James McClean has right to snub poppy but he needs to learn full story

Bluedell

Well-Known Member
It is that time of year again when James McClean sparks uproar among thousands of football fans because of his notoriously stubborn refusal to wear a decent first touch.

No matter how much abuse they shower upon the Stoke City winger, his left foot insists on turning to concrete as soon as it makes contact with a ball. The frustration and resentment it has caused for most of this decade shows no sign of abating.

In comparison with this gross professional negligence, his notoriously stubborn refusal to wear a remembrance poppy could be considered a matter of personal choice. For anyone who believes in freedom of expression, it is not a misdemeanour at all. It is the essence of liberty, a living assertion of the citizen’s right to democratic choice — which is not to say that the 30-year-old clogger does not need a few lessons in politics and manners.

McClean grew up brainwashed with a simplistic version of the distressing story that surrounded him in Northern Ireland. In this version Martin McGuinness, his fellow Derry man, was a freedom fighter, a working-class hero, a revolutionary inspiration. It seems that John Hume barely existed at all, albeit that he is a Derry man who is revered as a statesman and who in 1998 was a co-recipient of the Nobel peace prize. In his pronouncements over the years, McClean has never mentioned Hume.

When McGuinness died in March 2017, McClean described him in a statement as “a good friend . . . a great leader, a great hero and above all a great man. Thinking of all your loved ones.”

Julie Hambleton was thinking of loved ones that day, in particular her 18-year-old sister Maxine, who was one of 21 people murdered by IRA bombs in two pubs in Birmingham on November 21, 1974. She has devoted much of her life since to bringing the perpetrators to justice. McGuinness, she steadfastly maintains, had “so much blood on his hands”. The death of the unrepentant IRA commander prompted a diametrically different response from Ms Hambleton.

“I feel sad because here was a man who I believe could have given us so many answers to our questions and the questions of many others who are victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. His family have our genuine condolences. We are not evil people. But he has had a full life and has a family, children, grandchildren — how lucky for him. What about Maxine and Jane Davis and the rest of the 21 who were killed in the pub bombings?”

Through Sunderland, Wigan Athletic, West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City, McClean has made a handsome living in those English heartlands where McGuinness and his cadre of sociopaths wreaked the most dreadful human suffering. Warrington, Manchester, the M62: does he know what happened in these places? Does he care? His comments have shown a regrettable insensitivity to the country that has given him a livelihood of which he could never have dreamt in Derry.

If he has struggled to show a modicum of consideration for his adopted community, perhaps he ought to be mindful of his fellow emigrants, the Irish men and women who for generations before him made their lives in Britain. The atrocities of Irish terrorism brought crippling shame upon them. It was they who were left to deal with the inevitable backlash provoked by these crimes against humanity.

It seems that in McClean’s world there is only one such crime that matters: the shooting dead of 13 unarmed civilians in Derry by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday — January 30, 1972. Five years ago, while at Wigan, he wrote an open letter to Dave Whelan, the club chairman. At the time he was being subjected to a storm of vitriol. He prefaced his explanation by stressing he had “complete respect” for those who fought and died in both world wars. But Bloody Sunday made the wearing of the poppy a step too far.

“Please understand that when you come from Creggan like myself or the majority of places in Derry, every person still lives in the shadow of one of the darkest days in Ireland’s history. It is just part of who we are, ingrained into us from birth.”

Fair enough. His conscience will not allow it. The problem arises of someone who seems to know only a fraction of the story. “Ingrained into us from birth” is an admission that he has been force-fed a version that leans heavily on denial, self-pity and sentimental nationalism.

While Hume, his SDLP colleagues and their supporters stood four-square for peace, civility and civilisation, it was McGuinness, the IRA and their counterparts in Ulster loyalism who were dragging that society into its chamber of horrors.

One of the most infamous horrors was perpetrated at a ceremony to commemorate the war dead in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, on November 8, 1987. Irish terrorists killed 12 people that day and injured 63, many of them elderly. It was an outrage that stunned both nations, known as the Remembrance Day bombing, the Poppy Day massacre.

The wearing or not of a poppy on a football field seems trivial but it would be no trivial matter if McClean reconsidered his position in the light of that hideous day. Stripped of history and tribalism, it would be a simple, stand-alone gesture of atonement for that unfathomable act of cruelty. McClean takes a lot of pride in the strength of his convictions. He insists he has done it on principle and that, as he said in his letter to Whelan, “if you’re a man you should stand up for what you believe in”.

The point is that it matters less what you “believe in” than what you know. Believing in something is often a shortcut for people who do not bother to inform themselves or who do not want to know. Blind conviction becomes a refuge from inconvenient truths.

McClean’s political sensibilities are as crude as his football skills. He has not made life easy by refusing to wear the symbol of “the Brits” but it is easier than telling home truths to his people. If he needs to know one thing, it is that standing up to one’s tribe is the toughest principle to live by, the hardest test of all.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...py-but-he-needs-to-learn-full-story-vwmgbl5j0
 
He's not made his usual attention seeking statement this year (as far as I know?) so why give him some anyway?
 
If McClean really was the principled man he says he is, surely he would play his football in another country other than the one populated by the detested Brits?
How much money does it take for his principles to be sold out?
I suspect that like most of his kind, not very much.
 
If McClean really was the principled man he says he is, surely he would play his football in another country other than the one populated by the detested Brits?
How much money does it take for his principles to be sold out?
I suspect that like most of his kind, not very much.

A hellluva lot of people's principles go out the window when a lot of money is involved.
 
A footballer who cant even get a game in the championship.

Sad man who will end up in the clutches of the mhanks in January.

What a limited footballer.
 
The attention he gets is baffling.

He’s not British, hes not a great footballer and he’s not achieved much in his career.

The whole “Poppywatch” thing every year admittedly bores me to tears, but genuinely do wonder why without fail he gets so much coverage for this. He’s a f*cking nobody.
 
People died for his right to not wear a poppy so he is free to do what he wants

The article is spot on he clearly hates the united kingdom and has a childish belief that he is somehow making a pricipled stand

He of course is a hypocrite and if he really was principled he would forgo the healthy paychecks he has been given and refused to play in a country he clearly despises

I expect him to.end up at the piggery before his career is up where his open support for terrorism will be welcomed by the vast majority of the supporters of that vile club
 
People died for his right to not wear a poppy so he is free to do what he wants

The article is spot on he clearly hates the united kingdom and has a childish belief that he is somehow making a pricipled stand

He of course is a hypocrite and if he really was principled he would forgo the healthy paychecks he has been given and refused to play in a country he clearly despises

I expect him to.end up at the piggery before his career is up where his open support for terrorism will be welcomed by the vast majority of the supporters of that vile club

His lack of contribution via ability would be made up for with the shitload of jerseys demented Scottish people who pretend their great grandad fought in the Easter uprising would purchase with his name in them.

So yeah... A shoe in probably.
 
I think we're often guilty of looking to be offended by republican scrotes like McClean every November 11th.

Can we not remember the dead without focussing on those who choose not to?
Very true mate,I can see most of the guys getting upset,used to be the same myself,and can see the hypocrisy of people like McLean,but as most posters last night agreed, and especially the eulogy of the minister and the wonderful poem about "the soldier" which was all over FF yesterday, all those brave people who sacrificed their lives did so ,so we can have freedom of speech,hard to swallow,someone made a great point about world war one veterans refusing to wear poppies with Haig on it (as per earl Haig read your history on that one )and I would have agreed with them on that one,the article on McLean is a great read,myself I try and ignore his like and the rest of them,but we all have an opinion and that is a fact,I only ask the ones that burn our flag,ones that call our soldiers murderers,protest on climate change,political left or right just once take a deep breath, and give me or show me RESPECT for being proud ,to wear a poppy ,to remember some real heroes many ,many of them never came back wether proddy,RC,hindu moslem,Jewish Welsh indian burmese,jesus its endless still well up at the thought of it,please just a wee bit RESPECT that's all!
 
I think we're often guilty of looking to be offended by republican scrotes like McClean every November 11th.

Can we not remember the dead without focussing on those who choose not to?

Saw this the other day and was thinking that’s the sort of thing some of the boys on here would do

EJGyLzSXUAM0c9i
 
I wouldn't have heard of him if it wasn't for his churlish behaviour. He's certainly never achieved anything of note on a football pitch.
 
With respect to the original article - I'm not sure that John Hume or his cohorts in the SDLP wore poppys either. Even though many Catholic Irishmen bore the ultimate sacrifice in both WW's, I think the 'poppy' was viewed by a majority of nationalists/republicans of all stripes as a symbol of their oppressors - ie. the British Army.
 
The best way to forgot about this mentally challenged Prick is too stop bringing his name up at this time every bloody year.

He's an ABSOLUTE NOBODY.

Fck him and his kind.

Wish people would just forget about this piece of shit.
 
He should go to the paedos where he won't need to wear one, he can even join in singing their disgusting songs.
He would fit right in being both a limited footballer (like their captain) and a pish stained mentally challenged tramp.
 
More oxygen for this fkin parasite when Remembrance Day should be about respecting the fallen and those who served.
 
I know a fella in work from Londonderry. Though he’s more inclined to shorten the name but hey ho, he’s ok otherwise. He said to me one day that McLean had come into the Bogside driving some flashy car and near tore the underside clean out of it on speed ramps and ended up with folks laughing at him. I just played along about typical ‘Flash Harry’ footballer, I don’t “bite” on stuff anyone might all of a sudden take offence at.

Next thing he says, “If he couldn’t play football he’d be in the Provos” and rolled his eyes. “Who knows” but inside I was thinking something totally different.

At least you know what McLean is, that’s the nicest thing you can say about him.
 
If it wasn’t for his self publicised poppy position nobody would even know the name of this limited ability prick
Well, apart from the Chairmen of the clubs he played for wondering why they decided to pay good money to employ the prick!
 
Remember the dead for what they gave, their lives. For our freedom, liberty and choice to believe and go about how we want. That includes some ball bag like James McClean.
 
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