Leeds United 3 Bradford City 2

Leeds United 3

Nunez 2, McCormack

Bradford City 2

Compton, Flynn

 This was an excellent game. And whilst at the end Leeds United rightly triumphed there was enough in Bradford City’s performance to give their large travelling support confidence for the coming season.

With both sets of fans in good voice there was a lively atmosphere at the start of the match. Bradford’s Mark Stewart had an early shot easily saved by Andrew Lonergan before Michael Flynn hit a 30-yard drive just over the Leeds crossbar. It was the home side however that created the first real chance, Ramon Nunez hitting his shot horribly high after Adam Clayton had found the striker unmarked in the box just six yards out.

On 31 minutes it was the away side that took the lead when after a great run Stewart pulled the ball back for Jack Compton to push home from four yards out. Cue ecstatic celebrations amongst the 4,000 Bantam fans. In comparison the earlier abuse by Leeds fans in the Kop towards owner Ken Bates now reached a peak with many questioning a lack of investment in the side by chanting ‘where’s the money gone?’ a reference to Leeds having spent just £200,000 in the summer.

Things might have got worse for the home side but James Hanson was unable to keep his header down as half-time approached. When the sides returned after the break it took Leeds less than a minute to get back on level terms, when following a fine move Nunez scored his first goal for the club with a right foot shot that crashed into the net off the underside of the bar.

Jonathan Howson and Ross McCormack then both missed good chances to put the home side ahead before a magnificent effort from Flynn re-established City’s lead. Chesting down the ball the Bradford midfielder hit a crashing left foot drive from the corner of the penalty area beyond Lonergan and into the far corner of the net. It was a goal fit for any level and an inspired City could have then had a third only for David Syers to overrun the ball as he shaped to shoot, Lonergan going down smartly to push the ball behind for a corner.

With 20 minutes remaining Leeds equalised for the second time when an unchallenged McCormack rose to head substitute Tom Lees cross beyond Oscar Jonsson. Five minutes the home side fashioned what proved to be the winning goal when Jonsson got his hands to Lloyd Sam’s pull back into the box but couldn’t hold on to the ball, Nunez sweeping home from three yards out.

Behind for the first time Bradford strived hard to fashion an equaliser but it was Leeds who looked the more likely to score in the final fifteen minutes with McCormack going close on a number of occasions.

* Standing up report - the crowd at Elland Road was close to 18,000 and of these I’d estimate that well over a third stood up for the whole match, with most of the 4,000 away fans doing so and a majority in the Leeds home end also doing likewise. 

Imitating the rich - the poor get active

Taking what isn’t yours has now reached right down to the bottom of society after thousands looted shops across London and in other parts of the country. Having seen MPs from all sides of the House of Commons grab expenses they weren’t entitled to, watched as millions celebrated the wedding of a Prince who will eventually inherit land stolen centuries ago from ordinary folk and witnessed bankers taking bonuses for destroying the economy then it was clearly time to do a little free shopping.

Surprised and shocked to see areas I know so well go up in flames?  Not really, it’s amazing it took so long and with the capitalist system now firmly in the hands of people who can’t understand that constantly taking money from the poor to give to the rich in tax handouts has to be reversed if their system isn’t going to collapse then expect things to get even worse. 

New season kicks-off with further demands for safe standing at matches

Football fans at the start of the new season are being urged to support a campaign that aims to re-introduce standing areas in Stadiums. This would legalise a practice that hundreds of thousands already engage in every weekend, fans of away sides, in particular, rarely sitting down at Premier League matches. In October Manchester United fans are faced with having their ticket allocation cut by a third for the match at Liverpool following ‘persistent standing’ at previous encounters.


The Football Supporters’ Federation [FSF] safe standing campaign has been around for a number of years. Its opponents include the Premier League as well as the Hillsborough Family Support Group. This represents families of some of 96 Liverpool fans killed at the home of Sheffield Wednesday in April 1989. Its chairwoman Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son James was amongst the victims, has said: “We just believe there’s no such thing as safe standing in this country and our football clubs should remain all-seater stadiums.”

However the campaign has been given a major boost after Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster’s private member's bill supporting safe standing was tabled for a second reading in the House of Commons in November. This follows last year’s signing of an Early Day Motion by 145 MPs calling for a reopening of the debate on Safe Standing.

And now with The Independent newspaper also backing Foster the FSF, said spokesperson Michael Brunskill, are “Aiming to get large numbers of fans to contact their local MP and urge s/he to back the bill. Plenty have told us they are in favour and we want to remind them that many fans want to legally stand at games.” 

Foster himself is keen to stress that he isn’t calling for a return to the  “appalling old terraces, or the culture of ignorance and complacency that led to Hillsborough. Lord Taylor’s report concluded that the direct cause of the disaster was gross overcrowding. He recommended all-seater stadia not because standing was to blame, but because seats aid crowd control.

Seats, by their very nature, impose a cap on numbers, provide individual spaces for individual fans, provide barriers between rows to prevent crowd surges and make it easier to identify troublemakers. The modern standing areas I am calling for incorporate these very same features.” 

In a demonstration of what facilities would be like if Foster’s bill becomes law a Safe Standing Roadshow has been touring parts of the country and was on display at the FSF public meeting in June in Liverpool where according to Brunskill “it was, despite some robust debate, generally well received.” 

Fans regularly stand safely at matches including Bradford City's at the Carling Cup game
with Leeds United on August 9th

At a similar public meeting a month earlier at Molineux, where thousands persistently stand at games, the FSF were promised ‘meaningful negotiations’ by Wolverhampton Wanderers chief executive Jez Moxey. Arsenal Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis has also told his own supporters he was “open” to the possibility of safe standing areas at the Emirates Stadium. None of which will be possible if MPs refuse to back Foster and amongst those who have shown no desire to do so is Sports Minister Hugh Robertson.

Foster doesn’t though appear too downhearted saying “The Bill has drawn attention to safe standing, opened a debate and challenged misconceptions. It’s only one part of a wider push to create mass support. If we can demonstrate the broad demand for standing that is out there, the football authorities and the Government will have to engage.”




Plugging the gap

Watersafe Assured - a nationally recognised plumbing assurance scheme [PAS] could be in the pipeline after water companies, plumbers’ professional bodies and trade associations agreed in principle to back it.

That would be good news for consumers, plumbers, plumbing businesses, water companies and regulators but very bad news for rogue training companies who for years have been allowed to charge extortionate rates to provide ‘training courses’ that are of little benefit to their clients or the people who then subsequently hire them. [See http://www.markwrite.co.uk/plumber.htm for more details]

The scheme is something Chris Sneath has been pushing for many years.   He’s currently Master of the 400 year-old Worshipful Company of Plumbers, and he’s been chairing a working group that includes Thames, Severn, Anglian and Scottish Water, the Association of Plumbing and Heating Contractors and the Joint Industry Board - Plumbing and Mechanical Engineering Service on which Unite is represented.

Officials in number of government departments have been visited and in May a letter was sent to Richard Benyon MP, Minister for Natural Environment and Fisheries, about a possible launch date in July next year, with Benyon replying by welcoming the initiative and asking to be kept fully informed.

“It will mean that anyone employing a plumber in their house can be assured they’ve been properly trained to, at least, NVQ level 2. The water companies will make people aware of the scheme by advertising it on everyone’s quarterly bills” said Chris who before he steps down from his Master’s role will be helping to unveil a 7’ bronze statue of a plumber’s mate on the concourse of London’s Cannon Street. It’s cost £100,000, has been designed by Martin Jennings, creator of the one of poet Sir John Betjeman in St Pancras Station, and will be the focal point of the 400^th birthday celebrations.  

Sad start to new season with a fascist in charge at Swindon

It’s bad enough that the Football and Premier League don’t any longer kick-off on the same day but far, far, far worse is the fact that tomorrow the former starts with one team having a fascist for a manager.

Italian Paulo Di Canio, who in is playing career played for, amongst others, West Ham United, Celtic and Lazio has been given his first managerial posting at the County Ground, where Swindon Town will start the season with a home game against Crewe Alexandria in the fourth tier of English football.

When he was originally appointed in May one of the club’s sponsors, the GMB did the right thing and immediately pulled out of any future deal. You might have hoped that others in the game would have taken their own opportunities to, at least register their disgust with a man whose admiration for Benito Mussolini is no secret.

He’s the man responsible for backing Adolf Hitler in the Second World War, prior to which he passed anti-Semitic laws in his own country discriminating against Jews in all sectors of life and thus preparing the way for the deportation of thousands of Italian Jews to German death camps.

Then there’s his support for General Franco in Spain in the Civil War there that led to a military dictatorship for over thirty years. Not forgetting the reign of terror that Mussolini engaged on those Italians who opposed him, including the Socialist Party’s parliamentary deputy and fierce critic Giacomo Matteotti. Denouncing the 1924 elections, and the fascists 64% of the vote in it, as a sham he was kidnapped and murdered by assassins that were led by Mussolini’s press officer. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly it wasn’t too long before there were no such thing as an opposition party, or trade unions or anything approaching even a Murdoch style free press. Naturally further deaths and executions of opponents followed, including 30,000 Ethiopians in 1937, two years after their country had been invaded.

This is the man who Di Canio admires! So much so that in his autobiography he praised him as “basically a very principled, ethical individual who was deeply misunderstood.” To ram home the point the Swindon manager even has “Dux”, Latin for the Duke that was Mussolini’s adopted title, tattooed on his [right??] arm.

Six years ago, after giving the traditional straight right arm salute to followers of the club he supported as a boy, Lazio, he defended his actions by saying “I am a fascist not a racist.” All of which might have been lost on those he was saluting, Lazio’s ultra’s who had previously demonstrated their own anti-racist and Semitic credentials by displaying a banner taunting their Roma counterparts with the words “Team of blacks, crowd of Jews.”

Given a public opportunity to sympathise with those Jews who had been deported by Mussolini to their deaths Di Canio didn’t take it when a few short months after his salute he met some of those who had survived the concentration camps. “We must consider everything in the round and tell people of all the terrible stories that happened in World War II. “

So have others protested about this odious man being given a job in English football - after all there’s plenty of campaigns dedicated to ridding the game of racism, not forgetting sexism, homophobia and anti-semitism? 

Surely Kick-it-Out, Show Racism the Red Card, the Professional Footballers’ Association or the League Managers Association are ‘up in arms’ or if not, at least, offering a ‘tiny word; of protest? Sadly, you’d be wrong. Search their website’s and the best you’ll find is on Kick-it-Out’s, and that’s simply a link to a newspaper report about the GMB stopping its sponsorship. According to the excellent www.swindontommy.wordpress.com/ site Kick-it-Out has written to Swindon Town about their concerns, which the writer rightly identifies as meaning they’ve “ducked the issue.” As was also the case when Di Canio was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 earlier this week. 

Just in case there's any doubt what lies behind Di Canio's sympathies 

It's not only whose phones he's tapped that Murdoch wants to keep hidden

It seems that whilst Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are keen to know everyone else’s business they’re not so keen on shining a light on their own. And never more so when it comes to revealing how much money they’ve made in order to cough up some of it to pay for essential services. A fact revealed by Richard Murphy, author of a joint PCS, Tax Justice Network and War on Want tax haven report, when he joined Caroline Lucas MP and deputy general secretary Hugh Lanning to speak before a crowd of MPs in Committee room 7 of the House of Commons on July 12^th.

The author of the Tax Research UK blog revealed Murdoch’s multi-national corporation uses 152 subsidiaries in tax havens in “a deliberate construct to hide the truth.”  All of which the report calculates costs UK taxpayers at least £18000000000  [£18bn] a year in lost tax revenue, a figure four times bigger than the cost of eliminating child poverty in the country.

A sum of money that must surely have been of interest to Labour’s shadow Exchequer Secretary David Hanson MP and Stephen Timms MP, the shadow Employment Minister who were both sitting in the audience.

Caroline Lucas, the only Green MP in the House of Commons, now hopes to use the report to persuade other MPs to back her Tax and Financial Transparency Bill.

Raise your cup and celebrate tea workers success

History has been made in India after strike action by tea workers forced management on an estate in north western Bengal to abandon their feudal approach and begin discussions with their union.

The signed agreement, the first of its kind in the country, opens the way to real industrial relations whereby management sit across the table with workers and their unions to negotiate.

The move comes after a bitter dispute that started nearly two years ago at the Nowera Nuddy tea garden of Amalgamated Plantations [AP] Limited, which is majority owned by the company behind the Tetley Tea label, the Tata Group. Tata has worldwide assets valued at close to $100 billion with interests in chemicals, energy, steel, services and agriculture.

On August 10^th 2009 workers were angered by what they perceived as the denial of maternity leave for Mrs Arti Oraon. She had collapsed in the field and been taken to hospital on the back of a tractor. Under Indian law leave commences six weeks prior to the expected delivery date.

But with AP management alleging Mrs Oraon still had a couple of weeks to work on grounds that the baby wasn’t due to mid-October up to 500 mainly female workers left their work. Previous maternity leave injustices were raised and the dismissal of AP’s medical officer was demanded.

With the company claiming the medical officer had been badly attacked it declared a lock out of two weeks, called in the police and after holding an internal enquiry, that refused to take statements from those locked out, suspended eight workers.

Then when workers refused to return without their suspended colleagues another lock out of almost three months was imposed. All of which took place during a period when no wages were paid and arrest warrants were issued for 12 workers. With charges against them including grievous bodily harm, unlawful assembly, criminal intimidation and unlawful confinement there was a possibility of seven years in jail for some.

The IUF, a worldwide federation of trade unions to which Unite is affiliated, was having none of that. They organised international messages of support and protests were held worldwide. These included one in August last year where leaflets were distributed outside Tata’s London Crown Plaza Hotel, where a night costs £230, equivalent to ten months’ wages for a Nowera Nuddy tea worker.

Earlier this year a contingent of workers, all members of the Progressive Tea Workers Union [PTWU], travelled 400 miles from their plantation to protest outside the headquarters of Tata Global Beverages in Kolkata.

They called on India’s most profitable company to intervene by “instructing AP management to engage in genuine negotiations.” And whilst Tata claimed they were powerless to intervene as “AP is independently owned” it wasn’t longer after that AP did agree to meet with the worker’s union. Following which a settlement has been agreed in which the criminal cases have been withdrawn. Meantime payments have been given to all workers employed at the time of the second lockout, dismissed workers have been given compensation and family members offered jobs whilst Mrs Oraon’s child has been awarded a cash payment as a goodwill gesture. In addition management and the PTWU are meeting to establish procedures for resolving grievances as well as raising awareness on maternity benefits and protection. It’s a great result all round and no wonder then that IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald later paid tribute to the tenacity of the Nowera Nuddy tea workers.