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Lee Bowyer becomes a happy Hammer.

  
  

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The Falcon
14:14 / 12.01.03
Can someone explain why he is a racist, please? I accept 'thug'. But the verdict was 'not guilty' in a court o' law. He was out drinking with Michael Duberry.

Has he just not apologised, or stated his feelings clearly at, say, a press conference? Were slurs used during the attack on Najeib?

Genuine question.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:11 / 12.01.03
I think that probably goes back to his affray in a MacDonalds in 1995 or so, when he apparently shouted that he was not being served by a "Paki", and threw a chair at the unfortunate server. Could be wrong, mind...
 
 
The Falcon
18:50 / 12.01.03
I did wonder, because people seem quite certain about this (racist accusation.)
 
 
Brigade du jour
20:12 / 13.01.03
I'm still too upset to comment coherently ... I mean how hard up can a football club be? If he was a Paul Gascoigne, then at least the attendant career baggage and shall we say undesirable character traits could be outweighed by sheer naked talent, but that's hardly the case here. Besides which, it's forwards and defenders we need, not more bloody wingers! It's enough to make you support Portsmouth.

Haus, are you a West Ham fan then, or is this more sociological curiosity?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:27 / 20.01.03
Digging this up to bring in the Darren Lehman affair. In which an Australian professional sportsman is surprised when the Sir Lankan batsmen complain at being called 'black cunts'. And an interesting and useful perspective on professionalism in sport from this Guardian article.

Normally, moments of the highest pressure in sport are held to reveal character. Steve Waugh's toughness and Shane Warne's genius are revealed precisely in the heat of the moment. Conversely, the touring Englishmen have been stripped naked - weak, timid, lacking in technique - under high heat. We beat the drum of our own supremacy because we're tough when it really matters.

Yet for Lehmann, the logic has been reversed. His defenders cannot reconcile his outburst against his Sri Lankan opponents with his reputation as a "good bloke". Team-mates and associates have described Lehmann's slur as an "out of character" act, committed "in the heat of the moment" by someone who is "universally regarded as a nice guy". Instead it is the Sri Lankans who are rendered villains, oversensitive and unmanly to complain.

(Malcolm Knox is a former chief cricket correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald , writing in the Guardian)
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:29 / 20.01.03
Oh, and quel choque, his County club, Yorkshire, seem less than bothered:

Cope was quick to announce that Lehmann would be retained as Yorkshire's captain next year and then came out with a tired defence, saying "He came off the pitch and through the members' enclosure without saying a word" before adding it was "unfortunate" his remark had been heard in the Sri Lankan dressing room. Unfortunate, many might conclude, hardly seems an appropriate choice of word.

"As far as I'm concerned the dressing room is a sanctuary for players and nothing said there should be repeated outside it," Cope concluded. Well sorry, Geoff, that really is not good enough.

Not when you preside over a club who have repeatedly been called into the debate over whether the thousands of players of Asian ancestry in the county were given sufficient encouragement to become professionals.

Not when supporters at Headingley acquired an unchallenged reputation for bigotry over the decades, and not when the county ground is in a city where a young Asian was beaten up outside a nightclub, provoking one of the most high-profile court cases in recent years.
 
 
Old brown-eye is back
15:38 / 20.01.03
Bowyer for the bargain price of £100,000? I wish we'd signed him. (At the risk of sounding more footbally and aggresive than I actually am, as of next season I suspect Ms Hardy really will want to support Portsmouth.)
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:40 / 20.01.03
Grr. offtopic but had to negotiate stroppy pompey fans the other day to catch my train. Grr.

On topic, I've read several reports that suggest that even at that price, there were very few Prem'ship clubs that were interseted, and the big guns he'd've been hoping for kept well away from the whole thing.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:41 / 20.01.03
Incidentalyl, Bowyer also (allegedly, she being the one doing the alleging) broke up with his long-term girlfriend when he found out that her mother was (half?) Indian, and was afraid that any child they might have had might be a "throwback". No idea where this puts him on the racism scale, but it would, if true, make him a bit of a tool...

Meanwhile, he's a bit stuffed. It would obviously be a very good idea for him to speak out against racism, become an active patron of whichever anti-racist charities would have him, make donations, work with inner-city kids and so on. However, any expression of remorse he might make could be seized upon (would be seized upon, if the prosecuting counsel was worth his salt) as a de facto confession of culpability in the upcoming civil case, where I believe a racial component is being cited. He could be the least racist guy in the universe, but he's got himself backed into a corner to the extent that (I suspect) Roeder is going to have to try to seed stories from his black teammates about what a great, multicultural guy he is....
 
 
Old brown-eye is back
15:42 / 20.01.03
Pompey fans are always stroppy - including myself. And, usually, dressed like sailors.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:58 / 20.01.03
Roeder is going to have to try to seed stories from his black teammates about what a great, multicultural guy he is....

Agreed, sure we'll see a few of these in the coming months.

Maybe they need to send him out on a piss-up with Dafoe and Sinclair, in which they beat up a white guy outside a club and he testifies. And then gets dropped.

Hmm, falls down there, I admit.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:21 / 20.01.03
It's an enduring image, though. Jumpers for goalposts.

With remarkable timing, Malcolm Knox writes in the Guardian in a way that will alter be posted in the "But I'm on your Side" thread in the Head Shop, on Lehmann's actions, in an informed, albeit controversial, article that acts as counterpoint to some anti-Australian wittering elsewhere:

Yet for Lehmann, the logic (that one's true character is revealed int he heat of the moment) has been reversed. His defenders cannot reconcile his outburst against his Sri Lankan opponents with his reputation as a "good bloke". Team-mates and associates have described Lehmann's slur as an "out of character" act, committed "in the heat of the moment" by someone who is "universally regarded as a nice guy". Instead it is the Sri Lankans who are rendered villains, oversensitive and unmanly to complain.

Full article here.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:49 / 21.01.03
Maybe that Australian guy was using 'cunt' in a non-derogatory way that also had nothing to do with ladyparts, and was only using 'black' as a descriptive term. Maybe Bowyer was using 'Paki' as a 'descriptive diminuitive', and only got angry cos the guy serving him was a bit slow.

Maybe.

Yeah, right.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
16:39 / 21.01.03
Wan' help me set it up, Haus?


Erm, have actually posted pretty much that exact quote on the bottom of pg.1 of this thread, but it bears repeating so don't dump it.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:06 / 21.01.03
A dissenting view comes, inevitably, from the good old Evening Standard, here.

At this point, I should make some pious, for-the-record condemnation of Lehmann. But I'm not going to.

That's not because Lehmann wasn't wrong. He was. It's because we've all done it.

I defy anyone - white, black, brown, yellow or green - to say that they have never, in all their lives, made a single remark that contained a derogatory racial component.

The cricket community is utterly divided along ethnic lines. That's why games between India and Pakistan are almost as explosive as relations between those two nations and their Hindu and Moslem communities.

Pompous International Cricket Council members who pontificate over players like Lehmann cast their votes according to their skin tone. That's one of the not-so-hidden agendas behind the whole Zimbabwe fiasco.

Yet racism has become an issue where the only thing as nauseating as the offence itself is the piety, hypocrisy and witch-hunting surrounding it. People compete to see who can be the most offended, as if to prove their own moral virtue.

Would they have been so offended if Lehmann had lost his wicket to England and raged about "blinking Pommie bleeps"? Would a Sri Lankan have got into trouble for an anti-Australian outburst, made in Sinhalese?

Lehmann made an unpleasant remark and has paid the penalty. But as Lloyd stated, Lehmann is not a racist. Why not concentrate on the people who really are?

Lehmann, you see, is not a racist. Therefore, he cannot have been racist.

Mentioned in the same article, I'm concerned for Bilal Shafayat. Is he going to be grabbed as an exemplar of how very accepting the English cricket establishment is. Look! A muslim captain of England! How much more in order could our house be? Which dovetails with Lada's thread about Zimbabwe, of course.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
23:22 / 21.01.03
A bit of the conversation I heard after the incident was to the effect of "yeah, but they [the Sri Lankans] call other people the same thing - it's just that umpires don't understand what they're saying". Is this a valid point? Or is it just "I know you are, but what am I?" nitpicking?
 
 
Shortfatdyke
08:58 / 22.01.03
Rothkoid - would the saying 'two wrongs don't make a right' be too obvious a response here?
 
 
William Sack
09:45 / 22.01.03
Mentioned in the same article, I'm concerned for Bilal Shafayat. Is he going to be grabbed as an exemplar of how very accepting the English cricket establishment is. Look! A muslim captain of England! How much more in order could our house be?

Yes, but it's not just the under 19s team though is it? The captain of the full England team is Asian, and though I'm not sure whether he is a religious man I am pretty sure Nasser Hussain's parents' family were Bombay muslims.

As a youth in the 1980s cricket was my passion and I played club and representative cricket in the West Midlands, an ethnically diverse part of the country. Certainly at a local level I found that the cricket establishment very much had their house in order - black and ethnic minority cricketers flourished, were represented in county youth sides, and even full county sides. Gladstone Small - Caribbean born, Dilip Doshi - Indian, and Asif Din - Ugandan Asian were regulars in the Warwickshire team I followed. Gladstone Small was in and out of the England test team at the time, together with Wilf Slack, Roland Butcher and Norman Cowans, and a youngster called Nasser Hussain was in the England Under 19 side.

Since then numerous black and ethnic minority cricketers have represented England, and the side is currently captained by an Asian man. I don't think that Bilal Shafayat is unique in being an Asian to captain the England youth side either - I could be wrong, but Anurag Singh and Mark Wagh - 2 Asians - captained the youth side in recent years. They definitely played, it's whether one or both captained that I'm not certain about. So I don't think that Shafayat is going to be smugly trumpeted as an example of how the English establishment have got their house in order.

However... I continue to be surprised that for a number of years some of the most competitive club cricket in the country is played in the leagues around Bradford, and some of the best players in those leagues are Asian, and yet none seem to progress to the Yorkshire team. And then the Yorkshire establishment try to excuse and minimise the import of Lehmann's comments with some shit about the sanctity of the dressing room etc. That does disturb me. Contrasting it with my own positive experiences in the West Midlands leads me to believe that something is badly wrong in the cricketing set-up of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. The crass response to the Lehmann incident compounds that belief.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:59 / 22.01.03
Way-ull...it occurs to me that if Australian umpires don't learn the rudiments of sledging Sinhalese, that's hardly the lookout of the Sri Lankan players. We're back onto hegemonic structures, aren't we? The Sri Lankans who overheard Lehmann's outburst were offended, becasue they understood it, because they had to learn English in order to communicate in international cricket...

Also, of course, the response presumably means that somebody involved with Australian cricket who *does* speak Sinhalese has overheard these things, or is this just an assumption?

H.I.R.- Nasser Hussain is, to my knowledge, not a practising Muslim, whereas Bilal Shafayat is, and is the first British Asian Muslim being touted as a future captain of England, AFAIK.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
10:03 / 22.01.03
Bloody hell, Mark Wagh, there's a blast from the past. I'd completely forgotten about him... was at college with him. I don't think he captained the England youth side, but he did captain Oxford University.
 
 
William Sack
10:43 / 22.01.03
You are probably right about Nasser Hussain's religious practices, Haus. I guess there is a possibility that the English authorities will trumpet Shafayat as the first practising Muslim to captain England, but for what purpose? Have they been accused of religious intollerance in the past? In terms of religious discrimination do they need to prove that their house is in order?

K-CC - he did indeed captain Oxford University. Both he an Anurag Singh are Birmingham boys and are both playing for counties in the Midlands.

The point occurs to me, as I have mentioned racial inclusiveness in cricket in the Midlands in contrast with that in Yorkshire, that there clearly seems to be some intersection between racism and anti-racist action and professional sport (a question posed in the topic abstract.) I have no knowledge whatsoever of the Yorkshire set-up, but on the face of it something seems to be going badly wrong. Historically Yorkshire had a rule until fairly recently that you could only play for the county if you were Yorkshire born - which would have ruled out all first generation immigrants. Such a rule if applied in different spheres of life (such as employment) would squarely have fallen foul of the Race Relations Act 1976 as having a disproportionate effect on those of differing colours, races and nationalities.

Yorkshire seems to be the county with the county with the biggest problem with regard to racism, and it is not just the playing set-up - there have been problems with spectators racially abusing visiting players. And they are the county who until recently maintained a clearly discriminatory rule. Coincidence? Possibly, possibly not. However, there is a very, very well-grounded perception of racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club and if that club wants to do something about it then they have got to come up with something better than the fudge over Lehmann.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
12:34 / 22.01.03
sfd/haus: no doubt. I'm just reporting the water-cooler wank...
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:43 / 22.01.03
Absolutely. (on HIR's point about YCC) There is definitely a perception among the Asian cricket fans I know, spanning a couple of generations, that if you go to Headingley, you're in for a hard time.

The fact that no locally black or Asian cricketer has, as far as I know, played for the club, doesn't inspire much confidence. In a county with massive black and asian populations, and lots of grassroots cricket, the argument that 'they're just not good enough' doesn't really hold water. Especially, as HIR points out, as 'they' seem to be good enough elsewhere

Some other points to think about, from an article in 'Hit Racism for Six, The Campaign for Racial Equality in Cricket' - a great site:

on the cricket media, who bear a great deal of responsibility, IMHO:

During the 1995 West Indies tour, Ambrose and Walsh were dubbed "muggers" by a Guardian correspondent; and the Independent took delight in the fact that in that year's Lord's Test "for once, the England bowling attack did not look like a United Nations strike force".

in Wisden Cricket Monthly [...] Robert Henderson argued that black and Asian cricketers - even those born and raised in Britain, like Mark Ramprakash - could never evince the same loyalty to the England cause as those he termed "unequivocal Englishmen". (this in 1995)

The article also makes a point, worth repeating, that certainly in the past when there's been trouble at major matches, the CCB has often treated it as alcohol-fuelled hooliganism and refused to admit that there might be *any* racist element to it.

They're currently looking into funding for research into racism in cricket...
 
 
William Sack
13:52 / 22.01.03
Interesting article BiP. Re. YCC, I have very quickly gone to the official websites of 5 counties which include areas with high black and ethnic minority populations. Looking at the player profiles: Lancs has 2 BEM player (inc. Harbajan Singh the overseas professional), Leicestershire: 2, Worcs and Warks: 4 each, Surrey: 7 (inc. Saqlain Mushtaq the overseas professional.) There are no BEM players currently in the Yorks set-up. Oh, and they have an overseas professional who called the Sri Lankan team "black cunts", and a chief executive who makes no attempt to condemn that. I imagine your Asian cricket supporting friends will continue to feel uncomfortable at the thought of watching cricket at Headingly.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
13:56 / 22.01.03
Interesting info, HIR, and bears out my instincts...

There's a Hindi joke, which I can't translate at all, but which basically runs along the lines of the Indian cricket captain suddenly realising that the best way to finally produce an indian fast bowler of any merit is to send them to watch a few matches at Headingly...

And I think this says it all, my emphasis:

adding it was "unfortunate" his remark had been heard in the Sri Lankan dressing room

or 'don't get caught, there's a good chap'
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
05:56 / 27.01.03
< SHOT= Cheap >
Switzerland 8th January 2003 :
>
> UEFA today stunned the football world by handing out a severe
>penalty to England international Lee Bowyer after finding him guilty
>of stamping on an opponent during an UEFA cup match. Bowyer has been
>banned from European competition for six games and made to sign for
>West Ham United.
>
> The combination of the six game ban and enforced transfer to West
> Ham means effectively Bowyer has been banned from European football
>for a minimum of FIFTEEN years.
>
> Bowyer himself is said to be philosophical after finally been caught
> on CCTV stamping on a grounded opponent but does admit he is at
> least partly to blame as he should have phoned a team mate to come
> and pick him up and destroyed his boots and socks like he normally
> does when he finds himself in these situations ....
>
> Bowyer's contract entitles him to a £1m bonus payment should West Ham
> escape relegation, the contract is also believed to include payments
> should he find Lord Lucan (£750k), prove the existence of extra-
> terrestial life (£500k) or explain why the fcuk they paid several
> million pound for Titi Camera (£250k).
>
> Meanwhile official West Ham sources would make no comment on rumours
> that West Ham are to change their away strip to a white sheet with a
> white hood to make Bowyer feel more at home.
 
 
Brigade du jour
21:18 / 27.01.03
A friend of mine told me yesterday that if Bowyer had been signed by Liverpool (and it was as I recall a distinct possibility) she would have returned her replica shirt with an angry letter to Gerard Houiller.

I don't know whether I should do the same, being a West Ham supporter, because I'd be tempted to do it anyway with the atrocious season we're having, but I definitely feel like shaking Roeder by the shoulders and saying something along the lines of "are you fucked in the head? wasn't the season going badly enough for you? he's not even a particularly good player!" By now of course, I'd get sidetracked by the Man U game, but still the situation is totally fucked up.

But, and here's maybe a valid point, bear with me - if West Ham weren't having a bad season, then would there be such uproar among certain pockets of fans? Actually there probably would, because there seem to be plenty of supporters who don't give a toss one way or another about Bowyer.

Big sigh.
 
 
Not Here Still
16:17 / 05.05.03
Heart stopping play by West Ham, eh?

What do y'all think of the footballing aspects of this thread at the end of the season?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:32 / 05.05.03
Well, I've seen little in Bowyer's play to convince me that he was, as a signing, worth the hassle, although possibly the added pressure on Roeder made his brain explode, which in turn made Trevor Brooking step up, and has apparently inspired a dramatic upturn in form (then again, the Hammers were on the up long before the last two games). However, West Ham could still go down, leaving Bowyer out of contract, West Ham another half a million or so out of pocket (at a guess, with wages and the nominal fee), and the other clubs wondering whether he is worth the gamble given that, although comparatively uncontroversial, his stay at Upton Park seems to have been characterised by uninspiring football.

But good question - will history vindicate Roeder? Is it as simple as "if West Ham stay up, it was a good decision?"
 
 
Brigade du jour
22:00 / 07.05.03
At the risk of threadrot, can anybody offer any odds on Trevor Brooking being offered a permanent position as West Ham manager if we stay up?

Or perhaps on Bowyer being sold straight back to Leeds if we don't?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:57 / 07.05.03
Would Brooking take it? He can earn a decent living without managing, he has other, more reliable irons in the fire, he has no coaching qualifications AFAIK...and a Premiership team that escaped relegation on the final day is not exactly the best place to start your managerial career.
 
 
Brigade du jour
21:29 / 08.05.03
Well you see, that's what I thought, but then it occurred to me that he didn't have to take the job in the first place. Then again again, he probably saw it as something to while away his middle-age just in case managing was in some way more fulfilling or interesting than sitting on the board. Which hurts your arse after a while, b-boom.

I really don't know. I think yeah, maybe he would do it. But then I'm an incurable fantasist.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:29 / 17.05.03
Well, that's that then. The Hammers are down, and Bowyer has been released from his contract, along with Edouard Cisse, Paolo di Canio, Izzie Ireikpen and 6 others, who were not first team players. Les Ferdinand has got a new contract, presumably much reduced, on the grounds that he wants to play and is not going to get a move to a premiership club, and his height and physical presence will probably suit the First quite well, while has loss of pace will not be such a handicap.

Sooo... what do we think? The Bowyer experiment seems ultiamtely to have been a costly failure, in the sense that it might have contributed both to relegation and the Roeder's head exploding, but would things have gone any better without him? Will someone pick him up now - Houllier might be keener on him for free than for £9m, after all, and God knows Liverpool need *someone* to slot into their midfield, though Bowyer wouldn't be my first choice (my first choice would perhaps have been ever actually giving the insanely talented Jari Litmanen a decent run).

And, on a related topic, how much would *you* pay for Alpay, Bosko Balaban, Angel and Hassan Kachloul?
 
 
Rev. Orr
18:15 / 17.05.03
Thanks, Haus, but we need another right-footed midfielder to play on the left-wing like we need a hole in the head. Unlike Mr. Roeder.
 
 
Old brown-eye is back
14:15 / 19.05.03
"At the risk of sounding more footbally and aggresive than I actually am, as of next season I suspect Ms Hardy really will want to support Portsmouth."

Di Canio heading south?
 
  

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