Well I got that wrong, I didn't think you were around at the time, if you think he was good for the game then fair do's I didn't, tbf though the likes of Eddie Waring were tailor made for Mike Yarwood, don't remember his most famous quote about us is though.

Might be 'The poor lad he's missed it' when Don missed the goal in that final against the Winos!
IMO Eddie Waring did spread nationally the game of RL over the media with his comments, some of them plain daft but , again IMO he did seem blinkered towards some clubs.
Keith Macklin was a better RL commentator.

The thing is with Eddie is that he went too long. He was ill at the end and people probably remember that.
I can remember thinking French was going to raise things intellectually but I think he showed how good Waring was at his best.

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't Bill McClaren who could make a really boring game sound like a classic Greek epic adventure but he was a character that was well known so helped the game a lot.

I'm 53, just young at heart.

Does that include the hundreds and thousand of slaves transported from African nations to toil in the cotton and sugar plantations of the new world and other regions?

LOL you really have swallowed the left wing revised history of the world hook line and sinker.

Look up the Barbary slave trade to find just how daft this constant reference to Britain’s evil past is.

The Barbary coast pirates terrorised Europe up until the 19th century, including the west coast of England and Wales. In that time they sold more people, nearly all white, into slavery than the British, Spanish and French combined. Of course the victims being mainly white takes away the socialist street cred I’m afraid but please don’t let the truth get in the way of that, nobody else does.

So although it’s no excuse for the part we played, the fact is slavery was a worldwide trade and its victims were very far from all being black or it’s perpetrators white. There is simply no need for this national self loathing, just because you’ve seen it on the TV and silver screen don’t make it true.

What should impress you more but won’t because it spoils the hard done by narrative is that the first nation to outlaw the slave trade was, drum roll, Great Britain. God that must stick in your craw. Look up William Wilberforce (think that’s how you spell it), you’ll like him.

Do you know why the Royal Navy became the biggest in the world? Not as is often thought to defend trade in the empire but to destroy the slave trade and totally eradicate the truly evil Muslim run North African slave trade. It’s a fact, I don’t make it up, it’s how it was. History told truthfully has a nasty way of upsetting popular opinion.

You really need to look deeper than the rubbish you’ve been indoctrinated in.

I’ve no flag to fly politically I just like the truth. I don’t blame you for falling for it, the propaganda and misinformation peddled on this subject since the sixties is staggering. Yet you really don’t have to dig deep to find out how twisted the story has become.

Wikipedia despite being constantly bagged is an excellent starting point, it’s all there.

Really poor effort Redscat.

I'll go with the thread drift....and point out that the Arab slave trade was THE largest slaving out of Africa.

Shamefully there is STILL an Arab slave trade TODAY!

The Portuguese slave trade was particularly brutal, and the Belgians' little better.

The British undoubtedly played their part, but were also the nation that ultimately "ended" the slave trade.

No wonder Encyclopeodia Brittannica shut up shop when their biggest competitor can be found on a minority sport forum in a medium sized Yorkshire city. I was forced to learn about William Wilberforce at school as one of our four school "Houses" was named after him in his honour A Hull lad as as I recall.
I think I'll give up trying, vasty






Ps I bet you've never got 23 questions correct on University Challenge as I have.

I thought it was modern day Haiti who banned slavery first or are we using size as the defining factor.
That is all good if we lived in the 19th century luckily in some respects we don’t despite the best attempts of Jacob.
We may have been considered Great but unfortunately it is now 2021 and our position in the world is much diminished. We can all look back but it is today and now that defines a country not what it was over 200 years ago. The Roman Empire could have been considered as one of the great dynasties but would you still apply the same to Italy in 2021, what about the Egyptians and modern day Egypt.

The "ending" of slavery in Haiti, was done by an act of rebellion and uprising.

The British abolition was a universal act of legislature.

BTW - the "Great" in GB, means "big" - it's the big island.

It's a matter of coincidence that the British Empire was so successful and wide-reaching. Nothing to do with the name "Great Britain".

I know but those on here use the word Great to mean something different to big don’t you think. It’s fine to study the past but not to assume the same applies to modern day Britain.

I agree with everything you say about our country being great, but
1) you said we never allowed slavery, which isn't true
2) none of the things on your list are recent.