Sensitive Sensibilities? A Storm Unleashed Upon Twitter.

Saturday evening saw a storm (or at least a gentle breeze) brewing across the tweet-waves of Twitter between the chairmen of Hendon and Wealdstone over the use of the term ‘mongs’ as a description for the Greens on tweets from an account going by the name of Wealdstone_FC. Now, said account is an unofficial ‘fans eye view’ of games at Grovesnor Vale and quite honestly, is one of the better accounts to be following on a Saturday afternoon or Tuesday evening. The correspondents, of whom I believe there are a fair number, whilst quite partisan, bring a bit of amusement to their updates and often raise a smile.

For those who follow him on twitter as well, there has been a further ‘Mong-gate’ involving Ricky Gervais and his attempts to ‘reclaim’ the word. His defence was that he had never used the word ‘mong’ to describe someone who had Downs-Syndrome. Which you know, is all well and good but whilst he might not, there are plenty who do. At best his campaign was ill-judged and misguided even if he was well intentioned. He was taken to task by many charities, campaigners and fellow comedians (Richard Herring was very vocal) and to be fair, Ricky later apologised for and explained his comments in greater detail. You can see an interview here.

Anyone who regularly peruses the Wealdstone forum will know that it reads a bit like a Frankie Boyle script at times, there is no time for the pinko lefty liberal brigade with their Political Correctness sensibilities on there, but by and large the rhetoric on there is harmless enough. They call Harrow Borough the hairdressers, or the darts team, or Borer, or the scum – nicknames that range from the quite creative to solid footballing rival bashing.

How then did we end up becoming ‘the mongs’? Comments about the physical appearance of our fan base had been doing the rounds for a little while and before long, the more eloquent amongst the Stones supporter base started calling us 'Hendmong.' For ease of typing, this was swiftly shortened simply to ‘The Mongs’. Imaginative, I’m sure you’ll agree. Boyle would doff his cap in salute.

I don’t have an issue with this to be honest, it doesn’t offend me nor my pinko lefty liberal sensibilities. I’m not going to froth at the mouth and I’m not going to start a campaign to have Wealdstone banned from life. In actual fact, if I have any slight niggle, it’s that the term some (and I know it is some, by no means all) of their fans see fit to use for us, it’s the complete lack of wit and creativity used. It just doesn’t seem very clever to me on a number of levels. Like with Gervais, regardless of the sentiment behind the use of the word (although a poster once saying this about us may give us a clue ‘As if the defeat was'nt bad enough last night you've got the mongs crowing about their victory on their forum,you can just see it todger in one hand the other on the keypad tapping furiously whilst dribbling out those ugly slits in their faces underneath the wooly hats’), it feels to me as though an account on twitter calling itself Wealdstone_FC using the term doesn’t really reflect that well on the club to the wider public. I’d feel pretty uncomfortable if the HendonFC account began describing Wealdstone as ‘Wealdspazz’ or ‘Wealdspackers’ even though the account and feed is not an official part of the club, but run by fans as well. It's not for fear of upsetting fans of another club, but the potential damage such comments could do to the club. Were it an individual Hendon fan on their personal account, that’s a different kettle of fish.

Maybe the club and the fans don’t think it reflects badly on the club and even if they do, they might not care. That’s their prerogative. Apologists will, and have pointed to a comment made by the current Hendon chairman on the Isthmian forum a number of years ago when he held no official position whatsoever and the use of the term ‘mong army’ in a tongue in cheek post on our forum after the win at Grovesnor Vale a few weeks ago whilst this blog also said ‘until then, it’s great to be a mong’ in summing up that victory. Perhaps not very clever language and I’m not going to attempt to defend it, because that’s not the point I’m trying to make. This is the point, the title of this blog isn’t Hendon Football Club. The poster of the ‘mong army’ comment wasn’t Hendon Football Club. Even if unwittingly done, Wealdstone Football Club have tweets against their name using the word ‘mong’ as a term of degradation. Let's be honest, people are more likely to see the tweet and the account name than the little by-line about it being a fans eye view. It’s nothing off my nose, it doesn’t reflect badly on me, I just wonder whether some at Wealdstone may want to consider the potential wider implications of the use of the word, particularly in view of presentations made by the club chairman such as the one here in pre-season. 

Perhaps the home leg of our annual cup final might be a good time for the club to invite some of the kids from Ray Of Sunshine down to sample a local derby. Then again, on 2^nd thoughts, perhaps not…