Ok, pressed return by accident...

It does make you wonder about the sport. I love it, always have, but clearly there are issues which haven't evolved. In the 80s I went to join in a net session at Sprowston Rec as a 16-year-old. I could bowl a little and bat a bit, nothing special but might have been useful somewhere. The main thing was I just wanted to play.

WARNING! OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE ABOUT TO BE USED, BUT I'M QUOTING VERBATIM.

I'd been there a while, sent some balls down, and then the big boys turned up. One said to another, "You're late, where have you been?" The other one rolls his eyes, says, "Cambridge. Got stuck in traffic. Took so long because this c___ got out of his car." At which point some laughed, and then the original questioner says "You can't say that. [pause] You mean black bastard." Being just a callow youth and not knowing anyone I stayed a few minutes longer and then left.

[The c word is not the standard c-bomb, obvs]

I still remember this with crystal clarity approximately 40 years later. It's hard to believe someone claiming they don't remember this kind of 'banter', just as it's hard to credit the notion of 'fundamentally racist'. People aren't created racist, they don't start that way, they learn it. We might be aware of, possibly even scared of our differences as children, but no child hates others because of them.

A lot of that incident I mention may be thought to be because of the perception that those times were different, but I don't think they were so much. I knew those words were offensive and wrong back then and I came from a pretty conservative background.

Anyway, f**k's sake, why can't the world grow up?

Posted By: APB, Nov 16, 21:48:13