Moving story- the 'black armband protest' remembered

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/5live/5lspecials/5lspecials_20130207-2003a.mp3

What great courage Flower and Olonga showed. A must-listen.

Whenever you think Flower may have made a slight tactical error, or is not so fresh on this or that occasion, always good to recall this and restore some perspective.

A great day for black (arm band) s

How nice.

Hey tac, who'd did you squeal about today?

Good stuff - Flower shows rare emotion.

Hard not to get a tear in the eye when the BBC fade in the piano music whilst Flower and Olonga read out the statement they wrote at the time. The c*nts (BBC)

Very good programme.

And does Flower mention getting hit by a truck in the accidents list?

Didn't Morgan Tsvangirai's wife die in a "car accident" a couple of years ago? All very murky over there in Zimbo Land.

Aye, which is why I asked. Their car was struck by a truck.

On the other hand, the current Saf team refused to wear black arm bands in the first match against Pakistan in memory of Adcock and van der Merwe because they were apartheid era cricketers.

JGK wrote:On the other hand, the current Saf team refused to wear black arm bands in the first match against Pakistan in memory of Adcock and van der Merwe because they were apartheid era cricketers.

The players refused or Cricket South Africa didn't allow them to?

Players apparently*.

JGK wrote:On the other hand, the current Saf team refused to wear black arm bands in the first match against Pakistan in memory of Adcock and van der Merwe because they were apartheid era cricketers.

...and why should they?

Any policy that officially recognises Hansie Cronje but not Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards is seriously flawed.

mudge in yet another imping taips shocker..

those teams were picked on pure racial lines...the country was under the jackboot of fascists...of course those records shd be expunged...

have nothing against the pollocks or richards, barlows et al - they were wonderful players...but they were selected as they met the minimum criteria of being white

So should Makhaya Ntini and Justin Ontong not be officially recognised because they were selected on the basis of being black?

....aaahhh pulease...mudge

What are you suggesting then? That Graeme Pollock wasn't good enough and got a leg up because of the colour of his skin? Has Graeme Pollock every publicly supported apartheid? Did he dictate South African political policy? As far as I know he was just a guy who enjoyed playing cricket, and happened to be exceedingly good at it.

Barry Richards and Mike Procter effectively abandoned South Africa and apartheid for 20 years in order to play cricket elsewhere.

At the end of the day he and many others played test cricket for their Country, and during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, South Africa produced some of the finest cricketers to ever play the game. It's to South Africa's detriment if they fail to acknowledge them.

horace wrote:

JGK wrote:On the other hand, the current Saf team refused to wear black arm bands in the first match against Pakistan in memory of Adcock and van der Merwe because they were apartheid era cricketers.

...and why should they?

Because they were fellow test cricketers

Bas and Mudge..I think you miss the point...there is no question that that pollocks, richards barlow et al were wonderful players and that their expertise should be celebrated...however their national team was whites only and given the country was under the jackboot of the Afrikaaners, the sporting boycott was the right thing to do at the time...sadly for them their recirds should not count

horace wrote:Bas and Mudge..I think you miss the point...there is no question that that pollocks, richards barlow et al were wonderful players and that their expertise should be celebrated...however their national team was whites only and given the country was under the jackboot of the Afrikaaners, the sporting boycott was the right thing to do at the time...sadly for them their recirds should not count

You can't re-write history and pretend certain things didn't happen. Are you going to amend the playing record of every test cricketer who played against SA pre-boycott?

Wasn't 25 years absence from international cricket 'punishment' enough?

To punish white cricketers because of the faults of their racist government is in itself a form of racism.

Henry wrote:Wasn't 25 years absence from international cricket 'punishment' enough?

To punish white cricketers because of the faults of their racist government is in itself a form of racism.

..it is not a question of punishment...you miss the point...and it is certainly not racism to expunge the records..it is simply recognising the realities of the past

and yes Bas perhaps the records of those who played white saffieland shd be expunged from the record books because they played a team denied black players and their records were artifically inflated

In any case, none of the current cricketers would have a job if it wasn't for those in the past, particularly those who kept the first class scene going and ensured some sort of ongoing depth in South African cricket by the time readmission occurred.

Wearing a black armband is a simple yet effective way for the current players to show some respect for those who came before them. I can't see how there is anything political to do with it and if it genuinely is the decision of the players not to wear them then the likes of Smith diminish in my eyes.

It's bad enough that the South African "numbers" ignore all the pre 1992 cricketers.

horace wrote:

Henry wrote:Wasn't 25 years absence from international cricket 'punishment' enough?

To punish white cricketers because of the faults of their racist government is in itself a form of racism.

..it is not a question of punishment...you miss the point...and it is certainly not racism to expunge the records..it is simply recognising the realities of the past

and yes Bas perhaps the records of those who played white saffieland shd be expunged from the record books because they played a team denied black players and their records were artifically inflated

Might as well expunge all matches against India as well given that only certain castes can play for the national side.