The etiquettes of the England national team are no better than their soccer fans. - Its team manager, Julian Robertson, was seen harassing a young lady in public at the HK Open tournament reception counter because he was dissatisfied with the assignment of practice slots in which that poor lady obviously was far from having any influence. - He was also seen running up to the match control table trying to stop the MC from announcing commencement of a match just because his players were running late. -Jenny Wallwork was the only player in the tournament having given a yellow card when she intentionally swept the shuttlecock towards the direction of the service judge. Luckily she missed or she could have been given a black instead.
This is not the first time the English team has behaved badly..in Singapore Open as well as recent French Open. Donna Kellog and Nathan Robertson are the worst comparing to others...sweeping the shuttle is nothing compare to Kellog or Nathan..they crushed the shuttles...Kellog on SingaporeOpen ( Kellog got Yellow card) and Nathan on French Open ( Nathan got red card)
Andrew Smith also behaved like a brat most of the time... Maybe the "well behaved and classy" English Gentlemen and English Ladies chose non-badminton sports...
bad attitude of Kellog in SO this year.. not only on the court. I dont like her smile in the podium. she also didn't shake the referee hand.
I wish I could have caught it on camera. I saw some fans at HKO wanting to take photos with the players. The players looked like they were going to walk away. I did shout out to them (in english) to be nice and have some photos taken. To my surprise, NR stopped and had photos taken. There, you see - they can be nice people
Tis reminds of... ..how i sometimes hear, in a British accent, this saying: "I've got to say it. How rude!"
Well, English players have rarely been the epitome of decorum A dozen years ago, just before Euro '96, the English football team decided to celebrate Paul Gascoigne's birthday aboard a Cathay Airlines flight returning them home from Hong Kong. For some strange reason, the celebrations included the destruction of two TV sets and a table in Business Class! The irony is that Noel White, the chap who then headed the Football Association's international committee, was on the same flight - in First Class. It's not known if he were privy to what was going on
If you wish to report these incidents, please visit this page: http://www.uksport.gov.uk/pages/press_office/
Firstly I would like to point out for the record that not all English people who play badminton behave like that! I know Nathan Robertson does have a bit of an attitude problem at times and I have witnessed this several times myself, he in notorious for stamping on shuttles if he is annoyed and I have seen him get numerous yellow cards for this. And I think it was at the Denmark Open in 2004 he was playing very badly in the final and was swearing very loudly and I still can't believe that the ref did not warn him for his conduct. However saying that, I have met several members of the England team on numberous occassions and have always found them to be very well behaved and happy to talk to fans and sign autographs and pose for photos etc. Two indivuduals who are especially good at this are Robert Blair and Antony Clark who im my personal experience alway behave in a very friendly and professional manner.
It is the same with the moderators from there too! Seriously though, whilst not overly surprising it is sad to hear that ENG players (and staff) are viewed as the worst offenders in this respect. The fact that people are compelled to write about means it must have been pretty bad. Unfortunately it is symptomatic of our society as a whole that respect for others is waning.
Before we get to hung up about English players and ettiquette I would point out several things I have seen on TV and actually seen with my own eyes in the recent past. Who can forget the Korean Open this year and certain peoples actions on Court. No British involved there. At the Austrian Open in February this year I saw an Austrian female player hurl her racquet through the air 40 meteres off the court with it smashing into the wall just because she lost the game. In Norway three weeks ago a Danish player lost his men's doubles match and throw his racquet 50 metres at head height accross the courts, referees table, umpires sitting off court and land on the practice court here players were warming up. He was red carded immediately but then black carded by the Referee who had a clear sight of what happened. That meant he could not play in the mixed semi-final and his female partner obviously could not play either. Remember people bad behaviour is not confined to anyone nationality.
I htink it gets mentioned more because there is this reputation of the english being polite and gentlemenly. So when the contrary is observed, a person is compelled to comment. Quite right!! Taufik has been mentioned in the past for his misdemenours. Throwing a racquet across the hall really deserves a ban of some sort or another. Abusing one's own equipment is one thing; having injured another person from throwing a racquet is totally unacceptable. The potential for that to happen is plain to see.
