I agree that buying and wearing a poppy is a personal choice and it would be wrong to pressure anyone into doing so. Just as it would be wrong to force someone to kneel if they do not want to.

What has changed with poppies is that thirty years ago they were optional for people in public life, today it would be difficult to appear without one. Sport has in the past twenty years become a place for public displays of affinity. There are no photographs of footballers in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80 or even 90s wearing poppies. It just was not necessary for those generations.

De Kock has said that he does not wish to play if the team takes the knee. It’s his choice. What he has not said is why perhaps it is because he is a racist or perhaps because he thinks that racism is just not much of a problem so there is no point? The fact that he is putting his career on the line means that he is pretty serious about this issue, I think that he needs to clarify.

BLM does not own the action of taking the knee. They have been active in promoting it but it was to their invention. Just as the RBL does not own the idea of the poppy but they have been active in promoting and utilising it. Several other organisations around the world make and sell poppies toward slightly different aims to the RBL.

No, I think I can listen to what people say they're protesting about - do you think Harry Kane is saying one thing and really he's secretly pursuing the defunding of the police or what? C'mon.

Marcos Alonso came out weeks ago saying he wasn't going to kneel - how much backlash have you seen? Has his career ended? Has he been denied the right to play anywhere?

I think when it comes to Premier league footballers they have a lot to defend and most of them probably don't think very deeply about politics over than what others tell them to think.....that's what I think. No different to when England's footballers did the Nazi salute in the thirties.....How much did most of them know or really care about it....most successful footballers aren't that contrary.

I think it's a fair point on Marcos Alonso, however this isn't happening with Quinton de Kock and my criticisms are mainly related to those defending the backlash he is getting.

Edited by Stirlingsays (27 Oct 2021 4.19pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Not what I said.

I said I don't like people pushing their opinions on others whether it is buying a poppy or taking the knee. It is the pushing I disagree with.

One more point

Perhaps he does not want to be told what to do in a supposedly free country. No one should be forced to make a gesture for any cause for any reason. It seems that you are only allowed an opinion if it is the 'correct' one, or you lose your job. If that is what you are supporting, then own it.

Don't try and tell me this is about freedom and equality.

There is definitely a discrepancy in attitudes toward different races.
Black people feature in almost every TV advert to the point of being laughable, but that is about money.
We pander to Black people more than others because our culture has been inundated with stories of slavery, segregation and general mistreatment which have fashioned our attitudes despite being remote from us.
I also think that we are far too keen to listen to voices that are happy to play the victim rather than those who are not.