By DAVE JONES
THE Jimmy Savile chants told me this wasn’t about one fan; the ripped up seats, the hoardings being pulled up, bottles thrown on the pitch, police and stewards being pushed and shoved.
All this told me it wasn’t about one bad fan.
I apologise if I’m tarring all good Leeds fans — but I ask them to imagine what they would do if they were in my shoes?
What would they do, if they had their daughter, their son, their two young grandchildren — 11 and 8, crying for Christ sake — listening to all the vile chants coming from the crowd?
Those chants weren’t coming from just one bad fan.
They were chanting about Jimmy Savile as if he’s some kind of hero.
I’ve had this nonsense for 12 years but imagine if it was you and your family were there hearing it all.
And don’t tell me I’m paid to put up with that sort of stuff, that it’s just football banter. It’s not, it’s vile, it blackens our game.
No, there were many, many others in the crowd — was it 400 out of 5,000, I don’t know — who were singing and chanting vicious stuff throughout the game.
And when that moron attacked our keeper, and climbed back into the stand, there were fans patting him on the back and treating him like a hero.
They were condoning it and that’s what really disturbs me. That’s not one bad fan.
That’s one bad crowd.
How can I possibly pick out the guilty ones? Maybe it was 400 out of 5,000 who were responsible, but how can I judge that, how can I identify them?
The only ones that can do that are the silent majority.
If they — the decent, proper fans — just sit there and smile weakly, and look away, then this curse is going to spread and spread and we’ll be back into the bad old days. It feels we’re sliding back there already.
The people who go to matches have to disown the evil minority, they must point them out to the authorities, to the police, to the stewards.
If they don’t, they’ll never be able to take their own kids to a football match in the way decent families should do, and enjoy the game and feel safe and entertained.
The good fans have to help get our house in order, they have to help clean up the game.
It’s the only way we’re going to cure this disease.
Interview: MIKE DUNN
