Champions League

[dcdavecollett]

Harmless xenophobia? It's a nice idea.

[purpletrousers]

Harmless xenophobia? It's a nice idea.

That’s a much more succinct answer than the one I started to write and lost.

My best attempt was to think of it a bit like harmless adolescent cock jokes, in the right mood/spirit, funny.

Except that clearly that humour wasn’t from a childish/harmless place, and is ‘othering’.

I found it pretty embarrassing, file with singing on the Piss M’Lord about our alcoholic legendary player.

Any woke/PC boxes I’ve missed ticking?

[dcdavecollett]

You're all right, mate.

[Olneythelonely]

Harmless, as in no one was harmed. I found the humour in the pettiness and how pathetic it was. I assume no one hated the language and it was all pantomime.

If behind it was frothing racists who wanted to glass the stadium announcer, then yeah, it’s not funny.

[Mister E]

I found it pretty embarrassing, file with singing on the Piss M’Lord about our alcoholic legendary player.

Yeah, it didn't really endear us to others, creating a Little Englander image. I really thought we'd got beyond this.

[Nev]

The desperation to qualify for Europe makes a mockery of the reaction to the announcements but it's nothing major just a bit cringe worthy (note: not cringe).

I love having the European visitors to our City, hearing the announcements at New St and in the ground, fans walking around like tourists, their noise in the ground. Certainly beats people from Brentford and Thornton Heath sitting in abject silence.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Before the Bologna game, outside the away entrance on Witton Lane, a copper was shouting instructions to their fans in a wonderful Brummie/Italian hybrid language.

[Drummond]

Harmless, as in no one was harmed. I found the humour in the pettiness and how pathetic it was. I assume no one hated the language and it was all pantomime.

If behind it was frothing racists who wanted to glass the stadium announcer, then yeah, it’s not funny.

One usually leads to, or enables, the other.

[purpletrousers]

Yeah that’s well said. Talk to people who aren’t white and experienced racist abuse for the first time in their life or in decades in the days after the Brexit vote.

I’m not going to turn round and have a pop at folk like I’ve done when it was hissing/auschwitz stuff at Spurs years back, but it’s all part of the same normalising stuff. Yes enabling.

[LeeB]

I always thought you're allowed to be a bit racist to the Italians and the Germans because of Hitler/Mussolini, they gave up their right to be offended by voting in fascists.









* This is a joke, very poor maybe but I don't actually believe it. Much.

[Olneythelonely]

Yeah that’s well said. Talk to people who aren’t white and experienced racist abuse for the first time in their life or in decades in the days after the Brexit vote.

I’m not going to turn round and have a pop at folk like I’ve done when it was hissing/auschwitz stuff at Spurs years back, but it’s all part of the same normalising stuff. Yes enabling.

But laughing at people’s xenophobia makes my world go around. “Harmless” was a poor choice of words. But as I say, the humour for me was in the stupidity of it.

[Risso]

Is it not just a case of booing anything to do with the team you're playing? Like booing their players when the teams are read out? I wasn't there, so can't say either way, but football crowds on the whole aren't that well known for intelligent responses.

[Percy McCarthy]

My (mixed-race) kids were giggling at the Italian announcements. I pulled them, natch, and said ‘it’s a beautiful language’. They reckoned they were laughing at the squeaky voice rather than the fact he was speaking Italian.

[RamboandBruno]

The first time it happened I thought it was amusing and a bit pantomime, like booing their players as Risso said, although their players never actually got booed. But as it went on, I was a bit ‘really’??  by the last announcement a few were getting really animated about their dislike of it. Get a grip and all that.

[Ads]

Their players were booed from the off, but people quickly gave up as they appeared to try and bore us to death. Tedious cheating bastards.