interested in this week's edition of The View (BBC NI politics talk show). It includes an interview with a spokeswoman for the families of those killed in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nymr5/The_View_22_11_2012/

Mackem_Dave wrote:

You are Richard Littlejohn and ICMFP.

Brave soldiers fought and died in the likes of the World Wars so people like James McClean could have a choice to wear a poppy or not. They died to preserve our freedom and therefore McClean, as ignorant as he is, has the right not to be thankful for those that died for his own freedom.

Do us a favour, Dave, and fuck off.

As ever it's the Legion themselves who explain the issue clearly, and with a principled respect for personal self expression. I always get the poppy but i dont actually wear it. I have similar conflicting feelings about the role of Britain in Ireland, but im not gonna hold that against a soldier who's come back from Afghanistan and is struggling to get by.

Its a no brainer - of course he should not be obliged to wear a poppy.

The annoying thing about this poppy business is that its only relatively recently that they were introduced onto club jerseys - in the last decade or so - so why should it be mandatory now when for the longest time poppies did not adorn club shirts at all, most strange.

PRB wrote:


Agreed he may not be the sharpest, but unsure how McClean is 'ignorant' in this case, or how these soldiers 'died for his own freedom'.
Or for that matter of any Irish (or any other uninvolved country) citizen.

Even if that's true, why would he (and many others) be necessarily subsequently sympathetic to the British army and their numerous excesses?

McClean is on a hiding to nothing. If he did wear the Poppy he would get all sorts of grief back in his home town.

Nobody should ever be forced to wear a Poppy, and I find it being worn en masse in a stage managed way at a football match or on TV show pretty distasteful.

It should be personal choice, and those who do choose to wear the Poppy proudly (as I do) should be respected in the same way as McClean should be for not doing so.

"Brave UDA", WTF?