George Street-Bridge wrote:In what way ill-prepared?

Insofar as he’d not sought to establish what had happened before doing a media interview. Easy to say that in hindsight though, I suppose. As I said above, the key thing is to handle this sensitively from this moment on.

So are clubs now expected to enforce it, even though many players have said the initiative has run its course?

Is that how far down the PC road we've got?

whoareya wrote:So are clubs now expected to enforce it, even though many players have said the initiative has run its course?

Is that how far down the PC road we've got?

Very sadly probably and not at the end of the road yet.

I don’t think we have done it in away games either.There was a row some weeks ago when QPR didn’t do it.Les Ferdinand said that the knee had taken its course,just like clapping NHS workers,and he supported not doing it anymore.

George Street-Bridge wrote:Very much an ambush but Gavin handled it very well. Phillips was scrupulous in not offering an opinion and merely lighting the blue touch paper. I'm not sure Blake is well placed to preach about setting examples.

As far as the absence of banners is concerned, are all the volunteers who help set up the ground even able to travel into Newport?

Brilliant! Nathan ‘fruit machine’ Blake! Seriously, it’s run it’s course & is now meaningless. Just an extension of the pre-match routine of elbow/fist bumping now.

Dogger wrote:

George Street-Bridge wrote:Very much an ambush but Gavin handled it very well. Phillips was scrupulous in not offering an opinion and merely lighting the blue touch paper. I'm not sure Blake is well placed to preach about setting examples.

As far as the absence of banners is concerned, are all the volunteers who help set up the ground even able to travel into Newport?

Brilliant! Nathan ‘fruit machine’ Blake! Seriously, it’s run it’s course & is now meaningless. Just an extension of the pre-match routine of elbow/fist bumping now.

Fruit Machine?

I
"Fruit machine" is referring to Blake's youth, allegedly nicking from fruit machines.
City fans used to sing a song regarding this

No, not fruit machine.

It didn’t happen though, wrongly blamed.

As we approach Remembrance Sunday it is sad to think that freedom of speech and expression has now effectively died in this Country.

I think there are very very few County supporters, or indeed football supporters generally, who are racist. So let’s get back to watching and enjoying football rather than these overtly political statements.

Racism has no place in football- but neither do blatantly political gestures such as 'taking the knee'.

Personally, I’m very relaxed about the club supporting political gestures (whether it’s taking the knee for BLM or wearing a red poppy for Remembrance Day) even if I don’t always agree with the cause. That seems much more consistent than saying (as some seem to be on here) that the club can support the causes with which they agree but not those with which they disagree.

Perhaps it’s one of those irregular verbs:
- I support an important cause
- You support a campaign
- He supports a political gesture

I’ll always be pleased to see the club backing anti-racism movements. I feel a bit uneasy about the symbolism of taking a knee, but I was very interested by Nathan Blake’s position that it is likely to lead to conversations with children about why players are doing it and what the wider context is. That has to be a good thing.

County Valleyboy wrote:I
"Fruit machine" is referring to Blake's youth, allegedly nicking from fruit machines.
City fans used to sing a song regarding this

Allegedly?

Ladies and gentlemen.

At 3-00 next Saturday the game will be slightly delayed. There will be the ritual taking of the knee. Whether this will be of any interest to some rednecked racist thug with a gun and a police badge in Mississippi is open to conjecture. However this will then be followed by a short speech, by a speaker from Human Rights Watch who will inform us about the squalid treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Following on from this we shall be hearing from a speaker from the Sioux Nation about the plight of all native Americans. We hope also to be hearing from a representative from Australia's indigenous peoples about the genocide inflicted on the Tasmanian Aborigines.

Once this is over we shall of course be observing a two minute silence for everyone who has ever died of anything ever. Because of time limitations it will be impossible to name them all individually but we did think a random sample of one thousand names would suffice.

Sorry to be blase'. But this hyrachy of death gets on my t!ts. I can contribute to charities, I can have a career in human rights, I will oppose blatant bigotry. But.........

Sometimes at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon I just want to watch a football match.

Blake is right about the wider context, but it loses momentum if it just becomes a knee-jerk like clapping for the NHS did.. Better to put it back in the box for now and by all means get it out again at some future point.