Epic WTF

.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jun/11/nazi-germany-played-england-tottenham-white-hart-lane

Hart.

the News published a score of letters from “fans”, the vast majority of whom were against any sort of protest and a number quite openly racist. Under the heading “England For England”, one read: “As one of the oldest season ticket holders of the Spurs it greatly amused me to read of the Jewish proposed boycott of next month’s match. I am in every way with them that they should walk out at a given signal but with a one way ticket and not come back ... It is up to the English boys to turn up as many as they can; it will be very nice to watch an English match with only English supporters.”

I think I’m following the reasoning, we all hate being preached down to by millionaire woke babies, amirite.

What is it about taking a knee that so triggers right wingers?

What is it about taking a knee that so triggers right wingers?

Because they are the 'all lives matter' twats, they really cannot grasp the point of taking a knee (and they wouldn't would they!).

the fact that a number of these racist fucks feel the need to denigrate people that show solidarity with BLM ably illustrates why taking a knee is necessary.

totally fucking this. spot on dude

Absolutely, what Lineker said too

It's a shame I had to double check whether that was an historical or modern quote.

A very good friend of mine works at the FA and had no idea about this part of history. She said that she would like to get them to address this chapter of its past. It'll be interesting to see if they do.

Here's a photo of the England team saluting Goering ( i think) in Berlin in 1938. Stan Cullis was dropped from the squad for refusing to salute.

Hart

Sorry, autocorrect fail

Yup - 86 years ago ...
and I hate this "ah but thems was different times back then" bollocks too.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/08/taking-the-knee-politicians-sport-racism-football

I’ve got a solution for the Cro-magnon Crew getting all “boo-hoo” about players taking a knee. Get them to take a knee during “God Save da Queen.” Should sort out the true racists from the true royalists/racists.

They had this in the US, didn't they? Apparently taking a knee during the Star Spangled Banner is disrespecting the soldiers or something something

Yeah, you’re right. Worth attempting it here just to see some brainmelts, “Wait, am oi booin’ ‘er Madge ‘ere?”

It's the Kaepernick saga

Fucking bullshit. Racist bastards.

It annoys me that it’s ‘taking the knee’ instead of taking a knee. Are they used indistinctly on the pitch in the UK? Do youth coaches tell kids to take the knee when someone is injured?

It annoys me that I'm not sure exactly where taking a/the knee comes from originally. I think it's something to do with one, of all of:

• forcing an injury timeout in NFL/other sports?
  
• showing respect to injured teammate while doing so?
  
• resting position while being briefed in sports?
  
  

possibly based on:

• resting position while being briefed in US military?
  
• showing respect to injured/dead comrade?
  
  

possibly based on religious supplicatory position?

I think it's an American Football thing.

When a player is tackled, the play is stopped when his knee touches the ground. Quarterbacks can use this rule in the final play of the half/game - instead of making a play which might result in a turnover, they can simply kneel down to end the play.

wasn't it just from the traditional standing for the national anthem?

It might be US in origin, certainly that’s where I encountered it most often.

I grew up across the pond and played various contact and low-contact sports competitively from grade school to university. When a player was injured badly enough to stop play and potentially be taken off the field, the opposing team would always take a knee while the coaches or medics investigated how bad it was. (one would kneel in cases where it was expected to be bad).

I always understood it as a sign of respect for one’s opponent, as a recognition that it could happen to anyone and it was ultimately a game not worth serious injury (even in full contact sports with scholarships on the line*), and to signal that whatever caused the injury wasn’t in keeping with their team’s ethos or the spirit of the game.

Kaepernick started taking a knee during the US Anthem at NFL games to protest and draw attention to police killings of black Americans. I understood it from the first moment as a respectful sign of protest (vs. sitting down which would be disrespectful) signalling that what was happening was a tragedy that deserved recognition. Not once did I think he was disrespecting the US, the anthem, The Troops (TM), the bald eagle, etc etc.

I also never considered it supplicatory or belittling; that’s two knees. You can stand to fight quickly from one knee, not so from two.

I’ve always suspected the UK establishment uses ‘bending the knee’ as opposed to taking a knee because the former sounds much more like prostrating before royalty, or like a line from Game of Thrones. It irritates me, because it undermines an effort to address and extinguish racism.

-* Sports as Business have become a different beast entirely. The NFL in particular, where coaches have been recorded instructing players to ‘kill the head, and the body will follow’, has become (even more) pathological in its disregard for players’ welfare. If a player in my representative uni team didn’t take a knee when the situation merited it, without extenuating circumstances, they’d catch flak from their own teammates and coaches for it.

wasn't it just from the traditional standing for the national anthem?

I thought it was this

That a why Trumpiness got all uppity about it

and @peter_h

I'm sure it's American in this context. I did do a bit of digging when the Kaepernick story came out.

I think what may have confused me is that I half-remember some US war film/TV set in the 1990s (Black Hawk Down? Jarhead? Generation Kill?) and there was a fair amount of taking the knee there while being briefed/resting.

So I was assuming it had come from military to sports, as there is fair amount of military influence in US sports (Veteran guests of hono(u)r, flyovers, etc) but perhaps the influence here is in the other direction.

I probably imagined the religious bit, or at least conflated it with the two-knees position.

taking the knee there while being briefed/resting.

We used to do this on tactics training (pretend) where there was an unknown threat. If you have to huddle to brief your people, better to make yourself a smaller target.