Anthony Vickers blog - same as last season;
Derby "Banter" Is Beyond The Pale
SOME THINGS transcend the petty parochial squabbling of football rivalries. Whatever team you support and however passionately you express it, most people are still bound by the norms of society and the same moral spectrum that guides everyday life.
Only the foaming zealots fail to see that fans on the other side of the segregation lines are basically the same as them. Only the real hardcore idiots really believe the opposition are dehumanised scum and that anything goes. Only the ignorant dregs of humanity believe that being at a football match means you can set aside civilised standards of behaviour and have free licence to indulge in the basest of offensive behaviour.
You know, the kind who sing that someone is “a paedo” and think it is incredibly witty.
It was a derby match and so a certain level of earthy exchanges were to be expected. Boro fans for instance booed Mark Viduka as they reduced the emotional and financial wrangling of the heavyweight Aussie's long-running contract negotiations and subsequent choice of Newcastle as his future employers to the succint phrase: "You're just a fat greedy bastard". The visitors responded by pointing out Julio Arca's previous allegiance to Sunderland in a similar shorthand and added some barbs about empty seats. Fair enough, that is what you expect in the to and fro of matchday rivallry.
But beyond that, indeed beyond the pale, was something more sinister and far harder to sell as just robust derby humour. The baser elements of the travelling support had opted to target Mido, especially after they tumbled that his name rhymed with 'paedo' and so gave them the chance wheel out their tired and sick poison pen picture of Boro fans and twist a nasty knife. I was told later that the knuckle-dragging chorus of hate was clear as day on Setanta's coverage, which is tricky for the new broadcaster's bid to build a Sunday lunchtime armchair audience.
To that despicable slur you can add an element of gutter racist stereotyping with chants that Mido was 'a terrorist' and 'a shoebomber'. No wonder he celebrated so passionately and so pointedly in front of them when he scored. True, that it is a reflection of a dark undercurrent of Islamophobia that bubbles up through the tabloids and is present in pubs and clubs across the land rather than something formented specifically on the terraces but it is still indicative of the mentality at work here. Later in the game a female camera assistant had the misfortune to walk in front of the Geordie fans and was loudly entreated to "get your tits out for the lads". It was like being back in the Dark Ages.
The most shocking development was that the baseless sexual slurs long thrown at Boro fans collectively as a kind of malicious white noise on derby dfays became sharply focussed on one individual. That they had a specific target - and as he had a red shirt on, it seemed a legitimate one - intensified the hate to the point where even a press box normally insulated from the dynamics of the crowd were galvanised.
To her credit Louise Taylor in the the Guardian led their match report with a condemnation of the bile, the Daily Mirror made a special mention of it, and The Sun went big on the 'bomb' taunts.
But how could they not? The sight of phlegm-flecked faces contorted in hate and hurling invective at a stranger was disturbing. It was as crass, stupid, socially backward and morally bankrupt as throwing bananas and making monkey-noises at black players ever was.
And just as racism was back in the dark ages, it will be defended by the perpetrators as being “just banter”. Already the internet message boards are buzzing with indignant Geordies justifying the chanting or trying mitigating it by pointing out that Boro fans are no angels and that a section of the Riverside crowd gave Kieron Dyer and Titus Bramble a verbal mauling in the aftermath of the sleazy London hotel 'roasting' scandal three years ago so somehow the whole Boro crowd have 'asked for it'. That is a demonstration of exactly the kind of short-sighted moral equivilence that underpins indescriminate attacks on the innocent by hooligans and tit-for-tat sectarian violence across the globe.
But this goes far beyond banter - and beyond the pale. It is just about the most offensive thing you can think of and to make it a calculated set-piece within your repertoire plumbs new depths.
What kind of person thinks smearing people with most horrific crimes against children imaginable passes as 'just banter' and anyone who is offended should ‘lighten up’?
It is lower than the Munich chants directed at Manchester United by Leeds fans and right down there with Chelsea or Arsenal fans hissing in imitation of Zyklon B and singing about Auschwitz when they play Spurs.
Many angry Boro fans have asked the Gazette over the years why the police take no action on this outrageously insulting behaviour which far from fading seems to be growing in volume and intensity and is increasingly creating friction and the potential for confrontation.
Racist chanting at football is a criminal offense and is dealt with vigorously, and rightly so. Derby games are heavily policed because of the potential for disorder. In recent years there have even been warnings that visitors wearing smogsuits to the Riverside will be regarded as a provocation and treated as a public order offence.
Yet here we have a clear breach of the Public Order Act going unpunished. It is an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour. The law is used to arrest demonstrators chanting empty political slogans at faceless corporations and states so why shouldn't be used to stop this grossly offensive chanting that insults and abuses individuals and creates atmosphere calculated to cause confrontation.
A few arrests may sharpen minds and make some reconsider their behaviour although many of the worst offenders would become more bitter, would see it as Boro failing to have a sense of humour and redouble their efforts the wind us up. Indeed, there is the danger it coudl spread to other sets of opposing fans not yet initiated into this dark mentality .
Ultimately though, as with racism, this will not be changed by prosecutions. If anything they will just raise the stakes. These vile chants will only end when there is a cultural sea-change among supporters at Newcastle - and Sunderland and Leeds too - who find it an acceptable and entertaining aspect part of derby banter.
The fight against racism in football did not come from above. If anything the authorities - the clubs, the FA, the police - tried their best to ignore the chanting, hoping it would go away.
The campaign against racism stemmed from decent, articulate, socially responsible fans standing up to against the idiots within their own crowd, through agitation from the fanzine movement and from grassroots organistions like the Football Supporters' Association demanding that the clubs took action.
And that is what is needed here. It is down to decent Newcastle fans to stand up and insist that this behaviour is unacceptable and like the racist chanting it must stop. The bulk of Newcastle fans are no different from any other crowd. There will be decent respectable, socially aware Newcastle fans who will be mortified by this chanting and who will be thoroughly embarrassed at the way the idiots portray the club, the fans and their home town.
They must act. Silence on this issue gives the green light to the mindless idiots to continue their twisted malice. The fanzines and internet forum must condemn this publicly and start a debate within their fans and local media over what is acceptable banter and what is grossly offensive. It is down to fans to draw the line and police it themselves.
The club should condemn such it publicly too. Newcastle owner Mike Ashley was sat at the Riverside in his replica shirt, identifying himself with his new audience. He must have heard it. It was unavoidable. If not he must have read the shocked reports of the chants in the national press. Surely he must have an opinion on the potential damage such moronic behaviour does to his expensively purchased new brand?
"We had to get him to calm down a bit in the first half," Gareth Southgate said later when quizzed about Mido running the gauntlet of hate. “I always find it strange that 3,000 people are allowed to abuse one person and nothing’s done and when the boot is on the other foot, he gets in trouble. In terms of civil liberties, I find that a strange situation.”
He added that the club have no plans to make an official complaint. They should. Like the battle against racism, it has to start somewhere and a complaint may force Newcastle into the bout of soul searching that is so clearly demanded.
THE GAME offered compelling evidence that fans should sometimes just keep their gobs shut.
Just as there was a righteous poetic justice about Mido scoring for Boro to respond in style to the black and white barracking so after all the taunting from his former faithful there was an air of inevitability about Viduka scoring for Newcastle.
And Boro's second leveller also came from a player who had every right to feel stung into action by the ill-advised visiting taunts. Julio Arca had twice been loudly lambasted as a "sad mackem bastard" but had the last laugh as he delighfully swept home from the edge of a crowded box.
If only they had picked on Woodgate too Boro may have taken all the points.
