The FA - Ollie Holt....No Happy Ending

It happened on Valentine's Day but there is nothing romantic about this story. Nor, unfortunately, does it have a happy ending.
Football can thrill us and entrance us, as this season has proved, but it can cause dismay and disillusion, too. There are times when you despair for it. This is about one of those times.
It started with an Under 16s match between Wilmslow Town Panthers and Sale Communities Hawks in the Timperley and District Junior Football League three months ago.
It was a crisp winter morning at the Jim Evison Playing Fields on the outskirts of Wilmslow, an expanse of green that commuters drive past as they leave the Cheshire town for the journey into Manchester.
The match was uneventful in its early stages but rancour crept in. The Wilmslow Town centre forward, a British lad of Pakistani descent, became involved in a couple of feisty exchanges with one of the Sale boys. It was around that time that one of the Sale supporters began spewing racist bile from the touchline.
A host of witness statements related what happened next. The spectator, said to be the grandfather of one of the Sale players, started to shout insults at Wilmslow's striker. 'If he slaps my grandson, then I'll slap him,' he screamed. 'Sort that f****** n*****.'
The referee did not hear the abuse, although another spectator did alert him to the fact it was happening, and the game continued. The abuse continued, too. 'You f****** P***,' the grandfather is reported to have yelled. 'I will get you deported, you f****** n*****.'
I don't know anything about the people who run Sale Communities but I do know some of those who give up their time for Wilmslow Town. They are good people. They're the kind of people who are a credit to grass roots football in this country, a few among the thousands who devote many hours willingly and selflessly to the game.
A couple of the Wilmslow parents asked the abusive spectator to stop. He took no notice. Another parent told him he was recording the abuse on his mobile phone in the hope it would shut him up. It didn't. When the game got to the 80th minute, with the scores level at 0-0 and the abuse still coming, another parent asked the man to stop again.

This time, witnesses said, the abusive spectator and his companion approached the Wilmslow parent, swore at him and then tried to punch him. The Wilmslow parent, an ex-Marine, slipped the punch. The man's companion threw a punch, too, and cut the Wilmslow parent's lip.
The Wilmslow parent did not retaliate and other parents and players intervened to try to usher the attackers away. There was some pushing. The grandfather was still screaming racist abuse. The referee, Josh Wates, ran over to help.
'I heard a parent from Sale use the words "Where's your turban?",' he wrote in a statement later. After a couple of minutes, he abandoned the game. To complete proceedings, one of the Wilmslow boys was punched on his way back to the car park.
Almost a month after the game, Wilmslow Town received a letter from Cheshire FA headquarters in Northwich. They were being charged with misconduct, it said. They had breached FA Rule E20, it said. They had failed to control their players or supporters from acts of violence, it said. It was the kind of brainless officialdom that sometimes makes county FAs a laughing stock.
Wilmslow's officials were staggered. And they were disgusted. They were being charged for standing up to a racist. They were being charged for standing up for what the FA preaches.
It wasn't as if they had taken the law into their own hands. They had asked the man to stop racially abusing a young boy. In the circumstances, they had shown remarkable restraint. They epitomised all the ideals of Respect and were being punished for it.

Remember all those famous faces you see in the FIFA adverts urging 'Say no to racism'? They'd done that, hadn't they? In a small way, they'd done their bit. They had stood up for what was right. And their reward was to be charged with misconduct.
A couple of weeks ago, one of Wilmslow Town's officials, Alistair Wheeler, attended the disciplinary hearing. Josh Wates gave his evidence first. He turned round on his way out when he realised what was happening and asked in astonishment why Wilmslow had been charged. It didn't make any difference.
The good news is that the FA fined Sale Communities £200 and docked them 20 points. The bad news is that, hamstrung by their own bureaucracy and abandoning all common sense, they also decided the charge against Wilmslow Town was proven. They fined them £20, docked them five points and warned them as to their future conduct.
The FA, which has done much fine work on race issues at national level and continues to do so, made Wilmslow a guilty party and in the process undermined much of what they claim to stand for.
They say they understand the sensitivities of the case and went beyond the usual guidelines in their punishment of Sale. They have pointed out that they have imposed the lowest level of sanction on Wilmslow.
Maybe, but Wilmslow Town has b05.22.2016een devastated by what has happened. A couple of players said they did not want to play any more. The U16 team will fold at the end of the season. Wheeler has resigned from his position.
'The incident — and more the fact that we were subsequently charged by the FA, and this was upheld at a hearing, contrary to the evidence — has knocked the heart out of the team,' Wheeler wrote in a letter to the league. 'This is both outrageous on the one hand and terribly sad on the other.'

Like I said, no happy ending.

Pretty disgusting all round. The FA should hang their heads in shame.

It's totally bonkers...the Cheshire FA have punished a club for reporting racist behaviour!!

I can see why kids want to give up football/on the club if they are abused in such a fashion and the FA punishes the club even more.

Sadly, the fight against racism by so many of the 'old guard' is just token soundbites.

Agree.

You have to look at UEFA to see the type of punishments they dish out as evidence that all these campaigns and armbands are nothing more than for show.

many people don't actually 'care' about anyone except themselves and a few cronies from the old boys network. You can see that simply by how many FA cup final tickets don't go to fans of the clubs involved.

I could go on a rant about this, but I'd be preaching to the converted.  Even the referee knew what the FA were doing was wrong.  And now a bunch of lads who used to enjoy playing the game have become so disillusioned, they're going to give it up.  And all because of one parent (or grandparent, in this case) who really doesn't have an ounce of decorum.

Who knows who was on that Wilmslow team - maybe the next Leo Messi?  Granted, not hugely likely, but there may well be one young man on that team who, ten years from now, may be cold selling or pen pushing or flipping burgers or even sat on the couch watching Jeremy Kyle, instead of making a living playing football, and all because the FA is stupid enough to punish the victim.

Yet apparently we're the ones ruining England's chances in international competition 

I used to managed a youth team in Hattersley and you wouldn't believe the dogs abuse our lads would get, and the parents coming from so-called posh places were the worst.  They once got referred to as "Moors murderers"!  Fortunately they were a tough breed and would more than likely tell these morons to fuck off, but it wasn't much fun to listen to as a manager, and more often than not the referee wouldn't do a damn thing about it.  But they did send me off for arguing the toss once!  Bloody joke...

Yeah, the parents are a disgrace sometimes and worse than their kids.

This is my 6th season running Tattenhall JFC, but we've not got an U18's next season - so will concentrate on the little un's and the managers.

Over the years, I do a pre-season get together for players and parents. I show them the Respect Campaign videos, talk about behaviour, barriers and the clubs Code of Conduct. 99% of the parents are great and take everything on board, but on the odd occasions I've had to warn dads about their language, or giving the ref too much stick.

Most teams are great, however, some of the teams, especially around the Runcorn area, are well-known for giving the opposition players and ref a load of grief. These are 14/15 yr olds FFS!!

I've had a stand-up row with a father of one of our players in the past and told him to take his kid and piss off, basically. He was a really good player, on Crewe's books etc, but was kicked out because of his attitude. I took a chance on him, but warned him numerous times in training about his attitude. Well, it only took one match and he was at it again, so I brought him off to have a word....well his father came running round from the opposite stands, demanding to know in his words "what the fuck are you doing?"

Let's just say that didn't go down well...and the game was still going on. Both kid and parent were told in no uncertain terms where to go and what to do. I refunded his registration when he returned the kit, even though he said he wanted another chance. He'd had about 5 warnings, so couldn't take the chance on him causing frictions in the team.

I've had two of our players called 'black bastards', paki's etc...the poor refs are mainly kids themselves, just trying to make a few quid at the weekend, so struggle to deal with aggressive adults - but why should they have to???

I've put several complaints/reports into the local FA over the years - problem is, on one occasion, the wife of the manager was on the FA committee...so nothing ever got done.

Until these FA's start handing out bans on the culprits, nothing will change.