Hope they are ashamed

[chalkies_shorts]

..if the police release pictures of wanted people its not for banter...and everyone knows that.

Are you serious?

[jonny72]

I haven't got a clue whether they meant it to be racist or not but singing "If you're hanging from a tree" is pretty dodgy territory - easily interpreted as a monkey or lynching reference. So I'd say they're guilty of stupidity at the very minimum.

There is a line when it comes to what you say and sing at football matches and they do need to do something about those that cross it. But I don't think they help themselves when they complain about being boo'd and getting minor abuse, its part of the game and if they don't like it that's their problem. Ashley Cole playing for England recently being a good example, he was having a terrible game and if I'd paid £50 or whatever to watch it I'd have been giving him some grief.

[Boeta]

If stuff like this was said in the streets, would it be acceptable? Why should there be a different moral code inside a football stadium?

[janaage]

After reading the song I have to say I don't think it's that bad.  Looks like I'm in a majority but this has been blown out of all proportion.

[pauld]

If stuff like this was said in the streets, would it be acceptable? Why should there be a different moral code inside a football stadium?

Equally, I'd be fairly suprised if a bunch of people stood across the road from me chanting "You're shit and you know you are at me" in the street. Unless they were my family of course. They do that all the time. The bastards.

Point is, there's a stylised convention and tradition of what happens within football grounds, so the "You wouldn't do it in the street" argument is pretty weak, IMO. Whether this transcends what is usually acceptable within that convention/tradition is probably what is at question. And on the basis of what's been said so far, unless leefer's right about there being "extra" stuff, this just seems like Hampshire's finest going off on one - the song's no worse than the "Tommy Mooney on a piece of string" song, surely? Neither are terribly pleasant, but I don't see that either are criminal.

[Boeta]

Tradition is ever changing, as will what is acceptable in football grounds.

[Colin Todd]

So does that make sledging in Cricket unacceptable boeta?

[pauld]

Tradition is ever changing, as will what is acceptable in football grounds.

I look forward to a future of decent chaps in duffle coats shouting "Play up, Swindon" and "Oh I say, referee, I'm not certain that challenge was entirely fair" from the Town End

[overthehill]

Perhaps if people removed those chips from their shoulders the world would be a better place.
Sticks and stones and all that
Afterall you can call me a well balanced white hetrosexual male sex god and I won't be offended.

[Gazza's Fat Mate]

This is all the fault of the happy clappy cunts who now infest football. Football has always been a working mans sport swearing, beer and laddish behavoir has always been the norm. Now you have the prawn sandwich twats who think football is "entertainment" football is not it is a passion, a faith if you will.

The sooner everyone stands up to these twats who ruin football the better.

[chalkies_shorts]

To be honest I can't see anything illegal in the song. I don't particularly like the song and wouldn't sing it myself. Anyone who definitvely relates "hanging from a tree" with racism is really pushing it. It may well allude to it but I don't think anyone can prove it. I've got chocolates hanging from my X Mas tree. Oh no - chocolate = brown = taking the piss out of black people being lynched by the KKK.  

[pauld]

This is all the fault of the happy clappy cunts who now infest football. Football has always been a working mans sport swearing, beer and laddish behavoir has always been the norm. Now you have the prawn sandwich twats who think football is "entertainment" football is not it is a passion, a faith if you will.

Spot on GFM. It's a bloody leap of faith in our case, most of the time.

[RobertT]

I don't think the song is that bad to be honest, nothing more than is sung the country over.

GFM, you are referring to the past 40 years of football, before that it was all flat cap and rattles.  It changed in the 70's to what we refer to as the "traditional".

[Batch]

It's about context isn't it. Singing "town full of faggots" at the Brighton fans is I suspect technically illegal.  But in the context of football chants then is it really that bad? We all know Brighton isn't actually town full of faggots*,  and most of us wouldn't care if it was. But it part of the banter.

There is a line that shouldn't be crossed. But drawing that line is difficult, so where is it? making Monkey noises at black players is definitely unacceptable. But what about calling the Gills "pikeys". Perfectly acceptable to me and most of the people I know. Probably offensive to a few people though. So can I sing it or not?

Are we really turning into a country of over PC twats?

(*Unless Mex makes an unexpected announcement that he is a friend of Dorothy.)

Anyway, my first reaction was - racist chants they have a point. Calling Sol Campbell a gay - who the fuck cares.
===

Oh and the -would it be acceptable in the street - depends on context again. If a stranger called me a cunt I might be a bit upset. But my mates do all the time.

[Boeta]

I look forward to a future of decent chaps in duffle coats shouting "Play up, Swindon" and "Oh I say, referee, I'm not certain that challenge was entirely fair" from the Town End

yeah yeah yeah, cos it's that black and white