No the question is , how do you stop it ?

Fairly sure they dont have this problem in North Korea , or in Saudi Arabia , but you grab hold of a kid for swearing at you and see what trouble you end up in , so if you want stewarding costs to rise to the point were clubs cannot operate then fine

As a Cas fan, I hopethe club win their appeal - by demonstrating that they've taken necessary steps. But it's not a ridiculous amount- as I pointed out earlier, it seems to be the standard amount for crowd trouble: Ladt year wr got fined £40k, £20k of it suspended after the trouble at the Catalans game, Now we've been fined £40k with £20k suspended - but also had to pay the £20k suspended from last time. We need to sort out the idiots in our crowd who are costing us.

No it hasn't , Judge Grant stated what Cas didn't do , which is different to what they should have done , unless of course you can find something a bit more specific in his conclusions

Maybe if he got some of his mates at the House of Lords to give back to this country some sensible reasonable laws then we wouldn.t be in the mess we are

Public flogging would probably put a stop to it , what would you suggest ?

It isn't though really is it?

I think its fair to assume that if they have been fined for not doing A,B and C, then the way for clubs to avoid a fine is to make sure they always do A, B and C which in this case would be

Does anyone wish to attempt to tackle the point, that it is quite acceptable to discriminate, and take the p!ss out of, people with ginger hair but it's not ok to do the same with black or gay people. Can anyone highlight a difference for me please? Black people are born black, gay people are born gay, it is 2010 and we are all equal of course. Are ginger haired people not born ginger and also not equal? Why is chanting, aimed at such people as James Graham allowed to continue in our sport if we are so politically correct. Is it because James Graham is quoted after a game [i"If the crowd are giving me a bit of stick, that's fine," he says. "I'm sure they've got their reasons for that, but I'll take it with a smile. I love the noisy atmosphere at big games like this."[/i As opposed to the numerous quotes, radio interviews etc from Gareth Thomas where he goes on and on and on about being chanted at.

Because that's not the point, Marshy.

It would be unlawful to discriminate against someone on the grounds of their hair colour. But it just doesn't happen. People don't get denied jobs or promotion or services, or spat at in the street or beaten up or killed because of their hair colour. They do because of their sexual orientation. A fact recognised in both equality law and the RFL respect policy.

We all recognise the difference between banter and abuse in our personal lives, we can surely do so when it comes to crowds as well. To reduce to banter and pretend it's the RFL being unfair, Gateth Thomas's fault for objecting to being abused, or'chilfren being naughty' just shows the scale of the problem and makes the RFL's case for it.

I am in no way codoning what happened, but Mr Thomas must be very niave if he believed he could play one of the toughest games in the world and not have some crowds chanting etc after coming out. But he is going on like it was totally unexpected.

Given that he managed to play RU without experiencing it, given that we all jumped all over Gabby Logan for daring to suggest that he'd experience it in RL ...

And again, the issue isn't Gareth Thomas, or even the chanting itself - the issue, the reason for the fine and the grounds on which Cas are considering an appeal, is what the club did or didn't do in response.

=#8000FFBut he did and the media ignored it

Barry McKenzie read somewhere that all he got after 'coming out' were a few wolf whistles from sections of the crowd as he was warming up when he was a Union player.

And that was what Gareth himself said in an interview.

But that isn't the point.

=#8000FFIt is when someone says he didn't experience it in Union, but not the point when it comes to the fine (which I wasn't on about at the time).

Why isn't it? Try telling a ginger haired kid at school, who gets the micky ripped out of him constantly that this is ok, but the asian kid or the gay kid we must leave well alone. Is this ok, becaue TV and radio presenters such as Chris Moyles do it, so it must be fine. Giving abuse/banter (whichever way you want to describe it) to GT for being gay is exactly the same as giving abuse/banter to JG for being ginger.

I have no doubt some of those that chanted the abuse at GT will be homophobic while some of them will have been singing it "just for a laugh" and on the whole most probably just to have a bash at an opposing player and possibly put him off his game. However, anyone trying to convince me that "we can see you holding hands" is any worse than "fat, ginger scouse barsteward" is wasting their time. If gay or racists chanting is wrong in this day and age (and it is) then so too is any chanting of the same kind, whether fat, ginger or the many others that go on in the terraces at every RL ground.

And from that, the fine handed down to Cas is unjust imo and stinks of the RFL making an example of Cas while ignoring other gay chants at other grounds and all the other hurtful chanting that goes on across the sport. From this, i can only applaud the real heros of our sport, the likes of James Graham, Leon Pryce, and the rest who have suffered game after game, season after season of chants from opposing fans , taken it like a man (ahem) and got on and played the game.

Btw, when does GT release his autobiography?

well put marshy,the longer this goes on and the more im convinced gt and mr. paladino are going to line their pockets.time will tell i guess but id wager a bet that a book a few tv, radio shows later and this might just disapear.

No. It really isn't. For all of the reasons I outlines above, and more.

And if you really can't see that, if your response to the fine is really 'it's nothing' and 'Thomas should take abuse silently, he's the one to blame' then you're displaying and attitude is precisely part of the problem, not the solution. It also undermines the club's actual case which is that it takes the issue seriously, in line with the RFL respect policy it is signed up to, and took all reasonable steps it could be expected to to address it.

I'd like to think though that a lot of Cas posters who I like and admire are going overboard in their reaction to this, and when the dust has settled will have a more reasoned approach.



Again, the victim is not to blame for the crime. The scrotes are.

I wasn't at the Crusaders game – but am I right in thinking this is the same bunch of drunken youths who spent last season hanging round the giant screen position at the Railway End trying to pick fights with the Quins fans (hardly any of them there, that's brave) or set fire to Catalanglaise's flag (again hardly any there, so really brave)? If so, they should have been identified, ejected and banned from the ground some time ago – on the positive side, though, I've not actually noticed them recently …

Identify them and deal with them. You don't have to be physical.
They are there to watch the game. The club reserves the right to refuse or eject as they see fit. They warn and then carry out their threat.
If the numbers are so big that the stewards can't handle it then yes, I would prefer the overall security costs to increase to ensure all round safety.
You can't have a group of people breaking the rules of the club/RFL and getting away with it just because there are a lot of them.

Perhaps he looked at the history of RL and its precedents for those particpating from minority backgrounds like Clive Sullivan and Ikram Butt as opposed to thinking about a couple of neanderthals who thought it 'was a laugh' to taunt an accomplished rugby player on the safety of the terraces.

Thomas publicised his book on the back of his revelations.He ought to have kept quiet if he did not want it to be common knowledge.

Slightly OT, but i am Head of Yr 8 at a secondary school and any fom of bullying is treated EXACTLY the same, be it racist (altho this must also be reported to the LEA), hair colour, gender, SO, etc.

And no its not exactly the same-calling GT blondie or browny or baldy would be the same.

Why f*ck would he want to keep quiet and 'not want it to become common knowlecge'?

And in what way does being open about his sexuality (as every heterosexual player is) mean that he should be subjected to knuckle dragging abuse?

[url=http://castleford.dyndns.org/article.php?id=877Cas to appeal[/url

And on the basis of that statement, they've every right to.


What we don'tneed is knuckle-draggers from other clubs – including KR Clockwork Mouse – 'supporting' us by turning the issue into some sort of anti-Gareth Thomas crusade or neanderthals like Starry with their 'it's only children being naughty, you can't be expected to control the crowd anyway, and it's not like homophobia is anything serious' boll'ox

But people do, and you know that already living in a country where ginger people are continually harassed. If the RFL respect policy is truely about respect, then i'm sure ginger haired people would like to be in on it as much as gay people.
[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-459182/Red-headed-family-forced-ginger-hate-campaign.htmlLink[/url
[url=http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/04/24/schoolgirl-received-7-death-threats-a-day-for-having-ginger-hair-115875-22207630/Link[/url
I can't see any difference with these stories tbh. If we were to replace the "ginger" part of the story and put in "gay" does it make a difference? No it doesn't. Everyone deserves respect and to not have to be treated in such a way.

It's 2010, a time when PC may be over the top at times, but there is no difference to calling someone names for being gay, black, fat or ginger. Singing "we can see you holding hands" is in no way worse than "you fat barsteward" or "fat, ginger, scouse barsteward" or many of the other chants that have gone on in RL terraces. On the occasion at Cas, the chants were by a very small number of people (many in the ground never heard it) as opposed to five hundred to a few thousand singing at other RL players at most other grounds. Many people have questioned the severity of the fine, and asked what more the club could have done on the day. The latest statement from the club also questions this and for a fine supposedly imposed on the club because they didn't do anything at the time, this seems very harsh to me.

Still, i look forward to James Graham coming where we at Cas will be looking to get a full five or six thousand fans chanting, "you fat scouse " because that's ok with the RFL and there respect policy.

There's no difference tb, and if the RFL see fit to fine Cas Tigers £40k for this, then they should be dishing out fines left right and centre to lots of other clubs for all the chants that have gone on. I'm fine with dealing with issues in society and sport, but to pick out one club and fine them so harshly while ignoring other identical problems is damn right wrong.

no, you are wrong.

You are wrong. You are confusing three different things, Banter at a rugby match, bullying, and the use of words, phrases and actions that were used and unfortunately still are, to persecute groups of people it what seems like an attempt to trivialise homophobia.

If a player was 'bullied' as in your two links for being ginger then the club and the rfl would have a duty to deal with. But that isnt what you are talking about with James Graham. You are talking someone mocking someones physical characteristic within the expected banter at a rugby football match.

Homophobia, like racism, is different. For many many years homosexuals and ethnic minorities were persecuted, some terrible atrocities were committed because of these things not all that long ago. When you are homophobic you are using words, phrases and actions which are representative of the attitudes which led to persecution and some terrible terrible things.

Whilst it would be lovely if homophobia and racism didnt exist, and society treated homosexuals no different from people who were overweight or ginger, where singing about a gay man liking anal sex was the same as singing about a fat man liking cake and it held no further connotations, there was no more weight behind the N word than Ginger, it simply isnt the case.

Whilst ever people are and have been persecuted and discriminated against because they are gay, it is unacceptable to say things, and do things which are representative of those attitudes