Anyone else find a Giants fan calling for a "principled stand" massively funny?

Where was their principled stand when they were tapping up Kopczak? Oh that's right, they're beyond reproach because... well... just because alright?


TBH, it just seems to me that it's the usual "good news story in RL must be attacked for being positive" attitude that pervades these boards. It's just very sad that people have to try and knock anything that might mean an improvement to the game in this country.

We're a small regional sport. There are precious few revenue streams coming into the game and very little in the way of press coverage for good or ill.

So, when a club that was almost wiped out less than 2 months ago is able to turn around under new ownership and bring in a new sponsorship deal of this magnitude this should be cause for celebration. That new, solid foundations for a once proud and successful club are being built. But no, the self claimed "moral" brigade are out in force to tell us how despicable we are for accepting this deal.

But tell you what, if you don't like Bradford's sponsor then don't come to Odsal when your team are playing. Though spare a thought for the other 3 people in the taxi because they'll all have to pay an extra 1/3 if you're not there.

RL in England is a financially poor sport. This is easily demonstrable as you can count the number of clubs in SL who made a profit last year on the fingers of a blind butcher's hand. The clubs at the bottom end of SL seem to be on a constant knife edge regarding their finances and those outside the top table are living on scraps never able to even have a chance of getting the chance to step up to the top league. So for any club to turn away sponsorship or investment is massively foolish on their part.

Mind you, it might just all be down to a worried Giants fan who has the growing realistation that their chairman's pockets aren't bottomless and that his throwing money at a team that fails to achieve anything every season won't last for ever and an end to it might even be on the horizon.

Well said they don`t like it up em.

I wont bother responding to the likes of the last 3 posters but will post what i put on the VT instead.



What saddens me about many of the posters on here and on the VT is that their posts show that Thatcherism has won. There is no such thing as society, look after yourself rather than others, forget taking action collectively, look at things as an individual rather than think about what things may mean for others.

Close the mines im not a miner
Cut benefits im not unemployed
Cut DLA make the sick work because i am healthy it does not affect me
cut child benefit i dont have kids
cut housing benefit i own my house
sod the poor and disadvantaged who are desperate for loans.
Cut the NHS i am healthy,

Very sad.

I might be a Giants fan but my RL allegiances are a long way behind my social and political principles

and for all our fore father that fought for rights and equity morals have just been thrown away

what next, lets not bother with the two minutes silence for the fallen tomorrow

The most accurate line was the penultimate one: Very sad. Yes, you are indeed. As a piece of poor quality trolling it's about average from a Giant - do you not have a board of your own?

An opinion of points that have no relevance to this thread.
Nothing new then from you.

Hang on, don't Provident provide loans for the poor and disadvantaged who are desperate for loans?

Oh, and as I said on VT, if you're not capable of understanding what you're signed up for with a financial commitment, or can't get someone to explain it to you, then you've no business taking on said financial commitment.

That's not Thatcherism, that's called taking personal responsibility. Something sadly lacking in the modern world where we've got constant TV ads for ambulance chasing solicitors and lack of talent shows which tell people that you can get something for nothing as long as you've got a big enough sob story.

You really are one sanctimonious, self-opinionated hypocrite. Would you have taken such a stance had your own club been so-sponsored?

But hang on, let's explore your holier-than-thou piousness a little further, shall we, and expose your hypocrisy a bit more?

rlHave a read through this lot.rl and rlthis too.rl Your saviour, Ken Davy, was the founder and owner of financial network business DBS, till he sold out in 2001. The same DBS that was hit with several fines by the regulatory bodies, one of which (£425k) was, IIRC, a record at that time. I recalled that this was particularly embarrassing for Davy, since he was actually on the board of one of the so-called regulatory bodies at the time. And DBS was a network of many smaller financial advisors, invariably remunerated primarily by commission on the products they sold. And, as you will be well aware, that there is a considerable body of opinion that (rightly or wrongly) regards at least some financial advisors, and the activities they got up to in persuading clients what to invest in or pay into, with the same contempt that others such as yourself regard the likes of Provident Financial. And for similar reasons.

Did that make DBS a bad company, and Davy a bad man? I doubt it. Any more than Provident Financial is a bad company - and one in whom more people may have an interest than they realise, since it is an FTSE-250 company and its main rlshareholdersrl are investment and pension funds. Indeed, the largest shareholder is the hugely-respected Neil Woodford's ubiquitous Invesco Perpetual fund, in which a very large number of people's pension funds have at least some investment, including my own.

But surely the moral here is, make sure your own case is watertight before gratuitously attacking someone else's? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?

Oh, and it will surely not have escaped your notice that, unlike Provident Financial, Davy made substantially all his money in the Thatcher years. So you can directly thank the Thatcher years for having a club to follow. But maybe that inconvenient truth is something you do not want to hear?

Except that was not at all what she said. Just what so many of her opponents wanted to believe she said. Same as the (IMO) much-underrated and maligned Sunny Jim never said "Crisis? What Crisis?", despite what so many of HIS opponents would want people to wrongly believe.

Whether or not one agrees with what someone says, I would always suggest it is only right that what they actually said is quoted, so the reader can form their own views? So I went and dug out the transcript of the interview in question, and - even though it is off-topic - I post the relevant section below. I have highlighted the words that you have chosen to quote, so you can see the context in which they were said - about the welfare of children, in fact.

And maybe it's not as off-topic as all that after all, since there seems to be an underlying message that people have at least some reponsibility for their own actions, maybe even including taking out short-term loans...?

[iI think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation and it is, I think, one of the tragedies in which many of the benefits we give, which were meant to reassure people that if they were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help, that many of the benefits which were meant to help people who were unfortunate—“It is all right. We joined together and we have these insurance schemes to look after it”. That was the objective, but somehow there are some people who have been manipulating the system and so some of those help and benefits that were meant to say to people[/i

[iThere is also something else I should say to themBut it went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate. And the worst things we have in life, in my view, are where children who are a great privilege and a trust—they are the fundamental great trust, but they do not ask to come into the world, we bring them into the world, they are a miracle, there is nothing like the miracle of life—we have these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who would naturally have the right to look to their parents for help, for comfort, not only just for the food and shelter but for the time, for the understanding, turn round and not only is that help not forthcoming, but they get either neglect or worse than that, cruelty.

How do you set about teaching a child religion at school, God is like a father, and she thinks “like someone who has been cruel to them?” It is those children you cannot ... you just have to try to say they can only learn from school or we as their neighbour have to try in some way to compensate. This is why my foremost charity has always been the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, because over a century ago when it was started, it was hoped that the need for it would dwindle to nothing and over a hundred years later the need for it is greater, because we now realise that the great problems in life are not those of housing and food and standard of living. When we have got all of those, when we have got reasonable housing when you compare us with other countries, when you have got a reasonable standard of living and you have got no-one who is hungry or need be hungry, when you have got an education system that teaches everyone—not as good as we would wish—you are left with what? You are left with the problems of human nature, and a child who has not had what we and many of your readers would regard as their birthright—a good home—it is those that we have to get out and help, and you know, it is not only a question of money as everyone will tell you; not your background in society. It is a question of human nature and for those children it is difficult to say[/i

Yes i would. I would not wear shirt that had that type of sponsor on itand i would criticise my club for it.

in respect of your attempts to defend Margaret Thatcher you have failed You highlighted the wrong part of the quote you should have highlighted the first paragraph which is the clearer one and which is the bit i referred to.



We all know what that led to. You look after yourself first and then if there is anything left you help others.
So when the banks run us into the ground and the cuts in public services start you look after yourself and if others suffer then that is not as important as making sure you are OK.

That is promoting the indvidualistic outlook or as easier to put it,
" Im all right Jack".

have and still do think about the wider issue and support others who are fighting to defend their rights striking miners or firemen.

But i also see it as my role to defend the weak and disadvantaged.

Provident dont do that, they look to exploit them.

Bulls fans can watch the BBC programme about them and make up their own mind about what sort of company they have sponsoring them.

www.guardian.co.uk/business/cart ... ofits-rise www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008 ... tail-argos Barnardos dont like Provident and they are not even Giants fans shocker.

www.guardian.co.uk/business/cart ... ofits-rise www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008 ... tail-argos Barnardos dont like Provident and they are not even Giants fans shocker.

Durham Giant: I think, after recent events culminating tonight with the resignation of the BBC DG over the BBC's inaccurate and inappropriate "investigative" reporting, anyone watching BBC "investigative" reports will do so with considerable caution?

I did not "attempt to defend" Thatcher. I merely ensured that people could see what she said in the full and proper context in which it was said, not just the bits that some with an axe to grind might wish people to concentrate on - and quite possibly form the wrong conclusions.

In the same way that I would wish for people to have a more rounded and complete understanding of how Provident actually operates, rather than just the bits that some with an axe to grind might wish people to concentrate on - and quite possibly form the wrong conclusions.

And the thread is anyway about Provident Financial, not party politics and perceived or real past ills. And I note that you have sought to divert attention away from the past activities of your own club's chairman and owner - activities that I am sure some (rightly or wrongly) will find just as repugnant as you seem to find those of Provident. Indeed, I totally blew an interview for a pretty senior role at Davy's company quite a few years ago, when during the interview I learned of the full scale of the looming issue over (mis?)selling of home income plans to the elderly.

As it happens, I hold no brief for Provident, and am not at all a fan of the personal credit business model. Indeed, there was a time - a good few years ago - when I worked for Provident's auditors. It was then the largest client on my audit group and indeed of the office. I never wanted to work on their audit, since I found it hard to agree with the personal credit side, and indeed for a variety of reasons I never did. Quite a number who DID subsequently went on to work for Provident, and indeed one extremely capable guy (who at times worked for me on other audits) went on to become the CEO. All were normal, decent (and very capable) guys, who I would not have expected to go work for somewhere particularly immoral and exploiting. As I said, I'm not a fan of the personal credit business model - but I can see the niche role it has always occupied, and continues to occupy, in the social fabric of the nation. And I would far rather it was in the hands of heavily-regulated and accountable businesses like Provident than in the hands of the unregulated loan sharks!

When I held the view I did, in my early twenties, I was doubtless both somewhat naïve and a tad ill-informed about the personal credit business. I've grown up a bit more since, and maybe in doing so have become not just older but maybe a bit wiser too. And one thing I have learnt, is to try and gain as full an understanding as possible of the actual facts before forming conclusions. Another is that naïve idealism tends to give way to realistic real-world pragmatism as you gain that wider understanding. If, of course, you are prepared to listen.