It’s difficult to imagine what was going through Eric Bristow’s mind the other day when he logged on to his Twitter account, but judging by the tweets not a lot. The five-time world champion darts player decided to chip in his ill-considered views on the sex abuse scandal currently rocking football.
With his head anywhere but in the real world he tweeted “Glad I’m a dart player proper men” and “bet the rugby boys are ok” and other pathetic caveman-like bleatings.
Comments like these heap more torment and agony on the victims of abuse. This kind of victim blaming is perhaps why some don’t come forward to speak out, which allows their abusers to continue. There was a nasty form of masculinity running through Bristow’s tweets as though “proper men” would never be victims or would never let their abusers get away with it. The ignorance is astonishing.
Bristow tried to mount some form of defence, trotting out the hackneyed “you can’t say anything these days”. Well, you can say what you like, just engage your brain before saying it. This is nothing to do with political correctness, it’s about being decent and actually having some kind of understanding of this issue.
Was Bristow drunk when he tweeted? Did he hit the computer keys by mistake? Or is he really a complete berk with a Neanderthal mind-set? I am going to go with the latter as an explanation. And therefore full marks to Sky for moving swiftly and decisively in dropping him as a pundit for its darts coverage. You don’t want a person with this level of stupidity and ignorance representing your company.
