Come on, let's have it clear, it's
downright disrespectful to refer to any “lot”, and he fucking knows it. I'm not going to reply to him directly, since he is clearly in bad faith.
But now here's a little detail that many on here, I believe, will not be aware of.
@paulchapo above says that he never posts on other fans's forums. I understand and respect that. It's his choice. Most fans don't, I suppose. Like him, I spend too much time on this forum. Probably, I need to get a life.
I've said on a previous post that I very occasionally post on a couple of other forums – Arsenal Mania and Knees Up Mother Brown. Maybe once or twice a year. It's usually when City are playing them, of course, although in the case of KUMB I think I opened the account mainly because I wanted to wish them well in beating United, two or three years back. I'm scrupulously respectful on the rare occasions I've posted, I once stepped over line by making the unwise decision to post on KUMB after we'd just beaten the Hammers heavily. Never a good move. My post came over as patronising, and I got duly flamed by all and sundry for it. On rereading it, I thought, fair enough, I got the wording of that wrong. You live and learn. In any case, wounds are still sore and open when you've just beaten a team, nothing that you can usefully say, probably, on their main forum.
Anyhow, here's the thing. Among other forums, I occasionally look in on Glory Glory, for one reason or another. Not often, I must say. It strikes me as an exceptionally unwelcoming forum for non-Spurs supporters, and it's striking that there are very rarely posts by other teams' supporters. It can get pretty salty on here — including towards blues — but we do at least have other supporters posting, even when they are being provocative (as this one is, but pretending not to know it: “Wot, me guv?”).
I had never even vaguely felt like posting on Glory Glory, but last spring, because I so much wanted the dippers to be beaten (anyone except Liverpool, in my book, and that almost extends to United, yep), I decided to log on and express my heartfelt wish that they beat the dippers. It was quite a fiddly business. It's simpler to open an account on here, it seems to me. One of the rubrics that you have to fill in is which team you support. Fair enough, I've got no problem with that (although correct me if I'm wrong, it seems to me that it's not an absolute pre-requisite on BM for your account to be opened).
Now, bear with me… here's the good part. A considerable number of Spurs fans on Glory Glory — not all, but quite a groundswell — affect to refer to us, not by our proper name, but as Emirates Marketing Project! I mean by that, that never do they write, City, Man City, whatever, but always Emirates Marketing Project. It's a vicious, small-minded little habit, and it is of course expressly designed to be offensive.
I might as well refer to THFC as Israel Marketing Project or – why not? – as Occupied Territories Cosmetic Treatment Project. It would be about as pertinent. Indeed, I might go on Glory Glory or The Fighting Cock and post, “Of course, Levy only cares about THFC as a money making exercise. He doesn't care about getting any trophies” as if that were an established fact, known to all. In other words, a bit like (and I quote, with concentrated disgust): “The Champions League is all the Abu Dhabi lot want to be associated with anyway”.
I wouldn't do that, though, because I was brought up to be polite, especially when I'm in someone else's flat or house. Which, figuratively speaking, a club's main supporter forum is.
So o.k, I fill out the form, putting myself as a Manchester City supporter, naturally. I post my message, wishing them all the best against LFC (it was couched in stronger terms than that, but you get the gist) and log off. A couple of hours later, out of vague curiosity, I went back. And stone me if I don't discover that my “Manchester City” has been changed, either by their software, automatically, or by one of their mods, to “Emirates Marketing Project”!! I couldn't believe my eyes. Understand me rightly. It made it look as though I, a lifelong City fan, accepted and embraced their insulting term for us in my own post. And think about this: I repeat, either the software used for their forum or a mod changes our legitimate club name to an insult against us. There is no no other forum in the land that would have such arrogance. No, not even RAWK (although God knows there's a cartload of City-hating ayatollahs on there).
Serves you right, some of you might say. Well, I have not been back. And I will not be back.
Sorry to have been so long about this post, but I needed to give the details, because it does give quite some contrastive context to the ramblings of this Spurs fan on this — our — forum. In the past, I have been puzzled by the hatred some blues on here feel towards Spurs. Yes, I was at Wembley in 81, and it fucking hurt me as much as anyone.
Well, perhaps — just maybe — I'm starting to understand…