Poppies

The argument put forward by Sky Sports news, The house of commons and Prince Harry that poppies arent political is ridiculous. When England play Spain there will be armed forces all around the ground. This is not political ?

Edited by athlonecelt - 09 Nov 2011 at 3:51pm

Rule hasn't changed either, the poppy is on the black armband, not on the front of the jersey. Germany don't give a sh*t about it so don't see why we should. Plus, we're playing Estonia in a play off in the next six days, I couldn't give a fook what England are doing to be honest.
Most of the news you get, especially sports, is British media so obviously they are going to go on about it. It's international week and apart from our game, there's not much happening so this poppy thing is an easy page filler or segment on the sports news.

Thats great Landon but make up your own thread instead of putting in something totally unrelated and irrelevent.

you tell him Celt

Let's learn to distinguish between "Britain" and "England".

In 1920 the poppy was introduced as a symbol to remember those who died in WW1. It was worn by people who wanted to wear it at rememberance events on Armistice Day.
After WW2 rememberence Sunday became a day of rememberence for those who died in both wars and the poppy continued as the symbol.
Now it is used as a rememberence of those who died in all wars.
The money raised from poppy sales goes to the Royal British Legion and what was once a day of rememberence where those who wanted to wore poppies is now a 2-3 week sales campaign where people have a lot more pressure put on them to buy one than they used to.
It used to be the people selling them were members of the legion, old retired service people, widows etc. Now it's not unusal to have service personnel in uniform selling them. Last year out of the blue two soldiers in full guards uniform turned up at my office to sell them to people at their desks, I was in a pub one night and a sailor came up to me in uniform trying to sell me one, he looked pretty offended when I said no.
The media has turned this into a political football, people who don't wear poppies on TV are named and shamed so now anyone who appears on a BBC programme between late October and mid November has to wear a poppy to avoid being lambasted by the press.
Ken Clarke appeared in parliament last week without a poppy and the press was ready to have a go at him, he was forced to issue a statment saying he had one but it fell off, so basically he had to defend himself for not wearing a piece of paper on his jacket.
Football clubs have started wearing special shirts with poppies embroidered into them to show that they all remember and care and are grateful for the sacrifice etc. Even players who have no idea what it means wear these shirts through no choice of their own. You have Argentinian players (to take one example) some of whom will have family/friends who fought the British 30 or so years ago forced to wear a symbol supporting the British army who fought against them. It's a joke.

There have been international matches around this time of year for years, England never asked to have a poppy on their shirts for them, 10 years ago they played Sweden on the Saturday before rememberence Sunday and they didn't wear a poppy and nobody cared. But now they feel like they have to? The PM thinks that not allowing them to is a disgrace? The royal family get involved?
Not political? Ask me bollix.

Did the soldiers who fought and died against the nazis do it so that people would be forced to wear symbols on their shirts? Or did they do it to stop people from being forced to wear symbols?

I have no problem with people wearing them, I have no problem with the British Legion raising money selling them, I have no problem with the British nation taking some time out to remember their dead, but I have a massive problem with how it is being turned into some sort of loyalty test, and how people now feel like they have to wear one, and how those in the public eye end up being forced to wear it or explain themselves.

The whole episode has been a manufactured sh*t storm, I don't know if the FA were deliberately trying to stir it up, I doubt it, but somebody was trying to stir some sh*t and they succeeded, and FIFA made a massive mistake. Now the door is open for any country to decide that they want to wear special symbols on armbands during matches.

i taught fifa ban countries who allow political interference??? is this not a contradiction when their pm sends them a letter???

No better time to hitting these folks with some cracking Simon Weston jokes

corkery wrote: Have no problem with people wearing them as long as they don't moan about people wearing the Lilly at Easter. A thing I would have a problem with is the way the British say that they entered this war and the second world war for freedom which is clearly false considering they only wanted to ensure that there was no danger to their empire.