Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I thought it was originally said by some Ancient Greek guy in white robes (like in Bill and Ted), or some thoughtful learned bloke, maybe a master philospher or author like Rudyard Kipling. But no, the first recorded use of “two wrongs don’t make a right” was by a doctor in US of A called Benjamin Rush in 1758. We don’t know much about him, but he was one of the Founding Fathers (and I don’t mean those who did “The Purge” films either). When you read up on him, he came out with some good stuff though.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. This can be used in many contexts – not just the retaliatory Munich song on Saturday.
Two wrongs don’t make a right is generally used by film critics (of the genre I watch anyway) to rubbish the premise of most of the better storylines of such great epics like Death Wish, Rambo and Saw. Those where the perpetrator at the start of the film has done something bad, so the person who has been harmed / upset goes all out, and well and truly dishes it back, twice if not thrice fold. Or even, for example with the Death Wish films, 5 or six fold. As for Saw – well, I don’t want to ruin it for anyone – but he technically isn’t even in the later ones, as he’s already dead.
These movie masterpieces revolve round the basic revenge principle that should someone do something to hurt you, they completely and utterly deserve to get it back. Remember everything, forgive nothing. A grudge is for life – not just for Christmas. A marvellous mantra.
For those who don’t know what I am on about. Not content with beating us on the pitch on Saturday, some scrot from the wrong side of The Pennines ( or could have been London for all we know), decided it would be a good idea to unfurl a Turkey flag. That, along with a load of coins being chucked down from the upper tier, could only result in one thing. Apparently Gary ” I deserted my wife and young kids for a lingerie model” Lineker called it despicable. Well, you should know all about disgraceful behaviour, Gary.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but there was never any way that retaliation for disrespecting two fans who got killed before a football match, was going to be anything but the Munich song. And, as the song and indeed the arms in the airplane position gesture, was heard and seen by the rest of the ground, who may or may not have been aware of what was going on, Leeds fans were once again castigated by – well everybody really.
In this progressive era where you can report more or less anything for being offensive, the waving of a Turkey flag, the gesture of someone slitting someone’s throat and indeed, the very offensive gesture of a hangman’s rope from the away end on the anniversary of Gary Speed’s sad passing, cannot be deemed as a crime.
You could have wolf whistled at a woman in the crowd, and she could have reported you, or you could have said something to about race or gender and that could have been a crime, but the police and the stewards didn’t / wouldn’t bat an eyelid at this very hurtful gesture.
Why?
Who knows. Maybe it’s because it’s aimed at Leeds fans, so it doesn’t count? But then again, would we really want someone arrested for a for waving a flag? Getting chucked out of the ground maybe? Answers on a postcard, I guess.
As for the Rashford and Sancho song. For those of you who have forgotten what happened in that penalty shootout, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwvV06FvXbg
My own opinion of it, for what it’s worth? I blame the manager for picking them in the first place and the other senior players for not taking more of a stand and stepping up to the plate and volunteering. Southgate put them in like lambs to the slaughter. It was the final, Gareth. They may well have been scoring 10/10 penalties in the practice sessions, but let’s face it, the pressure of the Euros final after extra time, can hardly be appropriately mimicked in a training session. The game should have been won in the 90 minutes, if Gareth hadn’t have been so negative and put 10 men behind the ball for the best part of 85 minutes. It should have been put to bed in 120 minutes, if he’d have put the subs on sooner, with fresh legs to run at the ageing Italian defence who were already on two yellows. But to put two completely inexperienced players in for penalties, with the likes of Grealish and Sterling standing around twiddling their thumbs, was ridiculous. That’s like saying, “you’ve done the Five Peaks – off you go to Everest then in your Northface fleece, you’ll be fine” or “you’ve done your 50 yds certificate and you’ve jumped in wearing pyjamas and picked a flip flop off the bottom of the pool in swimming, next stop The English Channel”. (Do kids even do that anymore in swimming?).
If anyone let their country down it was Gareth Southgate. And Rashford – it was a crap penalty. Maguire and Kane, they didn’t let their country down as they scored their penalties. Whoever missed their turn would be receiving insults this season, regardless of which team they played for. You can put money on that Saka lad being slated for it.
In simple words, this trading of insults is rivalry. The slitting throat and hanging gestures is another different discussion. There’s rivalry and then there’s taking things too far.
Rivalry.
Football is many things to many people, and since globalisation, it is many, many more things to many, many more people. Without rivalry though, football is stark, synthetic and artificial. Plastic for want of a better term. People who watch football unaware of these rivalries fail to share in and experience one of the most inherent, tribal, raw elements of sporting fandom. A sad loss to them.
The Gods of Football don’t understand this though. The acceptance of any form of Rivalry is a non starter in the new touchy feely Elite Metropolitan world. They want us to be all happy and integrated with our half and half scarves. Realistically the only people who you are allowed to not like, are the ones that fit the Narrative of the Moment, and the Elite will tell you who they are. Harsh? Not really. Football rivalry is something that is deep seated, and cannot be influenced by an outsider, because they don’t understand it. And because they don’t understand it, they are scared by it and will try anything to stem it, like trying to portray us all as hooligans. There are some hooligans amongst us, as there are with many football teams, but we are not all like that.
Football to many of us is a release. For many of us who work hard through the week in responsible jobs being dependable and professional, football is a day where all of that goes out of the window. It is a day when you are allowed to be one thing and one thing only. A Leeds United fan. Doesn’t matter how old you are, how many kids you have, how many people you are in charge of, what job you do, what colour you are, what sex you are – it all means absolutely jack. You are a Leeds United fan and that’s it. You can shout and scream, moan about the players, the team, the strategy, shit penalties, whatever. But you support your team like everyone else around you. Leeds United crosses all boundaries, we are colour blind and we are one.
We hate Bayern because they cheated us out of our title. The same goes with AC Milan and most it not all referees. We mourn the tragic events at Taksim Square. We are the last true 1st Division Champions. We are the Champions of Europe.
We don’t like anyone from the wrong side of the Pennines.
Ok, that’s just really a Yorkshire thing. The deep seated hate and mistrust of anyone from the Wrong Side of The Pennines goes back centuries to the Wars of The Roses. I don’t even know if they teach that at school nowadays, they did when I was little. 1455 to 1485 when Richard III was killed at the battle of Bosworth Field. Yorkshiremen are proud to be from Yorkshire. And there are only three Ridings of Yorkshire. North, East and West. In the 70s, they invented Humberside, so you lot don’t even count anymore as Yorkshiremen. In Yorkshire, we talk proper and we are proud of it. There was that study by some uni down South that said by 2060, regional accents will disappear and we will all end up talking like Jude Law or the cast of Harry Potter, in some weird, non dialectist conformism. Similar to how the Americans speak where the end of the sentence finishes in a rising “inflection” , it’s called. So it sounds like they are continually asking a question or doubting what they are saying, even if they aren’t. It’s the equivalent of adding “Suits you , Sir?” to every phrase but not in the double entredre way.
Not likely thanks. Not here in Yorkshire. You can keep that South of Sheffield, cheers. Can’t be doing with them Southeners. Aside of them though, we hate the Sc*m. Fact.
I know there are many Leeds fans who aren’t lucky enough to be born in Leeds, or even in God’s own Yorkshire. You’ve come over to the White side because of the great Revie team, because of family ties, because of our great legends like John Charles, Billy Bremner, and nowadays our more recent legends like Radebe and Yeboah or just because of the football that we play. Leeds United has a massive, ever growing in fact, global fan base, and that’s great. But you don’t forget where you came from.
In the doldrums of Division 3, when football was crap and it really was 90 minutes of agony that ruined your whole day, the fans were there, albeit in smaller numbers, supporting Leeds United. Bielsa has come out again today saying how proud he is of us and our amazing support. The team are looking forward to playing in front of a full house on Saturday, for the first time for many of our players.
Fans at the ground matter. And I know there are Leeds fans who will never get to a match at ER ever, it’s us that they rely on to make the noise and cheer the side on. I’ve said it so many times, we are the 12th man. It’s up to us. Whether we are singing to cheer us when we are winning or aiming our verbal abuse at the opposition. We are Leeds and proud. Our rivalries with the teams in the Premier League have been halted for long enough. The old songs are back, hopefully for good, and for the younger ones who never saw us play in the PL, it’s up to us older lot to make sure that rivalries are renewed, and that when two wrongs don’t make a right, we try a third.
On On On
