Dick Best, racist or too honest?

[Peter]

"Former international rugby coach Dick Best is likely to come under fire after making an on-air racial slur directed against England full-back Delon Armitage.

Best was being interviewed by Sky Sports News at Heathrow ahead of today's squad announcement for the British and Irish Lions.

And after his choices for the Lions' first XV were published on-screen, which included Armitage out of position on the wing, Best was asked why he had selected the England man over impressive Ireland winger Tommy Bowe.

You've always got to have a coloured boy in the team, Best remarked.

Coverage then cut back to a visibly shocked presenter Mike Wedderburn, who is black.

Soon afterwards Wedderburn's co-presenter Millie Clode issued an apology, stating: [Dick Best] made remarks that he thought were off-camera. We would like to apologise for any offence this may have caused.

A spokesperson for Ofcom confirmed to inthenews.co.uk that, as yet, no complaints have been received."

[max_tranmere]

I think the jist of what he said is fair enough, because there has to be a mixture of players there in order to reflect Britain's make up.

If he put it more diplomatically like "I am keen to appoint a whole range of people to the squad, of varying ethnic origins, in order to reflect the make up of the nation". That would have been ok. After all, when they released a soccer DVD a few years ago entitled something like "Englands best international goal scorers" (or something like that), the whole lot had to be pulped after it turned out every player featured on the DVD was white. So this guy was saying something reasonable, he just put it badly.

What annoys me is the hugely disproportionate hoo-ha always made of these things. The media will vilify someone for saying something like this more than they would a kiddie-fiddler of a murderer. Have a look at the coverage on tonight's news programmes and in tomorow's papers, it will get higher billing than stories about people being killed will get, and a relatively unknown person like this guy will end up known by huge swathes of the population, whether they are interested in rugby or not.

[JonnyHungwell]

What he said is true, but it's one of those things you're just not supposed to say openly.

[JamesW]

Maybe he wasn't keen, but ironically just wanted to avoid accusations of racism.

[Peter]

JamesW wrote:

>
> Maybe he wasn't keen, but ironically just wanted to avoid
> accusations of racism.
>
>

Well as I read the situation (from the information available) he was simply saying that the better player for that position had been left our as the selection policy dictated PC, positive discrimination quotas had to be fulfilled, rather than just simply picking the best man for the job.

Badly expressed though, and just one of those things you can't challenge these days.

[JonnyHungwell]

Bet there were laughs all round when they called the register at school ----- BEST, DICK!

[crofter]

yes but HUNGWELL, JONNY aint too clever either!!!wink!

[Peter]

I believe the groundsman at Lords is called the proverbial Mike Hunt.

And one of the people at Party Poker who have been in the news making some sort of non-prosecution settlement with the US gov. is called Anurag Dikshit.

Imagine how many people hang up the phone when asking "who's calling?" he says "Its Mr Dikshit"

[Deano!]

> You've always got to have a coloured boy in the team, Best
> remarked.

What about women in the team? He was sexist as well. Appalling!