[Cricket] Arthur Gilligan Sussex CCC

Lenny Rider said:

Out and about in the car this afternoon they were talking about the Basil D'Oliveira affair from 1968 on Talk Sport came back in the office and googled it, it appears our very own Arthur Gilligan was Chairman of the MCC back in 1968 who initially didn't pick the player for the tour to South Africa despite scoring in 158 in the final test against the Aussies a couple of weeks before,they later picked him before the South African Govt cancelled the tour because of a non white player in the England squad.

On further investigation it appears Gilligan was previously a member of Oswald (not Graham) Moseley's British Union of Fascists in the 1930's, and still in the 1960's had right wing leanings when head of the MCC, as did Alec Bedser apparently..

Yet less than a decade later Sussex named a stand after him, as Greavsie used to say "its a funny old game"

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Charity Shield 1910 said:

Ideas that seem weird from the distance of over 75 years and with the benefit of hindsight, is one good reason why, when people read history, they should try and use empathy. There is also too much "selective memory" so to try and use the past to prove a modern political point. For example, the term "right wing" is used to describe "The Nazis". What some people deliberately forget is that "the Nazis" were a branch of socialism. The clue is in the name "National Socialists". They believed in state control of the economy, of people's lives and did things such as ask Mr. Porche to create "the people's car" (the VW Beetle). They then mixed socialist economic ideas with popular social & national ideas. Links between the scouts and the Hitler Youth were before the crimes of the death camps and before the benefit of knowing what that branch of socialism would deliver. They also were seen at the time by many, as the lesser of two evils, communists or them. Although yes, they were anti semitic from day one and I do not underplay that. It is however important to think what people knew or thought and why at the time they did think or believe something. The past is not "goodies v baddies". Past politics and people's thoughts were every bit "shades of grey" as they are now. Far too much "they are the goodies and they are baddies" goes on nowadays. I think its a hangover from the fight against the National Socialists which rightly was portrayed as a fight between good and evil. But on the whole its not a good way to look at the past.

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Henfield One said:

If we are talking stands at SCCC - can the Club please explain why there isn't a Tony Greig Stand? Is it because the family preferred not for personal reasons? What memorial is planned and when? Tony Greig deserves a significant memorial to him at the County Ground.

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Henfield One said:

If we are talking stands at SCCC - can the Club please explain why there isn't a Tony Greig Stand? Is it because the family preferred not for personal reasons? What memorial is planned and when? Tony Greig deserves a significant memorial to him at the County Ground.

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Juan Albion said:

The OCD in me can't let that lie. Oswald was a Mosley, Graham was a Moseley.

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knocky1 said:

To be polite that is a load of bollocks. Socialism was put in the name to attract Germans from the post WW1 German communist and Socialist political parties. You’re mistaking anti-semitism to be anti- Capitalist. Poverty was strife in Germany and the working class man would not have the marks needed to buy a VW. It is a view pursued by modern day Nazis such as a Farage or Trump supporter. I suppose you see Oswald as a Communist?

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....ng-that-nazis-were-socialists/?outputType=amp

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Charity Shield 1910 said:

Both the state control of the economy and Hitler's own words would indicate the contrary. As he told Wagner his task was "to find the road from individualism to socialism without revolution". He also was a well read scholar of Marx. The problem with reviewing the overlap in beliefs is that people who identify as socialists often get offended, when they shouldn't. By pointing out the overlapping elements of the two does not mean that all socialists are Nazis.It's like say that because you like the Queen then you believe in the monarchy running the country. But either way, that wasn't the point of the post. The point was how important empathy is when reviewing the past. Not a debate about that particularly sad moment in German history.

On stands at Sussex, Rhanjitsinhji must be in with a shout.

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knocky1 said:

I’ve studied Das Kapital but I’m not a Marxist.

Hitler’s Germany went against the grain of State take over of private industries in the ‘30s.
Hitler privatised various State industries in his first 6 years.

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