Sorry seems to be the hardest word

Had she not been dead, I’m sure my mum would have seen the funny side of Bristol Rovers manager Joey Barton’s comparison of his team’s crap football with the holocaust. After all, having survived the levelling of her home city of Rotterdam by the Luftwaffe in the early part of World War Two, she watched from the family’s third apartment of the war – the first two were destroyed by enemy bombs – as the city’s Jews, including family friends, were marched unceremoniously to trains destined for the Westerbork Transit Camp, whereafter they were taken to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and other extermination camps and ghettos. Indeed, both my mother and her father were repeatedly questioned by the Nazi invader as to whether they too were Jewish. The family name, Verburg, sounded Jewish, didn’t it? The thought has often occurred that I might not have made it to the Bristol Maternity Hospital if things had worked out differently. Sometimes there is a line that perhaps shouldn’t be crossed?

But such things don’t apply to Barton who can apparently say whatever he wants without impunity. If he’s not talking about the cancer that’s running throughout the club, out he comes with something even more offensive. What makes things worse is, at the time of writing, the refusal of Barton or the club’s Jordanian owner Wael Al Qadi to even comment, never mind apologise for his highly offensive comments.

I have read some half-hearted defences of these comments. Apparently, people are easily offended these days so this is par for the course. No they aren’t. I am a passionate believer in the rights of people to offend and for people to be offended because this is part of free speech. I have to accept that being offended is often subjective, but surely at some point you draw a line that should not be crossed. Employing the use of the word holocaust in relation to something as trivial as a football match surely crosses anyone’s line.

The fact that two days have passed since Barton’s holocaust comment speaks volumes. The club has said nothing which suggests they are trying to brazen things out. This is a tactic that may work in the short term but the simple truth is that the damage has been done, that there is now yet another dark stain on the reputation of Bristol Rovers Football Club which will always remain, certainly for as long as the current manager and owner remain in place. People are already saying that Barton has no reputation left worth tarnishing, but that’s beside the point. Managers and owners come and go but the supporters are always there.

In a few weeks, the football club will proudly take part, as it has always done, in events for the annual national Remembrance, paying tribute to those who fought to give us the freedom we enjoy today, heroes making the ultimate sacrifice, defeating the maniacs of Nazi Germany who committed mass genocide against European Jews, known as the holocaust. Joey Barton was bang out of order with his offensive comments and by not condemning  or even apologising for them, so is the owner. At Bristol Rovers, while sorry seems to be the hardest word, the words I’d like to hear are “You’re sacked.”