Message to Slam Fans Director, Anti IRA Song

You can lead a horse to water........

I'm sure if you have time to re-read the programme notes from the Board (throughout the ages, at Eastville, Twerton and the Mem, the managers, Bob Twyford, Ian Holtby, Gorringe, the SC, the YP and the CT, there have probably been hundreds of messages saying, support the team, don't give opposition players, fans or officials abuse, don't use bad language or say anything that can offend. There certainly are lots of adverts in the current season edition giving warnings.

Maybe if the stewards did more, or if fans self policed it might make a difference, but some so called fans may take it as an affront in "I pay my money, you can't tell me what to say, or not say" and it may antagonize them into singing the song more often.

I don't have the answer but maybe one idea may be to try and drown them out with a song supporting the club. Difficult at the moment but some comments on here saying players are scared or not putting in the effort, well, a rousing Goodnight Irene, getting behind the boys may help inspire them on the pitch and the singers of "other" songs may look to sing along in support instead?

As far as the original post goes ,well , i would imagine such a request would be well down the list of priorities (the song ban) resting in the 'in' tray. There is a danger that these threads can become quite toxic so it's always debatable whether to contribute .As for the song involved , well to me it does not register at a game and i take no notice of the words or sentiments expressed, it's just a background noise while watching the game. I would liken it to your own very young kids suddenly coming out with a 'naughty' word, they have heard it from somewhere but have no idea of it's perceived 'naughtiness. As for the subject of the song well that organization has ,in my life time, been responsible for some terrible atrocities against innocent men ,women and children of my country, atrocities i find it hard to forgive and even harder for anyone to justify, how our late great queen somehow managed it ,heaven knows, just another example of her sense of duty i suppose.
This does not mean i hate the Irish, Ireland is just another European country to me with whom historically we have had 'problems 'with and them us, i Cheer for Northern Ireland as they are part of my country, the Irish republic i bracket with France ,Germany and all the rest. Many Irish footballers have and are earning a very good living in the UK and they are very welcome for the most part , on the other hand those who are happy to take our money and earn far more than they could back home and then insult the UK by refusing to pay due respect to a tradition such as 'remembrance' day, well that i find far more offensive than a chant which barely registers with me. For those rushing to give me a history lesson i refer to events 'in my life time' and am well aware of historical events.
As for the City chants, the event referred to in the South stand is unforgivable , i do not hate City fans or the club and certainly would not wish any harm to the fans there . I don't like the club or the culture and rejoice when they lose, if they folded tomorrow i would shed no tears, as for their fans well all they are guilty of is making a bad choice and taking a wrong path in life and i am sure we have all done that ! but hate , nah, just don't care for them and like Ireland they are neighbours who we occasionally have trouble with!

Speaking as someone who has stood both on the Tote End as someone of school age and the Popular Side at Twerton, we used to do chants where people took it in turns to chant ‘Celtic’ and ‘Rangers’ during a game, the numbers were pretty equal. Similar a lot of us used to wear ski hats when they were fashionable which consisted of 2/3rds of a Rovers badge and one panel of a big team. Again most had one of the Old Firm or Liverpool / Man U / West Ham / Chelsea and there was no animosity. This was the times when people used to sell ‘Bulldog’ or ‘National Front News’ on the way to the ground.

What I am trying to say is that Rovers have NEVER been a sectarian club, which why a load of kids singing about a time they know nothing about sticks in my craw so much. When there were so many good old Tote / Twerton songs to fall back on that never get an airing, the regular use of this one should be banned on the grounds of decency.

I’d kick right off

Fair enough

In some ways it's a hard task not communicating on board matters they aren't entitled to. In other ways there are much more things they could be interactive with.

The fans forum event they have kept closed to SC members which will only open to others fans if the SC members don't want to go. They could have invited people to apply with questions, filtered them and given those people the tickets. At least you're then guaranteed to get a wide cross section of views.

That is not the context is it?

f**k the IRA, UDF etc etc and f**k sectarianism. I know that's what my great friend (fatherjack) was saying.

Up the Gers. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I think there are much more pertinent and worrisome things to bother about, maybe do something about over a stupid chant but that’s me. What next, we live in a nanny state as it is. That bothers me more than any song/chant 

I genuinely love that