Hi Mark,
Firstly I congratulate you and all the others who showed common sense and sound judgement on this issue.
For me this was really an issue of yet more mindless violence, something we see far too much of these days, whether it's on the streets on a Friday night or on the field of sport. It just sickens me.
Re the personal attacks on me don't sweat it, none of these people had the slightest idea what they were talking about, as they don't have the slightest idea of who I am or where I come from.
The first dig about not having played contact sport made me laugh, having been an active sportsman since I was at school, and although my passion has always been rugby, I continued to pay football and hockey and lots of other stuff for fun for many years after I left.
The second dig about probably being white and not being able to understand racial and religious hatred was also so way off the mark, given my background and where I hail from, I recon I know as much if not more about that subject than most.
Then there were repeated attempts to show that I couldn't know anything about the game because I didn't know who ZZ was. Well what utter nonsense. You've only got to watch the game to decide how good a team France, Italy, Spain or anyone else has. You don't need to know the names of the players to know a team can pass well but are weak in defence or defend well but have no finishing power.
I studied football and in particular football violence both on and off the pitch as part of my University Degree, so I have a reasonably good understanding of the issues involved.
Mark, If you watch two people argue, the first person to start to loose their cool is usually the one who feels they are loosing the debate or who is trying to defend something on a very shakey basis. The first reaction is an increase in verbal abuse as they have no sound logical basis for the argument or they lack the social skills to develop an appropriate response. This abuse increases the more threatend and the weaker their position becomes, until either they quit or the argument turns violent.
The personal attacks are water off a ducks back to me. However they did show me early on that any reasoned debate was probably never going to happen and also highlight the fundlemental weakness of the position they were trying to make. A bit like laying a smoke screen, to diverting attention away from the main issue.
How do you defend violence of this nature?
Some have said it's OK because of what was said between the players. Of course we don't actually know what was said, we have various versions some of which might or might not be true. To them I say fine that's your opinion but I don't agree with you.
To those who tried to defend the undefenceable but attacking me personally I would say you showed poor judgement and character and anyone reading this post won't need a Mexican Lip Reader to figure out my opinion of you guys.
Very sad gentlemen, very sad.
Shaun thanks for the photos and sound advice from Shey and the others who feel this thread is well past it's sell by date, I lost any real interest in the thing long before I last signed out, but as the recipient of much of the abuse I thought it worth clarifying a few things.
Happy modelling guys.
Cheers
Al
