Tommy Robinson quits the EDL

Gilly · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:10

pitchfork said:
It's not a far stretch though.

The point I was making was that EDL and Football don't go hand-in-hand. Not all football fans are stupid but all EDL members are.

All EDL members may call themselves football fans, that doesn't stop them being stupid or stop them being football fans, but saying that the marches don't continue because the season has started again doesn't make any sense to me.

The Geezer · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:14

Gilly said:
The point I was making was that EDL and Football don't go hand-in-hand. Not all football fans are stupid but all EDL members are.

All EDL members may call themselves football fans, that doesn't stop them being stupid or stop them being football fans, but saying that the marches don't continue because the season has started again doesn't make any sense to me.

Appreciate where you are coming from and mostly agree - hooligans are not football fans. However, it is not a far leap in our imagination that EDL march numbers decline at the same time the football season starts.

scorza · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:16

In a minute Gilly will claim that the EDL killed more people than the Nazis. LOL.

elmarko · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:18

Suarez7 said:
Not all EDL members are stupid either, some of them are well educated and in well paid jobs.

But I'd also wager very good money the average IQ of a EDL member is statistically significantly lower than the base rate.

dowie · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:19

Gilly said:
Not really, when these people rarely, if ever, went to matches. They travelled to other places on game day as part of a 'firm' to fight other 'firms'. What does that have to do with football?

They never wear their team colours, they don't go to their team's matches. What makes them football fans?

I don't know any football hooligans or how many of them attend matches/own a shirt etc.. but they do apparently follow a particular club, they are fans of that club... If you've got a very specific definition of what requirements a 'fan' needs in order to be a 'fan' then that's another matter... the association with football is there though from the hooligan base. I'd be a bit skeptical that none of the people chanting 'mohammed was a paedo' had never stood in a stadium shouting out different football related chants...

The Geezer · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:20

elmarko said:
But I'd also wager very good money the average IQ of a EDL member is statistically significantly lower than the base rate.

OUCH !!!!

Suarez7 · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:20

elmarko said:
But I'd also wager very good money the average IQ of a EDL member is statistically significantly lower than the base rate.

Probably around the same average as this forum.

Gilly · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:21

scorza said:
In a minute Gilly will claim that the EDL killed more people than the Nazis. LOL.

elmarko said:
But I'd also wager very good money the average IQ of a EDL member is statistically significantly lower than the base rate.

Absolutely.

dowie said:
I don't know any football hooligans or how many of them attend matches/own a shirt etc.. but they do apparently follow a particular club, they are fans of that club... If you've got a very specific definition of what requirements a 'fan' needs in order to be a 'fan' then that's another matter... the association with football is there though from the hooligan base. I'd be a bit skeptical that none of the people chanting 'mohammed was a paedo' had never stood in a stadium shouting out different football related chants...

Read some of the books that the ex-firm leaders and so on write. They never went to matches, it was used more as a cover than anything and that's why they associated themselves with a club.

Suarez7 said:
Probably around the same average as this forum.

The average IQ of this whole forum I would expect to be well above the national average.

There are notable exceptions.

Redz · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:24

Gilly said:
There are notable exceptions.

Thank you, it's nice to be acknowledged.

Suarez7 · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:32

Gilly said:
There are notable exceptions.

lol

arknor · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:36

robfosters said:
He's basically got bored. No one's taking enough notice so it's time to move and find another way to stir up trouble.

The only thing he seems to do is stir up money from somewhere isn't he supposed to have 7 mortgages but claimed to live on £200 a week or whatever it was

pitchfork · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:39

Suarez7 said:
Not all EDL members are stupid either, some of them are well educated and in well paid jobs.

Take it from a man who deals with academics all day, just because you're highly educated in one aspect of life, doesn't mean you're not a complete moron in others.

Having a high paid job isn't really indicative of intelligence either, some people are just lucky, manipulative or connected.

bitslice · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:42

Does this mean that everyone within the muslim community who say they are against Islamist groups, will support such a move, or is it business as usual?

android guy · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:43

Gilly said:
I think it's harsh to brand football fans as EDL members. Not all football fans are stupid.

All the ones I have had the misfortune to come in to contact with are. Stupid that is...

Gilly · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:44

android guy said:
All the ones I have had the misfortune to come in to contact with are. Stupid that is...

Every single football fan you have come into contact is stupid?

Given the huge amount of fans up and down the country I find that very hard to believe.

dowie · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:44

Gilly said:
Read some of the books that the ex-firm leaders and so on write. They never went to matches, it was used more as a cover than anything and that's why they associated themselves with a club.

These EDL people chanting football style chants number in the thousands... I don't think the firm leaders and the hardcore bunch of people who are banned from matches can account for all of them... There are still problems with racism in football, there is still occasional trouble in stands etc... While I understand you don't want football fans in general to be associated with the EDL it seems pretty apparent the EDL is associated with football... it doesn't have to work both ways. The idea that the people chanting "I'm EDL till I die, EDL till I die..." "Mohammed was a Paedo, lala, la, la" etc... have nothing to do with football is about as credible as saying the Taliban has nothing to do with Islam.

Gilly · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:47

dowie said:
These EDL people chanting football style chants number in the thousands... I don't think the firm leaders and the hardcore bunch of people who are banned from matches can account for all of them... There are still problems with racism in football, there is still occasional trouble in stands etc... While I understand you don't want football fans in general to be associated with the EDL it seems pretty apparent the EDL is associated with football... it doesn't have to work both ways. The idea that the people chanting "I'm EDL till I die, EDL till I die..." "Mohammed was a Paedo, lala, la, la" etc... have nothing to do with football is about as credible as saying the Taliban has nothing to do with Islam.

They're all male as well, should we refer to that? :confused:

There are very, very few racism issues in football these days and the club I follow had a worse problem than many early on. The fans themselves are very good at self-policing issues in the stands. They are at my club anyway. There's also nothing to say that anyone causing issues at matches have anything to do with EDL either. I've never heard any EDL chants at football matches.

I know that there is a mental picture of a yobbish thug that has stupid NF tattoos on his face and feels vitriol to anything not ENGLISH AND PROUD and shouts for his team and fight fans of other teams, but that person doesn't really exist any more. It's too well managed.

They stay away from the stadiums and do what they want to do away from football. And we're well rid of them.

There are casuals still going that don't ever go to football games. They use Twitter and so on to meet up and fight or bum or whatever they do. They don't do it at games.

dowie · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:48

The EDL originated from a group known as the "United Peoples of Luton". This was a response to a demonstration, organised by Al-Muhajiroun, against the war in Afghanistan as the Royal Anglian Regiment marched through the town after a tour of duty in the Helmand province campaign[19] The EDL evolved from the football casual subculture and is loosely organised around figures in hooligan firms. When the Luton counter-demonstration led to arrests, local football supporters, using social networking websites, collaborated with other football casual groups, including those associated with hooliganism.[11][20]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League

bitslice · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:51

A group with a political agenda using the resources/people it has available? Hardly unique.
So what if football fans got used, the miners got used to further the Militant cause, Muslims got used to further the Jihadists cause.

dowie · 8 Oct 2013 at 14:52

Gilly said:
I've never heard any EDL chants at football matches.

I never claimed you would - I claimed you'd hear football chants at EDL marches - there are a fair few videos on youtube...

The idea that the original EDL members and a large chunk of the membership are drawn from football supporters and hooligans is the claim. It doesn't imply that football fans in general are EDL supporters...