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Old October 15th, 2004 #1
Sumadinac
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Default Holy hosts and racists

--from the football world--

I had only been living in Spain for a year or so when I was treated to the sight of the Barcelona Dream-Team-To-Be, in Real Sociedad's tightly-packed old ground Atocha, circa 1991.

In the lateral north stand, the lower tiers were for standing, and the seats began half-way up. I was at the top of the standing section, and behind my head in the first row of seats were two young boys, about twelve years old. They seemed fascinated by the tetchy Bulgarian forward, Hristo Stoitchkov, and were subjecting him to a barrage of pre-adolescent abuse.
The ground had virtually no perimeter track, and the crowd seemed to be within poking distance of the players. Every time Stoitchkov came close, the boys began to hurl their particular form of bile in his direction. 'Mendrugo!' (Hard bread!) they screamed at him for a while. Interested by the use of this noun, I asked my Basque friend - who had taken me to the game - what this signified.

'They are implying that he's useless, like hard bread. No good to anybody', he explained. So far so good.

But a little later, egged on by the lack of discouragement from around them, the boys began to use more colourful expressions.

'Stoitchkov! Eres un gilipollas!' (You're a twat!') they screamed at him as he came over to the wing position, adding the inevitable 'Hijo de puta!', the expression favoured by David Beckham last year down in Murcia and a phrase destined to turn even the most stoic of heads.

Up to this point, Stoitchkov - a man who had probably decided long before 1991 that since he lived by the sword he might occasionally end up dying by it - had maintained his cool. But the 'Son of a whore' jibe at last got a reaction.

Leaving the game for a moment, he turned his head to the boys and glared, adding a slight shoulder shrug for good measure. Red rag to the bullocks. The boys leapt from their seats and let him have it, in a frenzy of foul-mouthed invective that would have been great material for a dialectician.

The Spanish have a wonderfully foul phrase that begins 'Me cago en' (I crap on..) to which they are at liberty to add anything that comes into their heads.

Of course, the passing of time and Soccernet's limits on X-rated language prohibit the fully uncensored version, but the most interesting thing from my English point of view back then was that no-one seemed to bat an eyelid. Whilst the boys shat on everything conceivably connected to poor Stoitchkov and his extended family, the adults in the vicinity seemed to consider nothing awry. Half-time came, Stoitchkov sloped off, and the boys spent the next fifteen minutes exchanging high fives.

As the second half got under way, Stoitchkov had decided, either for tactical or aural reasons, to move into the centre.


Thierry Henry and Jose Antonio Reyes: Two team-mates who probably don't want to get involved in all this. (Photography/Empics)


But after about ten minutes, he rushed across to gather up the ball for a quick throw-in. Quick as a flash, one of the boys was ready for him. 'Stoitchkov!' he yelled. 'Eres la hostia!' (You're the Holy Host!)

As I turned round to look at the boy, an elderly man suddenly rose from the second row of seats and clouted the boy around the head, in traditional grandpa style. He looked furious. 'Eso no se dice!' (You shouldn't say that!) he shouted, red in the face, then sat down - the boy suitably cowed.

Neither of them said a further word for the whole game, even when the Bulgarian came into abusing distance on several occasions. I was utterly confused.

Why had grandpa taken so long to clout the little sod? The answer, of course, lay in the phrase that the boy had used. Whilst it was fair game to label the player everything under the secular sun, once the boy chose to employ a phrase lifted from the sacred context of Catholic ritual, grandpa had to be seen to be taking action.

'La Hostia' is of course only the holy host in the most literal of senses, and in everyday parlance it means that the person in question is either brilliant or hopeless - with the latter the obvious implication in this case. But it didn't matter. To an older Spaniard particularly, the phrase crosses the line into the realms of blasphemy, particularly on such public view.

It's not difficult to see where all this is leading.

Luis Aragonés, Spain's pensionable-age new manager, would probably do the same if he heard his grandson taking the Holy Host in vain at a crowded football match, but it doesn't follow that he would be any lighter in his own range of expressions if the context required.
The widely-reported incident at Las Rozas training ground last week when he stuck his face into that of José Reyes and proceeded to 'motivate' him, was a classic example of the fact that the 'global village', more often than not, contributes to mutual misunderstanding.

The incident launched a thousand articles and stirred up a mighty rage in several of the English tabloids, since Aragonés' words were deemed to be a racist slur on Thierry Henry.

Indeed they were - if you take them at face value and translate them literally - but the problem with the whole episode is that it is almost impossible to convey what Aragonés meant, across the cultural and linguistic divide.

Like my own reaction in Atocha that day in 1991, the English (and the French) were both bemused and scandalised by what Aragonés said, but mainly because it was impossible for either the English of the French press to understand or convey the way that a man like him behaves and thinks. You have to be careful here, of course, because calling Henry a 'black shit' is both ludicrous and unacceptable - with the 'cultural relativist' argument also a dodgy one (i.e. it's the Spanish way, and so it's ok).

Spain is no more or less racist than any other developed European country, but the nature of the way that people express themselves in these contexts is organic. It develops over decades, and because it is subject to the little tweaks given to it by different social classes and ages, it never responds in exactly the same way as the codes of, for example, English political correctness require it to respond.

The Spanish have their own such codes - witness the problem over 'La Hostia' - but they were amazed by the international reaction the next day to Luis' little stunt.

At first they tried to pass it off as the coach's eccentricity, but they soon realised that they would have to go further than that. In the end, even the tabloid 'AS' admitted that Aragonés, whilst meaning no harm, had gone over the top and that he had to understand that he was now the national manager, and as such represented the nation. In front of the cameras at least, he would have to mind his P's and Q's.

By explaining the coach's behaviour one does not justify it. Aragonés, like Brian Clough, was overlooked for years precisely because the Spanish Federation feared the possible consequences of his irascible and eccentric nature.

But he got the job in the end, and like Ron Atkinson before him, he has been caught out by a vigilant new world that no longer tolerates the whims of casual, shoot-from-the-hip language. He has apologised, and one senses his regret - but should he have resigned? Perhaps that would have implied guilt.

There are differing degrees of racism that exist in a large percentage of men who hail from Aragonés' social class and generation. That's no secret.

But the fuss generated in England seemed ironic, with the most self-righteous of articles spewing forth from the pages of two tabloids whose record on matters regarding race is hardly exemplary. It is usually the case.

Those with the uneasiest conscience usually make the most noise. And it's also interesting that when Sir Alex Ferguson called the Spanish 'untrustworthy' last year, not a single line of bluster appeared in the English press (or the Spanish). What's worse? Calling Henry a black shit or accusing forty million people of being untrustworthy?

Well - we would benefit from the disappearance of both such sentiments, but the media has a responsibility to react both carefully and even-handedly. Racism exists. It's how you deal with it that matters.

Phil Ball
 
Old October 16th, 2004 #2
Sumadinac
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Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has urged Spain coach Luis Aragones to make a public apology (!)to Thierry Henry for allegedly making a racist remark about the Gunners’ France striker.
Aragones has claimed he was trying to motivate Henry’s Arsenal team-mate Jose Antonio Reyes when he uttered the alleged slur.

But Wenger said: "Thierry hasn’t had an apology, I don’t think. I think that Aragones should apologise.
"To clear the air and ensure there is no suspicion left - he has to take that further step."

Aragones insists his comments were intended to make Reyes believe he was better than Henry. They were broadcast on Spanish TV and then reported extensively in the media.

However, while Wenger does not believe Aragones is a racist, he finds it hard to accept what the Spain coach said and why he said it.

"I found his sentence completely out of order and completely non-motivational. He is not known, I must say, in Spain to be a racist coach at all though."

"That is to his credit, while he has also offered to apologise to Thierry, which I also find right.

"He is 66 and people in Spain would know if he was a racist. Even the black players he’d had before have come out in his favour."

Reyes defended his national team coach after the incident, insisting the remark was meant as a joke.
 
Old October 18th, 2004 #3
Dasyurus Maculatus
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Quote Sumadinac "Why had grandpa taken so long to clout the little sod? The answer, of course, lay in the phrase that the boy had used. Whilst it was fair game to label the player everything under the secular sun, once the boy chose to employ a phrase lifted from the sacred context of Catholic ritual, grandpa had to be seen to be taking action".

LOL Great article that all Catholics and lapsed choirboys like myself will identify with .
 
Old October 18th, 2004 #4
Racial Inquisitor
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Why should the coach apologize for calling a Nigger a "piece of shit", and why is this supposed to be "controversial"? Wasn't the coach simply living in the real world and stating the obvious? Weird.
 
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