Bigfella72
Well-known member
- Joined
- 13 Dec 2017
- Messages
- 1,037
Getting caught up in the emotion and passion of watching your team, and at times vocally chipping in with encouragement, disbelief and frustration (depending on how the game is progressing) is an integral part of supporting your team .... or at least it has been for as long as I've been going to watch the U's..... I personally have no interest, affiliation or links to any other football club, nationally or internationally.... Oxford United fc and England national team and that it for me..... times change , not always for the better either, ditto watching football. Since the advent of all-seater stadiums and the 90s arrival of prawn sarnie types , who blanch if the referee is called so much as a rascal, bounder or scoundrel (or similar! ), or even report a fellow supporter to stewards for offending their delicate ears .... we have family areas where good old anglo saxon words are a no-no, which is where to go if individuals feel offended or even threatened by the general language used in an everyday manner elsewhere in the ground.' Industrial language 'is in common usage everyday and every night in Britain, Oxford, outside of the academic areas of the city centre, provides a large amount employment in the car factories , and related industries in the area, where, so Im led to believe, anyone who manages to articulate a sentence without including an anglo saxon word or five in their workplace is in line for some sort of award !
Awaydays invariably attract a number of groups of predominately males on a day out, with mates, few drinks, few laughs,support their team at the match, and maybe a few more drinks after the match, celebrating or commiserating depending on the match result.
Football, supporting your team in person, is an emotional rollercoaster of 90 mins or so duration .... where at times individuals do get caught up in the moment & vocalise their views at the time. Live football in England has slowly been sanitsed by corporate types with no understanding.... look at Wembley stadium, rubbish attempts to orchestrate the crowd with cheerleaders prancing about and really cringeworthy loud 'music', most of which is truly dire, played to 'get the crowd going'. Demonstrating the powers that be haven't a clue. football supporters have been quite witty with various popular chants n songs, yet at the national stadium not a snowball (or snowflake's) in hells chance of football supporters at any match there building an atmosphere naturally, its all drowned out by glitz and naff music. has nobody told the Wembley plc company that we are not Americans?
If any supporters of OUFC going to away games are easily offended snowflake like delicate souls perhaps if they lobby OUFC, EFL etc for travelling away support to be provided with a family area at grounds visited for away games? if successful then they wouldnt have to hear or mingle with those nasty, working class individuals who use elements of the English language that are currently deemed 'offensive'... albeit not always the case!
Lets not forget that ALL English language words have been, in different times, in common everyday usage over the centuries, EG - during Shakespeare's time calling someone 'naughty' was regarded as rather risque, not so today (well, not until a snowflake is 'offended' though?).... right here in Oxford the first documented use of a certain currently regarded by some/many as offensive was first in written usage .... during 1230 a thoroughfare off High street in Oxford city centre, which was frequented by ladies of the night, was called Gropecunt lane, during the latter end of 13th Century its name was shortened to Grope lane, then in 17th Century it was renamed Magpie lane. Documented history that cant be conveniently airbrushed away to suit the intolerant, uneducated or very easily outraged. Isn't there an old adage that goes ' sticks n stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me' ? why then the offence at what are only words? ...In the pre sanitised all seater stadium eras of football, the good old days of terraces, it was easy to move away from others who were not behaving in a manner that some of those close by wernt comfortable with, it was easy to move elsewhere . Unless an away section is totally sold out, if it's unreserved ticked, it's equally as easy to changes seats to move away instead of attempting to impose narrow views and standards on others. Live and let live, it seems, has been outdated?
I can remember when going to watch my team was a fun, enjoyable way to spend a saturday afternoon, where the frustrations of the week could be dispensed with through singing, chanting and vocalising of opinions for the 90 min duration. Preferably on the London Road terrace.
Like the old London Road end favourite from late 60s - mid 70s goes ( Mary Hopkins and Sandi Shaw both had chart hits with the song too)' those were the days' (my friend)
Im sure other posters of a similar vintage as me (@amershamdave for certain) can recall tongue in cheek mock chanting , with pseudo , posho accents, 'Oxford, Oxford rah, rah , rah' at away fans who wrongly decided Oxford United fans were all University graduate academics.
Perhaps only permitting 'Oxford, Oxford, Rah , Rah Rah' to be exclusively sung at OUFC games excluding absolutely everything else song n chantwise will suffice.... I doubt it though. 'Rah -rah' being chanted might offend as it gender sterotypes, as in being reminicent of an 80s skirt fashion, and we can't have any of that can we?!
Watching my team play, as mentioned earlier, used to be fun... all seater stadiums, bully boy stewarding, ott rules n regulations imposed only on football supporters & not supporters of other spectator sports, gentrification of football in general in England, have all contributed considerably to, certainly for me, making supporting my team, home or away, more than a bit of a chore. If I hadnt grown up supporting OUFC from an early age (easter monday, first season after changing names from Headington United to Oxford United v Bath at the Manor was my first game- we lost!), and instead was a youngster today, I really dont think Id particularly be wanting to pay to be treated like a third class citizen while watching my local team very often certainly not every match, its not much fun anymore generally speaking, gentrification has one hell of a lot to answer for to football supporters of certain generations. Supporting Oxford United is what I do, Im far to old n long in the tooth to change that habit now. I just wish some fellow OUFC supporters would perhaps show a bit of tolerance & understanding that all football supporters are not identikit emotion & passionless clones.
You had me at hello. ??
