No. But it's unbelievably naive of him (or anyone else) to expect he'll never have to suffer anything like that, especially after 'coming out' into the 'rough, tough' world of Rugby (either code).

Like i said the first chant made me cringe, bit below the belt if you as me.

The second one was more light hearted IMO.
Maybe i'm more relaxed with lighthearted chants.
Some other people probably arnt, we are all different and have different opinions.

If someone in the street sang both songs to me i'd just put my 2 fingers up at them and walk away.....but thats me.

Sorry but you've answered how you would react and not what I asked. Does Gareth Thomas have a right to offended at the chanting? Yes or No.

It depends which chants he heard, I only heard one, and that was the holding hands chant at the time Crusaders were at the WRE, so he would have heard that one,
I did not hear any other chants GT himself was attacking the Railway end with the team, he was the closest player on the pitch to my location when according to another account the offensive of the 2 chants were going on, so there is no way he would have heard it, it doesn't make it right but he also cannot complain about something he didn't hear, right?

let's get real here folks,how will the rfl be able to defend it's decision in awarding cas a £40,000 fine?
Would this ever stand up in a court of law?
what was chanted at that game was clearly wrong,but what could the castleford club possibly have done to prevent those clearly "biggoted fans" from chanting such homophobic bile?
i hope that common sense prevails here,and that the culprits are named and shamed and are banned from all sl grounds indefinately,that would solve the problem,fining cas £40,000 wouldnt,as they would shout the self same thing next season!

Depends on his out look on life. Maybe his coming out was still raw and he found it hard how to react to people making fun of it in 2 chants at a RL game.
Obviously he did take offence, other wise we wouldn't be talking about it now and cas would be 40 grand richer.

No, any lawyer worth his salt would just put on a Sky game in court and say listen to the abuse that goes on at EVERY club, homophobic or not, abuse is abuse and it would be thrown out like a shot (especially if they showed the Wire fans chanting about the shower habits of convicts to Leon Pryce)

exactly,so i hope that the club receive the required evidence to ban these morons once and for all,then we will see what further action is deemed necessary by the rfl!
Lets be honest here,the cas club has been judged by a minority of imbeciles
does that warrant fining the club?

What are you talking about? Anyone has a right to take offence about absolutely anything they want. People take offence to all sorts of things all the time - there's no law against taking offence to things. I answered your original question but this embellishment is just stupid.

Why don't you respond to my assertion instead. Do you think it's naive of Gareth Thomas to immerse himself in Rugby and never, ever expect to hear any comment about his sexuality. And before you answer that you might like to consider what he himself said when he 'came out' in the MailIt is the toughest, most macho of male sports, and with that comes an image. In many ways, it is barbaric, and I could never have come out without first establishing myself and earning respect as a player. Rugby was my passion, my whole life, and I wasn't prepared to risk losing everything I loved.[/i

rlHererl

well said buddy, like I said I think Cas were hard done to as everyone has always done this but Cas get grief

Huh? Bearing in mid the question was directed at Poppy (which incidentally she answered) what are you on about?

I'm sure if these had been racist chants directed at a black player there wouldn't be nine pages discussing this or the level of the fine. What other sports do is their business i.e. the FIFA situation. We should be thankful that our sport is willing to make a stand against discrimination in such a positive manner. As a minority sport which believes it has been discriminated against by the establishment I think we should all be able to recognise how important it is for us to fight issues of equality. Our sport has a rich heritage in issues of race at international level compared to the other big British sports i.e. football (first black player capped in 197icon_cool.gif, RU (first black player capped in 1906 but no other played for another 82 years), Cricket (first black international 1980). We should be proud that our sport takes matters of discrimination very seriously especially when others, like FIFA, obviously don't.

Hmm.. ok.