It now seems that St Louis police are all hot and bothered over a protest by members of sthe St Louis Rams engaging in a "hands up, don't shoot" protest (obviously an allusion to the shooting by Ferguson cop Darren Wilson of black teenager Michael Brown last August; all the above players were African American).

Some may argue that sports and politics should remain separate. My reply would be: it depends on what you call "politics". Sport has surrendered its political virginity at least as far back as the Olympics of 1936 and 1980(Berlin and Moscow respectively in which Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes sought to propagandize outside visitors), the violent disturbances of the Mexico City and Munich (which included the famous protest by the three African American athletes and Palestinian terrorism respectively)Olympics of 1968 and 1972, boycotts( Montreal 1976, Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984) and the flap a few years back over whether or not British footballers should be allowed to wear Remembrance Day poppies.

Although not in favour of express politicization of sport I nonetheless suspect and element of hypocrisy herein- when people(esp conservatives) usually decry "politicization" of any event they usually mean politics of a type they dislike or disapprove of!

Anybody think as I do?

Terry