Frank Lampard may not be everybody’s cup of tea but his clampdown on the songs from the terraces is to be applauded.
And the newly appointed Stamford Bridhge boss has also drawn praise from anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out after he condemned his club’s supporters for referring to West Ham as ‘pikeys’.
A section of the fans used the r
A section of the Blues fans use the term during the Sunday friendly against Reading and Lampard had no problem telling them to stop using it forthwith.
In fairness to him it’s a brave move by him so soon into his reign as boss and demonstrates a no nonsense approach.
‘We are aware of the chant and contacted @ChelseaFC about the issue last week,’ Kick It Out said on Twitter.
‘We are pleased to see the club and Frank Lampard take such a clear stance in support of equality by condemning the song – ‘pikey’ is a discriminatory word and no football supporter should be using it.’
Lampard, who has a strong standing with Chelsea’s support after a glittering career at Stamford Bridge, had said on Sunday: ‘If there’s a song that has offensive words in it then of course I don’t want to hear that and that’s me saying that as a big Chelsea man who really appreciates the support I’ve had over the years.
‘We don’t want songs with offensive words so if the fans can sing other songs while still backing the team, which is more important than myself, then I’ll certainly back that.
‘We’re all aware the club are very strong with the work we do off the pitch in terms of anything that’s offensive or prejudice. We’ve made a big mark in recent years so we don’t want that.’
Sometimes I get offended when everybody gets offended. Here’s my new song for the new era of football. To the tune of ‘You’re not singing anymore’
We don’t like you
we don’t like you
we don’t like you very much
we don’t like you very much
It should hold us over until people start to find something wrong with the word like.
Dictionary describes it as an informal and offensive noun. As non travellers most wouldn’t find it offensive but I have had traveller mates who will lay you out for using the term. That’s the difference some don’t get it. They don’t understand.
My point is more general Hugh. I understand that the term could be considered offensive just as much as the word directed at Spurs fans by Spurs fans.
While I understand the boundaries can be crossed. Sometimes I just find people’s faux outrage tiresome. We all know there are some lowlife characters that will always go to lengths to offend, but there’s a lot of light hearted banter between fans that over time is being eradicated as the country has slowly lost it’s sense of humour.
I’m old skool – very old skool LOL – and I often feel the same. I once saw a poster on the tube from the Met saying “If you are offended by something done or said to you -let us know.” Ludicrous. But once a word, activity or code of behaviour has been designated offensive by a PC society that ‘s that sadly. If Lamps wants to follow the ‘rules’fine and I don’t honestly like to hear a word used when it is generally used to denigrate once small section of society. I also don’t wanna be decked by any of Tyson Fury’s traveller mates. 🙂 On a more serious note, why would Chelsea fans take a word used to put down travellers and apply it to others if not to offend?
Maybe they just don’t like travellers. They’ve got previous with train passengers 😉