The unacceptable face of Scotland

[cerberusandorthus 184]

A pitiful excuse.

http://www.rosscountyfootballclub.co.uk/news/club-statement-%282%29.aspx

This is a club who took their nick name “The Staggies” from the Seaforths.

Lest we forget

[nachothelegend 1,932]

Ross county .thistle.st johnstone an embarrassment to this country, as for the scum lower than pondlife.as has been said before

Scotland really is a small minded pathetic country

Now Thistle.

Is this the New appeasement move in Scotland.

I am fucking ashamed of this Country now it's a new low under the SNP.

This needs addressed asap.

The trouble these cnuts are causing is undeniable.

[dummiesoot 16,006]

Whilst individual clubs may say they forgot (yeh, right....) it would be interesting to see who bheasts played on Remembrance weekend last season. Was there a minutes silence? Who did they play season before? Was there a minutes silence? Hope you see my point....a common denominator for 'forgetfulness'?

However, WE remembered them. Lest We Forget.

I think they had, as Liewell called it, the celtic tribute of one minutes applause. Shameless bastard.

[simon 1,743]

We paid our respects, that's all that matters. Those that choose not to have let themselves down. I don't think it's our place to shame them though, their lack of respect does that for them.

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

100% agree with D'art on this one but the 'explanation' from Ross County is shameful and cowardly !

[BlueAvenger 10,270]

Ross County's excuse is a disgrace.

Has anyone written to St Johnstone and Partick Thistle for their explanation?

These teams should be ashamed.

We know about that other lot who shame our country.

[Bothwellbear 1,392]

We paid our respects, that's all that matters. Those that choose not to have let themselves down. I don't think it's our place to shame them though, their lack of respect does that for them.

This

[sillybilly 151]

Does anyone know how the Ross county fans felt about it. I would be unhappy at my club if I read that statement. Ross county has bowed to Celtic and lawell and given no thought to their own fans

[scarkev 3,540]

We paid our respects, that's all that matters. Those that choose not to have let themselves down. I don't think it's our place to shame them though, their lack of respect does that for them.

Unfortunatly that apathy is a big part of the reason why the portrayal of both glasgow clubs is gallingly different in the Scottish media....whereas they will actively try to destroy our brand and draw attention to our deficiencies, their actions are constantly covered up and excused....

[D'Artagnan 13,319]

We paid our respects, that's all that matters. Those that choose not to have let themselves down. I don't think it's our place to shame them though, their lack of respect does that for them.

Do you think then SImon its acceptable to appease and acquiesce to the haters within their support ?

[minstral 5,375]

Ross County's excuse is a disgrace.

Has anyone written to St Johnstone and Partick Thistle for their explanation?

These teams should be ashamed.

We know about that other lot who shame our country.

Partick said it is club policy.

[tannerall 25,935]

If the sacrifices made to the country by our brave servicemen and women are being consistently forgotten, then questions should be asked about the whole political and educational structure now existing in Scotland. Scandalous.

Down here in the SE nobody forgets these occasions. Questions should be asked at Westminster why this is happening consistently in Scotland. Email or write to your MP now.

I would hope the supporters and the local MPs of the clubs involved in these shameful actions will be asking these questions too at a local level....

[Ivybank 4,585]

We paid our respects, that's all that matters. Those that choose not to have let themselves down. I don't think it's our place to shame them though, their lack of respect does that for them.

That statement just sums what's gone wrong with this country in th last 30 years.we sit on our arses.say nothing and bury our head in

The sand

[Johnsmithy72 7]

Of the 6 Scottish 'Premiership' games yesterday, only the Sheep and Motherwell held a minutes silence. Ross County, Partick, Hibs & St. Johnstone all decided against it. Utter disgrace.

[eskbankloyal 19,446]

Partick, Hibs & Ross County all didn't have a minute silence.

Absolutely disgraceful.

[BlueAvenger 10,270]

Partick said it is club policy.

Cheers mate.

Partick Thistle are a disgrace then and I would suggest that they should change their club policy.....sickening.

Wonder what their own fans think about this cub policy

[Bad Robot 21,229]

These clubs shame our nation:

THE MacLeod boys paid the ultimate sacrifice after leaving their family croft to serve alongside thousands of their relatives, friends and neighbours who also left their island homes.

Historian Malcolm Macdonald

THEY are a band of brothers from an island which lost more than any other during World War I.

Four strapping MacLeod boys – Alexander, William, Angus and Norman – left the family croft on the isle of Lewis to serve alongside thousands of their friends, neighbours and relatives.

None of the brothers came back. In their home village, the tiny coastal community of Portnaguran, the 30-odd families were devastated.

Every single house lost a loved one, fathers perished with their sons and one in four of all who left to fight was killed.

As Scotland marks Remembrance Sunday, the people of Lewis will have special thoughts of how they sacrificed proportionally more men in the Great War than anywhere else in Britain – among them the four MacLeod brothers.

Island historian Malcolm Macdonald, 65, said: “Call-up notices arrived here at the start of August 1914 and by the

November, 4000 Lewis men were in uniform. That represented about 25 per cent of all men on the island, including

old men and young boys.

“More and more men went as the casualties began to build up. Some volunteered, then conscription started.

“It’s said that 6713 men served but when you include the merchant navy, that rises close to 8000. And that’s from an island population of 29,603. Around one in four islanders was serving – every second man on the island.

“Of those who joined up, one in six did not come back.”

The war they were told would be over by Christmas was to drag on for more than four long, bloody years. And the fishing boats that lay abandoned on the shore would be rotten by the time the men returned, if they ever did. Around 1300 of them never made it back.

Women, children and old folk left behind had to find ways to sustain themselves without the labour of men who had worked the land or sea for generations.

Many of the fishermen and crofters on the Hebridean island had signed up as Navy or Army reservists in the years before the war because the small retainer they received for service helped them eke out a meagre living.

As soon as war broke out, they were the first to be called up, with the instruction to report for duty coming initially from the pulpits, delivered by ministers during Sunday service on the deeply religious island.

In a break with the long-held custom of the Sabbath as a day of complete rest, telegrams were sent out at the same time, delivered by hand to the reservists who were expected to be poised and ready for action. Some left immediately, bound for Chatham naval base in Kent. They didn’t even pause to collect the fishing nets they’d spread out on the fields to dry.

Others departed the following day.

Malcolm, who is chairman of Stornoway Historical Society, said: “Lewis is a very religious place but in times of war, it was understood that men had to get away.

“Some local fishermen were in ports like Peterhead or Fraserburgh and they had to go straight to their depots from there, without coming home first.

“Women and children took over the ploughing and the landwork, milking the cows and thatching roofs, with older men helping. It was a hard time.”

Some weren’t far from home when they lost their lives. Islanders like Seaman John Campbell went off with the Royal Naval Reserves, only to die when their ship HMS Bayano was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Stranraer in March 1915.

Others, like Signaller Allan MacSween, 29, found themselves caught up in the most famous battles of the conflict.

He was lost off Denmark during the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, the only full-scale clash of battleships of WW1.

Private Donald Kennedy, of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, was just 20 when he was killed in action in France

just three months after war broke out.

For Donald and Christina MacLeod, tragedy came quickly too and they lost three sons in consecutive years.

Alexander, 20, was killed in December 1914 while fighting in France with the Gordon Highlanders.

His name is included in the famous Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium.

Nine months later, Seaman William MacLeod, 28, died when his naval reserve boat was sunk off the coast of Belgium.

And nine months after that, in June 1916, sailor Angus MacLeod, 27, succumbed to tuberculosis.

He had contracted the illness while he was being held in an internment camp in Holland.

Perhaps the most poignant loss was that of 20-year-old Norman MacLeod.

He was on his way home to Lewis just months after the end of the war when the boat transporting him and hundreds of other island servicemen struck rocks on their approach to Stornoway harbour.

A total of 205 men, most of whom were sailors, died when the yacht HMY Iolaire went down within sight of safety.

The disaster, the worst peacetime sinking of a British ship since the Titanic seven year before, compounded the

islanders’ grief over their wartime losses and left them traumatised.

Malcolm, a retired local government officer, said: “It took a long time for the locals to be able to talk about what

happened.

“A lot of people didn’t want to talk about the war for a long time.

“There was even some opposition to a memorial to the Iolaire and it was 1958 before one was erected beside the rock the boat smashed on to. The people were hurting too much.”

Malcolm, who is writing a book on Stornoway’s lost servicemen, now visits local schools to tell new generations of islanders of the suffering endured by many of their long-gone relatives.

He explains the horror of the trenches, where Scots soldiers were exposed to flying shrapnel with only Tam O’Shanter bunnets to protect their heads and where they kept a supply of socks knitted by Lewis women to ward off trench-foot.

Today, Malcolm will be at the Lewis War Memorial for the Remembrance Service.

The memorial is an 85ft tower which stands on the highest point in Stornoway and which carries the names of 1167

local men.

He said: “I am proud that they stood their duty and didn’t turn and run.

“Everyone local who received their papers turned up for duty. No one ran away – I am proud of that.”

[Hamie 4,847]

Was this game live on the telly?

If so the decision would have came from the top.

[tannerall 25,935]

So at least 4 teams "forgot" or chose to ignore. Players and supporters of all these teams served in the forces, some being injured or killed and they chose to ignore or forget their history.

I hope the fans of those clubs who have family members serving now, or in the past, are asking for explanations from those clubs, and demanding reassurances it will not be ignored next time.

I also think the professional referee's association should be asking these questions, after all it is a traditional referee's privilege to be involved in the remembrance, and signal the silence accordingly. As a previous poster said, the referees and the referees' association would not have forgotten this.

[nachothelegend 1,932]

Of the 6 Scottish 'Premiership' games yesterday, only the Sheep and Motherwell held a minutes silence. Ross County, Partick, Hibs & St. Johnstone all decided against it. Utter disgrace.

we should have left this shitty little Countries Football league when we had the chance.

[cd true bluenose 86]

Partick, Hibs & Ross County all didn't have a minute silence.

Absolutely disgraceful.

maybe the sfa/spfl should be held accountable and enforce this. but out of respect to the brave men who gave us our freedom, we shouldn't need to be forced in to it ? lest we forget

[sandyboyblue 226]

I`m not so sure I want to come back to the country of my birth after I finish my career with the British Forces, especially if it gets its` independance. Sad times, indeed.

[JR 1,480]

I`m not so sure I want to come back to the country of my birth after I finish my career with the British Forces, especially if it gets its` independance. Sad times, indeed.

I feel exactly the same

[4everGers 82]

The following is from Ross County Official Site:

Ross County Football Club would like to sincerely apologise for the lack of a minute's silence at their match on Saturday the 9th of November ahead of Remembrance Sunday.

As a Club we are both honoured and humbled by the sacrifice of the men and women who have given of themselves for the benefit of others in times of war and conflict, particularly throughout the past 99 years and even more so as we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

The lack of a minute's silence was not an operational or policy decision but an error of omission arising from a failure to address changes in staff responsibilities, and the matter is being dealt with internally.

The Club will continue in its policy of marking the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month with a 2 minute silence as well supporting the Poppy Appeal by allocating Matchday Collections at the Stadium to support their work in assisting veterans and will of course ensure measures are taken to avoid any possible repetition of our error on Saturday the 9th.

What a cop out F"cking joke

[D'Artagnan 13,319]

What a cop out F"cking joke

A relevant quote 4ever...

Do we really think the Police match commander would have overlooked this potential flashpoint in his club/Police liaison pre-match ?