Re-Posts….What a Load of Old Bollocks!

Posted on March 25, 2012

One thing I have really started to dislike on Facebook lately are re-posts, they are like a modern day chain letter……….re-post this if you don’t what to die of a hideous illness, re-post if your love our boys in Afghanistan, re-post this if you don’t want your kids interfered with by a Catholic Priest…re-post this if you thing we should bring back hanging etc etc etc. I try to ignore them, but I also have a perverted streak in me that wants to read how paranoid, vitriolic and bitter people can become if they read the Daily Mail too often. Look at the example below .

Can you imagine the self indulgent bitter and twisted fool who wrote that rant, one that carries no substance whatsoever. I have spent the last six summers working with youths/young men, however, this April will have a huge hole in it without my cricket team who have all grown up and either gone on to play the adult game or moved on to other things.

I am going to miss it badly, it played a huge part in my early summer calendar, it was a self rewarding job that I relished. Everyone of those youths had characteristics I loved, some were cocky, some were shy, some were instantly likable others were harder work, but out of the 15 to 20 of them I coached, all of them treated me how I wanted to be treated and none of them slammed doors in my face.

As with everything there were squabbles here and there, but when you are taking on the role of temporary guardian, it is critical to understand the varying domestic and schooling situations of teenagers that can reflect in their behaviour, the ignorant prat who wrote that rant has obviously never worked with children.

The best example I can give you of this particular bunch of lads is this;  A couple of years ago they turned up to a match and half heartedly got battered by the opposition, I was really embarrassed and upset to the point where I felt like packing it all in. The following week, after an honest group discussion with the chap who was effectively my right hand man (Mark) something in them as a unit changed, something in them didn’t want to see me like that again, they felt bad about letting me and the other parents down with their attitude.

Their response the following week was to dish out a good hiding to a team rated much higher than them, it was an incredible turn around and a collective spirit that I will never forget. When I did my little team talk afterwards, I was so proud I nearly burst in to tears and as a team they went on to achieve great things, often against the odds.

When I see them out and about, many of parents relate back to the day they (the boys)  didn’t want to let themselves down any more as the catalyst to them achieving things that they previously thought impossible. Either I am ludicrously lucky, or there are groups of youths like that all over the country. These are the same youths that this buffoon apparently detests, he is probably the type who would like to birch them to within an inch of their lives for writing left handed.

So, here is my message to you, the spiteful and resentful fool who wrote that drivel. I suggest that you are the one who is rude, you are the one who never gives chance and you are the one who is ignorant about a young generation who have enough on their plate without having to listen to your rambling nonsense.

Besides the cricket club, I have spent loads of time around kids in the last fifteen years as virtually all my peer groups scattered around Hampshire and Berkshire have children of their own. They are all have their own ways and quirks of nature, but I have never had problems with any of them, no more problems than my parents had with me and their parents had with them.

Being a youth is a period in life where adjustments in to adulthood take place, and though us, shall I say more mature people, want to to tell them that world is their oyster, teenagers have worries just like anyone else. Quite frankly, if my own children didn’t have a rebellious phase, I would be disappointed, I would rather that than have them turning in to bigoted, miserable fools like you, someone who is bitter that youth has passed you by.

The only think I dislike about the young generation is the fact that they have a lot more healthy years ahead of them than I do, but I still love hearing about the adventures they get up to, even if I am a bit jealous. What makes me laugh is that the imbecile who wrote that rant  claims that he would like to be treated how he treats others.

If he started looking at how he treats the young generation he might find the answer that actually, he is getting treated how he treats others, as he seems to condemn them without good reasoning and expects them to call him sir when he walks in to a room. Who is this twat? Some sort of pompous self appointed Knight of the Realm?

He sounds like a horrible, spiteful man to me, certainly not one I would go out of my way to open a door for. It is a pretty simple fact of life that if you treat people with resentment and prejudice you are not going to get much in return.

We all know that youth sometimes seems wasted on the young, but that is not a good reason to make sweeping assumptions that they are all a good for nothing bunch of impolite scumbags, when in my experience, they are actually quite the contrary.

 


7 Replies to "Re-Posts....What a Load of Old Bollocks!"

  • mark greenwood
    March 25, 2012 (4:22 pm)
    Reply

    A great read Bob. I have to agree with you on many points. I’ve been teaching for 9 years now, and due to the politics and amount of paperwork I have to complete, I have thought about leaving teaching. The thing that keeps me in it are the young people I teach, 16 – 19 year olds.

    The young adults are excellent, and a credit to themselves, and their parents. I have many a lesson with these young people thanking me for the lesson, or coaching session. I don’t think we give them enough credit.

  • Mark
    March 25, 2012 (5:14 pm)
    Reply

    Good post Bob, and one I wholeheartedly agree with, however being referred to as your tight hand man has now led to sporting job offers in which I would be required to wear leather chaps in the dug out…..thanks for that 🙂

  • Bob Lethaby
    March 25, 2012 (6:00 pm)
    Reply

    Sorry mark, all changed now! 🙂

    • Mark
      March 25, 2012 (6:08 pm)
      Reply

      No problem bob…I added it to my CV anyway hehehehe

  • Ali
    March 25, 2012 (10:00 pm)
    Reply

    I completely agree with your dislike of reposts, particularly your example.
    I’m commenting because I am really pleased that you and Macca have such positive dealings with young people. There are without doubt an enormous amount of polite, respectful, motivated, inspiring young people and I would imagine that with both of you the young people you work with are from middle class backgrounds, who have chosen to participate in your sports, have parents that give a shit in their willingness to parent their children and have demonstrated that willingness by paying for their offspring to play sport.
    The young people you describe in your blog, I see as a minority in my community.
    I see an increasing amount of young people who do lack manners, because their parents have none and can’t be bothered to instill any in their children, kids who have dictated the terms with their parents since a young age so think the’re wishes are of paramount inmportance, lack any willingness to work because their parents don’t.
    I know I’m at risk of sounding like the bitter, twisted prat you refer too but that’s not my intention, but I can understand when people live in communities where negative behaviour is predominant that they start to think everyone’s like it. It’s good to read this and be reassured that’s not the case.

    • Bob Lethaby
      March 26, 2012 (9:32 am)
      Reply

      Hi Ali, I am glad you are still reading, enjoying and getting wound up about my blog subjects, it is great to get feedback and no you are not a bitter, twisted prat. The issue with “class” is an interesting one that I don’t think is black and white, a lot of talented athletes/sportsman come from working/under class areas with socio-economic issues and sport is a way out of crime and deprivation. You often find that “middle class” parents are the ones who use sports clubs as a baby sitting service and don’t really feel they have time to support the organisation their child is involved in. I am not sure that where an individual is perceived in order of class is a blueprint for how children will respond in their behaviour towards adults.

      However, it is fair to say that most of the children I worked with came from middle/white collar England, so the views of both Macca & Mark will be interesting, as Mark worked with a more varied group of children and parents.There is good and bad in all levels of society in all age groups, there always has and always will be, the chap who wrote that lives in a delusion world of false nostalgia, it probably snowed on Christmas day every year when he was a kid.

      I am guessing by its pomposity that the silly fool wrote that sweeping generalisation of the age groups beneath him perceives himself as upper middle class, so that says it all really. It is often that group of people who are ruder and more dismissive than any other, that is why I have such apathy towards the majority of politicians and members of the aristocracy.

      All pigs are equal…..but some are more equal than others.

  • John Newton
    March 26, 2012 (5:10 pm)
    Reply

    I reckon its Mr Boyd – f*ck me I hated that twat!


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