We as a football team have a terrible record against our London neighbours Chelsea this season. We have played them four times. We have lost four times. We have conceded eight goals. We have scored none. Scored no goals the referee allowed anyway. This blog post however is not about football. Let me be clear, they are a better team than us right now and each time we play them its shown clearly. We have much work to do as a club to get back competing at their level. THAT is all of a side note right now. What I want to talk about is the tweet that Chelsea sent out during the game.
Now it is possible that this is the first time you have seen this tweet as it was live for minutes before it was deleted by the Chelsea admin. It is also possible you have not seen it until now because no one in the media have written about it. No one has investigated. No one cares. Many reading this might question why I care about it… so let me explain.
Social media for Premier League football clubs are not handled by lowly paid interns or the work experience kid like many like to think. They are well paid social media professionals who prepare for games like commentators do. They prepare graphics and compile information on players, stats and facts that they can send out during the game as events happen.
An important part of this job is also being aware of subjects and ‘red flags’ that in games you want to avoid. They would be aware.
Now mistakes can happen. Innocent terminology mistakes. For example there is a very well known term / phrase: “Cooking on gas” and it is something I say often when things are heating up / getting busier. “Now we are cooking on gas” and that is what Chelsea allege they are saying here. Many reading this will again if still even reading will be thinking … ‘that is clearly what it is, stop being offended…’ I can hear the accusations of that already.
I would accept that as the reason that term was used against Tottenham if there was any evidence this Chelsea admin used the word gas, cooking on, heating up.. in any other tweet in any other game this season. If, as they say, this is just a term used by this admin and here are examples in other games where its been said I would agree… bad choice of phrase but clear not antisemitic. Clearly not a holocaust joke. I would agree I took it the wrong way and walk away.
Would you be shocked to learn that its never been used. Not just this season but in any tweet from last season either. So, with no evidence that this person uses this phrase on a regular basis you are left with the conclusion that on this day, in this moment, the decision was made to mention gas. I know what some are thinking here. “Is the mere mention of gas antisemitic now…” and no, of course its not. I have gas central heating, would be a nightmare in my house if that was the case however like in all things context is key. “Now we are cooking on gas” is not the same as ‘The gas is on’ when you are discussing a goal against Tottenham. Again, context, this is coming from Chelsea. A club who’s fan base make hissing noises at us and have such a history of this sort of thing aimed at Spurs fans that they as a club have had to set up initiatives where they take their staff and fans to visit concentration camps to educate them on why these jokes are not appropriate.
They even launched an initiative via their website in February 2021 where they tried to encourage fans to report other fans for it, this resulted in several arrests due to the level of abuse and one fan even went to jail for the vile abuse he hurled at Tottenham fans online.
So I circle back at this point. Knowing the history. Knowing the past issues. Knowing that a professional social media manager would have that information was making a gas reference in any sense appropriate? The answer is no. If you do not care then move along, thank you for reading. I however do care. I have family who died in Nazi concentration camps simply for being Jewish and that family line is the reason as a Bristolian I am a Tottenham fan.
This is personal for me. I do take offence to people making light of the holocaust. I am also well aware that just because I am offended it does not make me right; so I have reflected on this a lot before writing the blog. What some of you might know is that we have a podcast for SpursNews and I talk on that every week and recently I made a point that I felt there was an odd bias and hatred towards Spurs, I proposed systemic antisemitism as a possible cause but the minute I said it I knew that would offend. It was one possible explanation I felt worth of further thought / exploration. I was bombarded with hatred, some very quick to call me a “moaning Jew” amongst other things. This was from fellow Tottenham fans.
To raise my head again so to speak and voice that I found that tweet offensive was not an easy decision. I know many will write me off as a snowflake and alike and that is okay. I know me, I know that when I feel offended it is a personal thing but so is this blog. I write it, its from me. My thoughts, my opinions and be it on a player, the club I love or this subject its all just me and I do not wish to ever bend anyone to my way of thinking on any topic, I say things to share an opinion and I write this blog to perhaps open a discussion about it and so people can think on it when they may have simply dismissed it.
When I realised zero members of the press were interested I actually started to believe this is on me. I was making a big deal of it. Then I thought about it some more. I wondered if this was a game where Chelsea played a team of African origin, a team lets say with deep ties to a community who were decimated by slavery over the centuries and European colonialism. Would a tweet saying “working hard like a slave” be one they would use? Would it be a tweet that people would simply ignore. Sadly, I think some would.. and that would be wrong too.
The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust I am thankful did see the tweet and did ask the question of Tottenham and indeed Chelsea. The trust called for an apology and I know that they will be going public with a statement soon (if not already by the time you read this). Chelsea did reply. They said the following:
Thank you for getting in touch and taking the time to share your concerns. The feedback of all supporters, whether positive or critical, is always appreciated and taken into consideration as much as possible.
Chelsea Football Club is proud of its track record in fighting discrimination in all its forms and as result of our positive work in this area we realise the impact that discriminatory language can have.
The post you refer to was published innocently in relation to the gathering pace and heat of the match, but was deleted as soon as we realised the use of the word ‘gas’ was being misinterpreted. The post was in no way meant to offend, however, we apologise for any offence it may have caused.
We will be redoubling our efforts to ensure that all staff remain fully educated and aware of all sensitivities around language that could be considered discriminatory or offensive.
Chelsea Football Club stands against all forms of discrimination and we have long campaigned to end the use of discriminatory language that is offensive to the Jewish community. In 2018, we launched the ‘Say No to Antisemitism’ campaign to raise awareness and educate our players, staff, fans and the wider community about antisemitism.
As part of those efforts, a mural at Stamford Bridge remembers victims of the Holocaust, our men’s and women’s teams have invited Holocaust survivors to visit players and share lessons from their experiences, the Club has taken fan groups on an educational visit to Auschwitz, and our “Final Whistle on Hate” fixture in Boston at the end of the 2018/19 season raised funds for organisations such as the World Jewish Congress, the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Holocaust Educational Trust.
Thank you again for taking the time to write in to the Club and we appreciate your understanding in relation to this matter.
So there we have it, the end. I and other simply took it the wrong way. No need to say sorry. I personally feel this is just sweeping their ongoing issues with racism under the carpet. However, that is just my opinion. I am saddened that the media did not care about this. I am sad ‘Kick it out’ have released no public statement to date. I am sad our club have not issued a statement about it. Our club have helped Police identify Spurs fans who continue with a homophobic chant aimed at Chelsea; however no comment from them on this aimed at us. I am proud the club are working to stamp out all forms of discrimination at Spurs, I am not saying they should not be doing that… however when a club, not their fans think its okay to make “gas” jokes at our expense.. is it any wonder their fans have no issue with it.
Thank you for reading this. I appreciate not everyone will agree and if you feel so compelled to tell me that I am wrong go ahead, however I think I have laid out above as best I can how this looks to me.
-Admin SJ
