Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of
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@catogrande it’s white people saying brown people shouldn’t play for the country they were raised snd often born in.
Same standards never been applied to foreign born white people in NZ rugby teams.
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From experience of having had similar views myself in the past in regard to poaching I would say it is not about brown skin per se, more that it is an obvious point of difference and therefore more noticeable. Certainly not you've got brown skin therefore you can't do x / can only do y, but very much "NZ should not be doing X". Most of the UK guys that I've had discussions with about poaching have not centred on the colour of anyone's skin as a rationale, more that "NZ are poachers, pillaging the islands for talent" viewpoint. Once you understand that NZ has a high number of PI origin people living there, raised there and born there, then that POV difference becomes null and void. Of course there are still people that will never consider otherwise but these, to me are very much a minority. I do not doubt that the poaching thing still gets dragged up and will do for sometime yet, but I do not see it as racist.
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@majorrage said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
@catogrande it’s white people saying brown people shouldn’t play for the country they were raised snd often born in.>
The issue here has usually been that those highlighted facts were not understood or believed.
Same standards never been applied to foreign born white people in NZ rugby teams.
Believe you me, there were when John Gallagher was tearing it up for you guys from full back and when we were crying out for a centre with the skills of Jamie Salmon. Bloody poaching bastards!
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@catogrande said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
@victor-meldrew said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
Twickenham around 2005-ish. England v AB's. Racist abuse being chucked around from England "supporters" & directed at Pasifika AB's. Pretty vile stuff. Wasn't just me either, my accountant heard similar stuff at the same game.
Thankfully, that sort of stuff seems to have been weeded out by the RFU
That does not sound typical of a Twickenham crowd and I've been going there for years now. Likely due to the period, just after RWC win, loads of dis-satisfied bandwagon jumpers on corporate jollies would be my guess. Sounds pretty unpleasant.
Monkey chants and "kill the samoan c**t".
Think you're right on it being the type of fan, the period and the Lions 2005 tour. A maori AB (Pat Walsh?, Waka Nathan?) also mentioned he'd suffered racial abuse when attending Twickenham as did Aaron Mauger around that time. Utterly different when I attended the IRB Sevens there.
Came to head when Nigel Owens complained in 2014. All credit to the RFU in stamping it out
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@catogrande said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
Hmmm. I don’t really see the NZ/Polynesian thing as being a racist POV. I’d say that is more a dog in the manger attitude to NZ’s success over the years and the view that they poach players who just happen to be brown skinned. It still comes from ignorance of the wider diaspora but I don’t see it as being racially motivated in the perjorative sense.
Mind you I haven’t had to listen with gritted teeth all these years.
Agree with much of that but I've been to more than a few dinner parties in the Home Counties where the skin colour of NZ players was def. the problem sadly, not where they were born.
The reactions when they twigged I was a Kiwi were quite fun though.
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@catogrande to be honest I don’t get too hung up about it. It’s generally as you say, rationalizing why nz is good, as opposed to being genuinely racist.
However, if the Uk has taught me one thing, it’s that all conversations around non whites are based on racism.
Thus, it’s clearly racism.
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Phew! You’re painting with a very broad brush there my friend.
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Don't really have one tbh, went to the Zoo at Forsyth Barr in 2016 as a Chiefs fan and got some abuse and shit thrown at me but there was a few of us so we did the same back, but that was just a bit of fun as we were all minced. One dumb student from Auckland pissed me off, kept on getting right in my face so I grabbed his flag and biffed it then he started hurling homophobic shit at me which I wasn't having and he felt quite awkward after we all called him out. Same thing happened in 2017, didn't go to the Zoo but after the Chiefs won all the freshers got on my face and we're like ah fuck the Chiefs and all that despite the fact the Chiefs beat the Landers and kept them tryless.
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@catogrande said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
@majorrage said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
@catogrande it’s white people saying brown people shouldn’t play for the country they were raised snd often born in.>
The issue here has usually been that those highlighted facts were not understood or believed.
Same standards never been applied to foreign born white people in NZ rugby teams.
Believe you me, there were when John Gallagher was tearing it up for you guys from full back and when we were crying out for a centre with the skills of Jamie Salmon. Bloody poaching bastards!
We're in the Asia-Pacific region, so Salmon was just returning to his home area.
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@catogrande said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
@majorrage said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
@catogrande it’s white people saying brown people shouldn’t play for the country they were raised snd often born in.>
The issue here has usually been that those highlighted facts were not understood or believed.
Same standards never been applied to foreign born white people in NZ rugby teams.
Believe you me, there were when John Gallagher was tearing it up for you guys from full back and when we were crying out for a centre with the skills of Jamie Salmon. Bloody poaching bastards!
Funny that neither apparently showed out until they came to NZ to get a real rugby education..... I saw both of them play for Wellington. Gallagher in particular was brilliant, and the understanding he had with John Schuster at 12 was amazing to watch
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I've had similar experiences at Twickenham to @MajorRage . Been 1/2 dozen times I suppose, albeit a few years ago. The general ignorance, that not all Kiwis are white, and the poaching argument was rife and borne out of sheer ignorance. I really didn't like going there in the end and having to explain the same shit every time.
I've told this story before - The worst crowd there, wasn't Brits though. It was the 1999 semi final and SA had been knocked out the day before versing Aus - think it was Larkham's wobbly droppie. Large group of SA fans were behind us. Older guys, drunk, rude, obnoxious and bitter. Just wouldn't leave me alone as a Kiwi in black and I was with a really cool bunch of French guys that I had got a ticket off. Eventually one of the French blokes realised that I was losing my cool and said to these fuckers that he, and I, had our wives with us and wouldn't put up with the abuse and the language. So if they wanted to have a go it was on, but they were taking on quite a few of us. All of his mates stood up. Was a great moment. Like all bullies they STFU.
Every country has their dickheads. Explaining NZ ethnic origins to pompous twats at "Twickers" gets really boring though.
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@snowy funny it was an Aussie at that game who was being an absolute fluffybunny to me, I was with my boss too (started the job only a few weeks before, so I couldnt thump him) but it was another Aussie who threatened him because he was being such a fluffybunny.
After the game, it was English fans, the French guys were very humble...one huge Maori guy had had enough of the 2 English twats on the train, and all 6'6" of him and about 140kegs stood over them and told them to STFU...they did!
Another game I went to there, on Remembrance day, during the minute of silence, some fluffybunny shouted out 'All Blacks'
So yeah, all countries have fluffybunnies.
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@snowy I had the opposite experience. I scored my ticket to that match on the train the previous day from a Saffa dude who was on a tour. We were heading out to the Boks v Oz match and he gave me his ticket as he was flying back to SA the next morning.
So I was sitting in the middle of all the Saffa tour groups with my AB flag draped around me.
They were all awesome. They gave me a bit of the usual banter during the match but were great at the end.
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There's a clown in every circus. It's just the size of the tent determines how many there are.
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@catogrande said in Worst Rugby crowd you've been part of:
From experience of having had similar views myself in the past in regard to poaching I would say it is not about brown skin per se, more that it is an obvious point of difference and therefore more noticeable. Certainly not you've got brown skin therefore you can't do x / can only do y, but very much "NZ should not be doing X". Most of the UK guys that I've had discussions with about poaching have not centred on the colour of anyone's skin as a rationale, more that "NZ are poachers, pillaging the islands for talent" viewpoint. Once you understand that NZ has a high number of PI origin people living there, raised there and born there, then that POV difference becomes null and void. Of course there are still people that will never consider otherwise but these, to me are very much a minority. I do not doubt that the poaching thing still gets dragged up and will do for sometime yet, but I do not see it as racist.
Yeah I’ve heard the “but where were their parents born” retort more than a few times when pointing out that certain “poachees” we’re both born and raised in NZ.
As you say, it’s probably more a rationalisation / complaint about NZ being good, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not an element of racism or bigotry
