Is Swearing For Winners?

Last updated : 05 December 2012 By Footy Mad - Editor

And the facts show that the three teams with the WORST swearing record are the top three in the league - and the "saints" who don't swear - (Alnwick) are bottom.

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The Northern League, formed in 1889, have "named and shamed" the worst offending clubs.

The league encompasses 46 clubs from Northumberland, Tyneside, Teesside, County Durham and North Yorkshire.

Chairman Mike Amos: "People say to me 'it's a passionate game' and it is - but it is also a disciplined game.

"If you go to a Premier League game with 50,000 people there and the players and management are effing and blinding, you can't hear it, and so in a sense it doesn't matter.

"But if you are at a game with 100 people in the ground, you can hear.

"We have to get it through to the managers that the crowd is a few feet behind them.

"And managers who swore often had players who did likewise.

"If they are swearing like that on a main street on a Friday night they would be arrested, so what makes it acceptable at a ground?"

The league advertised for volunteers to monitor swearing at matches and had over 100 replies from former players, referees and ordinary spectators.

A swearing "league table" will be published on the club's website, in programmes and in the league magazine.

The Northern League has led a number of high-profile campaigns against swearing.