He did get acknowledged in the match programme.This may have carried more'weight' with the many fans who weren't even supporters at that timeIn some ways probabley appropriate level of responce for this scenario.

What a strange set of values you have. Showing respect in your view is "politically-motivated grief"

Just out of interest KS, what was it that made you go over to the dark side?

My bet is that your bitterness started when the Aussies cancelled the 10 quid assisted passage scheme. Not only did you 'miss the boat' but as you don't pass muster on the immigration requirements it has left your dreams of watching the NRL in the hands of that right wing friend of yours Mr Rupert Murdoch.



Alternative suggestions welcome...

People were turning out on Bassett high street years before tv cameras up. The town's always had a stong military association, it was nothing political.

The key here is that the media did turn up and they stayed 24/7, turning the place into a venue for the continual fetishisation of grief. Of course it's political... it's part of a political agenda designed to sway public opinion in the direction of undying and unquestioning loyalty to the brave cause whilst ignoring the important issues of what we are doing in Afghanistan in the first place and whether that loss of life is a price worth paying.

Would it be considered appropriate to hold a minutes silence for Mick Shaw in Wootton Bassett? Of course not. So why should a minutes silence be considered appropriate for dead soldiers at Headingley prior to a game of Rugby League?

Its a shame that minute silences are being replaced more and more with minutes applause (granted more a football thing). It just doesn't have the same feeling of respect when you know that the only reason your clapping instead of standing silently is because a minority of idiots can't be trusted to have the decency to keep quiet for 60 seconds.

That's football for you.

And it pains me immensely to say I kind of agree with Keith Swiftcorn on this one.

Agree with this.

Again, the increasing frequency of these manufactured (media-driven) circus of grief type soap operas merely serve to distort and dilute the real meaning and appropriate context behind what people or which events ought to be worthy of commemoration and respect. We certainly live in a post-Diana, fashion icon, faux grief world these days and I have no intention of participating in any of it.

For which you occassionally have an aoplogy prised out of you!:
[urlhttp://posting.php?mode=quote&f=17&p=16767734[/url

I apologise when I err.
__________

I note you haven't seen fit to do likewise to the family of the fallen soldier you excluded.

I have absolutely no problem with standing quietly during the one, or two minutes of Remembrance. We honour the dead with the sound of silence.

Of course, the Heads of various Churches would dispute that, and say that the Christian response to tragedy should be prayer. I reckon if I were to pray, it would be for enlightenment, to set free those sad people, currently wallowing in their own blissful ignorance and negativity.

If Jamie Mathiou suddenly died would you expect a minute's silence? - he made 3 times the number of appearances for Leeds that Mick Shaw did.

A minutes silence should be reserved for true legends of the club otherwise you are saying Mick Shaw is of equal importance to Leeds that Lewis Jones is?

Some perspective is required here.

I always did like the Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel.

There should be a sliding scale of remembrance with a base point of ten seconds for academy players then accumulating in ten second increments dependant on number of first team appearances and grand final rings acquired.

Kevin Sinfield would get about an hour.

Despite his unbowing irreverence I'm in total agreement with KS on this.

IMO the best way to honour the fallen soldiers is to withdraw the troops before any more come back in the same condition, something that George Galloway clearly understood better than all those snivelling cowardly politicians who despite their crocodile tears are prepared to see many more die in a useless, unpopular and unwinnable war.

I've lived in Bassett for 11 years, it's never been anything remotely resembling a circus and as far from political as you could get. Maybe on tv, but not in real life.
The numbers, even after the cameras came for the first time, were not huge until families of the servicemen started to use the drive through the town as part of their memorial service.
It's a quiet town and most offer people I know would have been happy if cameras had never turned up. I would hate to think that some people misinterpret a genuine gesture started by a few ex servicemen and extrapolate that to class our town as a small minded Tory backwater stuck in a time warp where the sun had yet to set on the British empire and where you could find the "Little England" daily wail readers have wet dreams over. Half the people I know are Welsh FFS.

As for Mick Shaw, or local servicemen, the club can do what they want, it doesn't bothr me.

And Ian Kirke would get half an hour based on the above.

Time for a rethink perhaps?

Would that be the indefatigable George Galloway, who tweeted after his Bradford election victory [i
"Welcome to the 6000 new followers. I will try to live up to your expectations. Shattered but happy after the Blackburn triumph."[/i

Aye George, all those Northern towns with their large ethnic populations all look the same, eh?

Same Galloway who was big buddies with saddam and some 'oil money' happening to be in his account by accident

There would be an adjustment for dropped balls, missed tackles, lack of yardage and the Big Daft Lad index.

Mathers would owe the crowd 20 minutes.

Same Galloway who ripped the US Senate apart when they tried to charge him over these accusations.
Are you seriously naive enough to believe that if there was any truth in the allegations they wouldn't have crucified him for it.

You may not remember some of the transcript of that hearing so I'll remind you. It went roughly along the lines of:
Galloway: 'I met Saddam twice, that's less than your own Donald Rumsfeld. the difference is I went to try and persuade him to give up his weapons..you went there to sell him weapons.'

For me, the player should have been something above the ordinary at the club to get a minutes silence. I remember last year the threads about the numbers on the front of the shirts, and representing players with 10+ games for Leeds in SL. Weren't those numbers in the hundreds? And if so, that represents a large number of minutes silences in the future.

Also, the minutes silence has become diluted, hence why we now have more 2 minutes silences & the occasional 3 minutes.

I got to the ground for 7-ish friday and was not witness to any form of acknowledgement to Mick Shaw in any form.

Seems an insulting dis-service in short.