Torquay United V Woking - 29/09/18

[tomogull]

He has got a point though - you are stood on a golf course in France and start slagging Reid off because we are losing.

Lo and behold Reid scores two crackers and get us a point.

I wholheartedly agree with Brucie. Jamie Reid playing in a side WHERE CHANCES ARE BEING CREATED (unlike the abyssmal Owers 'system') will score goals. Simples.

[Shangull]

Great to see him being played in position and in the goals. he's had a tough time and endured some terrible abuse whilst being played out of position. Given that his demonstrated a fair amount of resilience and is coming back strong he's far from a snowflake.

[greb46]

There should never be a reason to apologise for deviating from football.....

'The Congo' is a region of Central Africa derived from the location of the River Congo which has Brazaville the capital of the Republic of the Congo on it's Northern (right) bank and Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on it's South or left bank.

The Republic of the Congo, is also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply the Congo. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, is also known as DR Congo, the DRC, Congo-Kinshasa or simply the Congo. It is sometimes referred to by its former name of Zaire, which was its official name between 1971 and 1997.

Historically during the days of colonialism; the Republic of the Congo was called French Congo and The Democratic Republic of the Congo was the Belgian Congo. With a population of over 78 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populated officially Francophone country in the world and is the mother country of my four youngest children's heritage, and their family on that side refer to it as 'Republíki ya Kongó Demokratíki'

Thanks for info Merse

[dennisk]

This is the first chance that I have had to post anything after Saturday's game. I must say that Saikou Janneh's enthusiasm and positioning was a delight to see. Yes, he is a little raw, but on another day he would have had a hat-trick. Given the chance, he will surely score in Essex on Saturday. He did get a bit of stick from the Popside, but, given time and going forward he could be an important part of our (hopefully) rise up the table.
I can assure you that the Woking supporters, knew that they were very fortunate to get a point from the match. There won't be a tougher test in this league, so onwards and upwards. Great to see Jamie Reid score twice and show the confidence that he was lacking under Gary Owers. COYY........

[merse btpir]

He did get a bit of stick from the Popside....

He's just 18 ffs!

Would that have been meeted out to Olaf Koszela?

[dennisk]

He's just 18 ffs!

Would that have been meeted out to Olaf Koszela?

He didn't get any stick from me, by the way!

[Southampton Gull]

OMG Dave, you really do not have any idea about this ' drink' thing do you ?
You think you do, but alas your judgement is once again ,at best, clouded.
Go back ,just like you're quick to advise others, & read the original post again, then comment on what you've actually read , Not what you think you've read.
2 different things I think you'll find.
Cheers

Another whoosh. Just gets b(i)etter and b(i)etter

[MellowYellow]

There should never be a reason to apologise for deviating from football.....

'The Congo' is a region of Central Africa.....

The book 'Heart of Darkness' is worth a read about the Congo. The author Joseph Conrad raises questions about imperialism and racism by creating a parallel between what the author calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and the Congo as a place of darkness. This is a book of its time (dated 1899) but still very much resonates with our corporate globalised times. Heart of Darkness suggests that Europeans are not essentially more highly-evolved or enlightened than the people whose territories they invade. To this extent, it punctures one of the myths of imperialist race theory.

The most famous adaptation of Conrads work is Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 motion picture 'Apocalypse Now' which moves the story from the Congo to the Vietnam War.

[gateman49]

There should never be a reason to apologise for deviating from football.....

To prove that point,TUFC have done so for years (until the last three matches) and they didn't apologise to me.

[merse btpir]

The book 'Heart of Darkness' is worth a read about the Congo. The author Joseph Conrad raises questions about imperialism and racism by creating a parallel between what the author calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and the Congo as a place of darkness. Heart of Darkness suggests that Europeans are not essentially more highly-evolved or enlightened than the people whose territories they invade. To this extent, it punctures one of the myths of imperialist race theory.

The history of European colonisation and exploitation of the region is shameful...

The Berlin Conference of 1884 decreed that the 905,000 square miles of the Belgian Congo [now the Democratic Republic of the Congo] became the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium. His genocidal exploitation of the territory, particularly the rubber trade, caused many deaths and much suffering. Murder and mutilation ~ very often the removal of hands and womens' breasts ~ were common.

The Force Publique were required to provide a hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions for hunting food. As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in chopped-off hands. Sometimes the hands were collected by the soldiers of the Force Publique, sometimes by the villages themselves. There were even small wars where villages attacked neighbouring villages to gather hands, since their rubber quotas were too unrealistic to fill.


A man with his daughter’s hand & foot

The Congo was a playground for sadists. Rene de Permentier was an officer in the Force Publique in the 1890s. He had all the trees and bushes around his house cut down so he could shoot at passers by. He had women prisoners sweep a courtyard. If he then found a leaf in the courtyard he would have a dozen of them beheaded. If forest paths were not well maintained he would order a child killed in the nearest village.

In the book (another well worth reading) ‘King Leopold’s Ghost’ Adam Hochschild estimates that over ten million Congolese died during the years that Leopold and the Belgian Government controlled the country. It is likely that more people died in this Belgian holocaust than died in Hitler’s, but no one was ever brought to book and the crime is largely unknown now. Thousands of Belgians served in the Congo and the crimes that took place there were hardly less known to the Belgian population than Hitler’s were to ordinary Germans.

None of the European colonial powers have an enviable record but Belgium’s was easily the worst. So much for the ‘Plucky Little Belgium’ that the British were urged to defend in World War One. Belgium ~ and in particular it's Royal Family ~ still refuses to acknowledge its own crimes.

In 1908, after an international outcry, Leopold was forced to hand over his territory to the Belgian Government. They controlled the Congo until independence in 1959. The number of murders diminished but mutilations and exploitation continued. The Belgians left the country in such a state that after independence many millions more died in a series of wars and because of government incompetence. The murder of President Lumumba and approximately 100,000 deaths was followed by the disastrous government of Mobutu. The First Congo War of 1996-98 was followed by the Second Congo War [1998-2003]. This is considered the deadliest war in modern African history. The war killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making it the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II. Again, largely unknown in the West.

This too makes educational viewing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b0bk8t10

Currently; my daughter is studying this history of her heritage and her mother's flight to France and later Belgium then England for refuge, as an extra-curricular subject and expresses an ambition to become a human rights lawyer.

[TorquayDNA]

This is an excellent conversation, thanks to everyone who has contributed and particularly Merse (and daughter) for the insight into colonial abuse. What a debt we owe.

[culmstockgull]

I initially wished to post concerning the attributes or lack of them of Jamie Reid, depending in your viewpoint, However the comment of Torquay DNA stating the debt we owe diverted my attention, if we accept that everything we did in the past was wrong on one scale or another then we would never achieve anything going forward, what was acceptable two hundred years ago is patently not acceptable today, look at the abuses carried out by Russia in eastern Ukraine, look at the land grabs on a huge scale going on in Africa today by the Chinese under the auspices of aid, and do not get me started on the tribal atrocities being carried out by Sunni and Shia's militias throughout the middle east.
So no, we do not owe a debt, if we did we would be apologising for ever, what next, grovelling for leaving Europe, taking a perverse pleasure on Manchester United's ills, our hatred of Cornwall for the way they construct cream teas.
There must be a time when we say enough is enough, it happened centuries ago, get over it.

[TorquayDNA]

Haha, that made me laugh... I would NEVER apologise to any Manure fan, nor the Cornish (Devon way is the right way of course).

We can't apologise for everything no, but we do have a responsibility to make amends for past atrocities where we can. Not to do so just because Russia gets away with it is not conducive to a peaceful world. Maybe my choice of words wasn't quite right, but we do have a responsibility to at least attempt reconciliation.

[MellowYellow]

We can't apologise for everything no, but we do have a responsibility to make amends for past atrocities where we can.

We have tried to make amends. Only recently we sent THERESA MAY out there to show off some new dancing moves. How more pain do you wish to inflict on the people of Africa.

[wivelgull]

A pontificator is one who, bitterly aware of his lack of education and ability, nevertheless pronounces with seeming authority on all matters, even though it is clear to most (but by no means all) of his listeners that he does not have the faintest idea what he is talking about. The prime motivation of the pontificator is not to inform his interlocutors, but to attempt to create an impression of intellectual superiority. The danger is, of course, that he may encounter someone who knows more about a subject than he does. As he knows hardly anything about anything at all, this kind of encounter is not unusual and only increases the pontificator’s bitterness.