FCUM and the Far-Left

[john68]

Likewise...good post Lev.

[frankswift]

Hmm. Been thinking about this thread over t'weekend (saves me thinking about the Villa match).

Where I were a lad, tha knows, the far left were (by and large) those who thought that the Soviet Union and China had betrayed socialism by their totalitarian nature. Evenmydoghatesunited, I think from his post (correct me if I'm wrong), sees the far left as Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and possibly Hitler since he said he was a socialist, albeit of the national variety. In leafy Surrey, where I live, where the folk are nicely servile and vote for their betters in the tory party, I have heard Gordon Brown referred to as far left.

But as for FCUM, well, when Wimbledon was taken over and moved to Milton Keynes, it was a pisser for the people of Wimbledon. Lev may be right that big capitalists are better than little capitalists, but their agenda is not necessarily in accord with those of the supporters, as the existence of the MK Dons demonstrates. The reaction of the Wimbledon supporters was to set up their own team that can only be owned by the community to stop it happening again, and I admire that. Some Manchester United supporters, I guess, were finally given a bit too much shit by the Glazers and went the Wimbledon way. And our colleague with the trotskyist nom de plume is correct again. The tint of their spectacles is as red as their dish-cloth replica shirts. The trafford team has generally been owned by shifty-eyed shysters, as far as I can see, who, though they talk about Munich and how the club suffered, had no compunction about evicting crash survivors Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry and their young families from the houses the club owned. But if disaffected rags turn FCUM into a successful non-corporate club then good luck to them. Similarly, the people of Lewes in Sussex, a town chock-full of mad bastards (almost as many as in Bolton), believe that the only way their club can have a secure long-term future is by turning it into a community-owned club. And they look like they are doing well, and have produced some shit hot posters for their games:
My favourite: http://www.lewesfc.com/if-you-like-our- ... policeman/

So, putting aside the term 'far left', I see how these kinds of clubs appeal to anti-globalisation, anti-corporate people in Germany. Old fashioned stalinist types, however, might prefer to have teams like Berlin Dynamo, who, being a favourite of the Stasi, won a suspiciously large number of trophies, and were owned by the state rather than the community.

Going off topic a bit, lIke a number of people I do get worried from time to time about our club. Previous posts speak of corporate agendas for a European league, which, by involving City, may be good for the interests of the owners, but are hardly in the interests of hardcore fans. But as we are owned by a big corporation, we can only hope that their interests and ours remain the same. Hope is all we can do, because we have bugger all say in the matter.

[Arjan Van Schotte]

Personally, I don't think its possible to directly compare politics in football in germany and the uk. Culturally, i'd say they are very different animals.

[Socrates]

Without question the most dangerous buggers we have ever had in the world have all been lefties.

I wouldn't question your assertion that the authoritarian left and the extreme right are difficult to separate in terms of levels of violence and oppression.

But they're amateurs compared with the religious. Mass murder is most effectively practiced by people with an imaginary friend.

Damn, you put a shit number one by Spandau Ballet in my head ;)

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

I met with a long time friend last night in Sarajevo. He's American, lives in Leipzig in Germany, and is a very, very dedicated antifascist. After 10-15 minutes, the conversation turned to football, possibly for the first time ever, and he started raving about the Fake Scum, saying that they had a strong following amongst the far-left in Germany, and regularly play pre-season friendlies with teams with strong AntiFa followings or connections.

Can anyone confirm or deny this? From reading about them on here, I thought a large part of their following was drawn from 70s-80s 'old school' hooligans, more normally associated with the far right...

Part of the reason is the "our club has been taken from us", an anti-corporate pro-community sentiment that has alot of resonance in all sorts of places. Hence some European lefties think that FCUM is a shining light. Personally, I've never bought it.

Too many look at football in the past with rose-tinted spectacles. Clubs in this country have never been owned by the people and were generally owned and ran by local capitalists trying to build up their standing as big men. To listen to some of these FCUM idealists you'd think that the Edwards family were solid social democrats, friends and supporters of the poor and oppressed throughout the world! Just empty populism.

It might not be a popular view, and I agree that there's loads wrong with how the game is run, but, I if there is a new corporate elite taking over the game, then IMHO they are doing a better job than the old lot. And I count myself as being one of the "far left" -whatever that means). Big capitalists tend to be better than little capitalists at running capitalist enterprises.

As for the no politics bit, millions of people pay billions of pounds to watch the game. Millions of people are emotionally involved with their clubs, they aren't going to leave their politics at the stadium gates. Indeed, under some dictatorships, football was one of the few ways to express their politics. Yet they rarely involve themselves in the politics of the game. Perhaps if football supporters were more political then we wouldn't have the likes of that idiot Blatter running the game.

WORD!

[sandman]

I never quite get this far right = violent, far left = cheery sons of toil concept we have today. Without question the most dangerous buggers we have ever had in the world have all been lefties.

Stalin - c25 million deaths, Mao - ditto, pol pot, etc etc. Even Hitler was a national socialist. As far as Fascist ideals go (from fascista a bundle of twigs, one bends many are strong) the main names that come to mind are Mussolini and Pinochet who were also bonkers but arguably you'd want to live in one of their regimes than their left wing fellow lunatics. Politics is a circle and the further extreme you go the more you end up blurring into the other extreme as your ideologies meet up.

An example is hard core Trades Union members in this country can be anti- black, anti-gay anti everything that's different from them really but are members of left wing groups. This isn't just guess work, I worked in political research and have talked to them. Nice folk on the whole but could kick off at a moments notice. My point being that their views were "hard right" by today's way of understanding but their votes were hard left.

So to FSCUM, they're going to be mostly traditional fans of old. Def not prawn sandwich brigade. Catchment area will be typically Oldham, Salford (not the Quays) and other towns with a large benefits dependent community. Ergo you have a team right out of 3 or 4 decades ago and no different from the people I used to mostly stand with at City.

I've not seen much trouble at grounds recently. Apart from Sheffield Utd. They always seem to be up to no good. But then Yorkshire is a rule to itself.

Absolute horse shit!!

Politics has cock all to do with football, I am a staunch Labour supporter and a member of a trade union, in no way does this make me any more likely to "kick off at a moments notice", I do not go to football to support a team supported by like minded individuals, I do not get involved in violence and I am not at all aggressive, this is because I have a good honest upbringing (in a working class community).

I am simply a working class man who enjoys sport, I have a mortgage and a family and my vote and membership of Unison are both simply ways of protecting what I have and keeping money in my pocket.

I find that more time is spent bickering in politics than actually making Great Britain great again, there is a reason why the below rule was put into place and this should have been enforced long before now.

5) No politics, political threads will be locked.

[Chinners]

Ross,
Thanks for compliment, appreciated Mate.
TBH, when composing that post, I never considered it's possible wider general political implications.

I think the rule on here is generally a good one [highlight]but there has to room for the inclusion of the "Politics Of Football",[/highlight]which though it exists in the wider political World, it is a major factor in the games future, which has direct implications for our club and the direction we move in. That also has a direct influence on we supporters, particularly in how it may affect us financially.

I do think there is a separation of the subject matter.

Agreed, so from my own Manicfesto ... "It will become an illegal offence to support MUFC if you were born south of Crewe"

. . . that is all