News item
Roy Keane has been charged with improper conduct by the FA after a half-time brush with Martin Atkinson, the referee at the Chelsea mismatch.
Salut! Sunderland comment
Mr Atkinson is entitled to expect club managers to show him respect. But what sanction is available to fans of Sunderland AFC, who paid Chelsea’s rip-off ticket prices only to witness a first-half refereeing performance so one-sided as to give improper conduct a bad name?
The best example of non stewarding I ever saw was at Tynecastle a few years ago when Hearts were playing Red Star Belgrade in a UEFA cup game.
I was sat in the wooden main stand, which at best is a potential fire risk. There are numerous notices in the stand
warning against the perils of smoking. The Red Star fans took no notice of these and completely ignored the stewards.
When I raised this point, the steward near me said, “These guys have probably fought against Croatia and Bosnia. They might have killed people. If they want to smoke they can – I’m not going to stop them”. Needless to say, they smoked their heads off for 90 minutes.
Not to mention the one-sided stewarding – demanding we sat down when the adjacent Chelski fans were not required to. Chief Steward’s response after the match: ‘ The home section isn’t my responsibility…when the French fans are here for a Champion’s League game, we don’t bother to stop them smoking, we can’t – they just won’t listen.’
Great!
Still, we got to hear the fab’ refrain of:
‘When the Russian goes to prison, you’re f***ed!’