David Squires on...football and the poppy




You're not getting served in the bar, unless you go full Mark Francois...

IIRC
I sort of get it. It’s become a massive thing now about how much respect you can show, rather than the quiet reflection I remember, but that cartoon seems very tasteless.
 
I don’t think it’s reflective at all of how the vast, vast majority of people feel about the whole thing. I’d venture that many serving and ex forces (myself included) would very much like the general public to pop a few pennies into a Forces charity, and to wear a poppy around the armistice week. However, few of us within that “community” aren’t going to lose much sleep if people do neither. Much of this so called poppy outrage is instigated and continued by and within various media outlets in order to generate viewers and readers. Cartoon above is an example of this, albeit from a different angle
 
I don’t think it’s disrespectful or tasteless at all. I think it’s absolutely bang on. The weaponisation of Remembrance Day is distasteful – the oneupmanship. You wear poppies, I get a bigger poppy. You wear a big poppy, I’ll give you a fookin’ mascot-sized one. And so on and so on, ad infinitum.

I doubt there’s any more than a small minority in this country who aren’t proud of the men and women who sacrificed their lives for freedom for us. In my opinion they should be honoured with dignity and not in such a brash fashion. And I’m afraid football is at the very vanguard of that. It’s bullshit.

And Squires, as ever, has nailed it.
 

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