The penultimate week of Women’s Division 1 saw HKFC Ice maintain the momentum of their crushing defeat of HK Scottish the previous Thursday with a clear victory over HKCC Babes. The tale of the match, though, is incomplete without noting the staunch defensive performance and pack dominance of HKCC, including 8 minutes in the second half in which they were down to 13, and which should give other teams chasing the championship a small ray of hope as the post-season playoffs begin.
The match, kicking off at Football Club at 18:00, started with Ice displaying the same attacking strategy used throughout the season – kicking over the top and then probing with the backs to find an overlap. A fortunate bounce led to the first try after only a couple of minutes, but the Babes soon switched on and hunkered down to an effective blitz defence. After attempted chips down both sides of the park were frustrated by the Cricket Club backs, in particular Christy Ma on the right wing, Football Club opted to kick from a subsequent penalty (for not rolling away) to consolidate their lead after twenty five minutes. In the forwards, Cricket Club were dominating the scrappy scrums, with Winnie Cheung excelling at hooker and producing her best performance of the season securing turnover ball and sniping in the loose. Cricket Club soon trapped FC in their own 22, with the Ice forwards unable to hammer out a path, but the ever reliable boot of their fly-half released the pressure and returned the action to the Babes’ half. And the high intensity of defence took its toll on Cricket Club, with FC finally able to dive over from a close range penalty with the last play of the half, to put the score 17-0.
Coach Darren Cartlidge challenged Cricket Club to get on the scoreboard. And the Babes responded mightily, with huge breakaway runs first from full back Steph Zhang, and then prop Cheryl Gourley, each covering over half the field and, bizarrely, mapping almost identical routes. But, as ever, the Babes didn’t help themselves, with the first promising attack of the half ending in a yellow card, after a succession of warnings for not releasing the ball.
Two further yellow cards in quick succession (both of them, it should be noted, deserved but not incurred maliciously) reduced the team to 13 for a period of 8 minutes. FC took advantage of this superiority to first convert a resultant penalty, and then spin the ball out wide through the hands of all their backs for a classy and well worked try. Cricket Club continued to press and did not give up, Player of the Game Lynda Nazer distinguishing herself with a series of ferocious tackles. And when fly half Harriet Jamieson caught her own kick and Joanie Yip, in the second row, barrelled forward into the FC 22, it looked like CC might get the try they deserved. But it wasn’t to be, and in the final moments of the game FC touched over the line once more to cap another strong performance from their backs.
Next week, HKCC look to bring their regular season to a winning close against the Police Sirens, in the 18:00 kick off at Aberdeen Playground. The Babes will be looking to finally get both defence and offence firing in the same game, and if that happens, this is a team that has the potential to look very strong next year.
CCP funded Blue Ribbons seemingly immune to police arrest even when videoed committing assault.
To understand what happened in Tai Po yesterday you have to first know what happened in Kwun Tong last weekend.
A lot of money is now being pumped into grassroots groups that support the Blue Ribbons, which are flush with cash but short on real, quality support. In comparison, local grass root Pro-Democracy groups are all but penniless, but have growing, committed support. The CCP wishes to turn these groups against one another. This is classic CCP tactic, or create enemies and contradictions between the people, so people fight people leaving the CCP to pillage unfettered and uncriticised. The CCP have being instigating this kind of class struggle since their inception and they have a lot of experience with it. However, what they don’t have experience with are genuinely civic minded groups that can’t just be locked up for a decade to remove the problem. Meaning, that in HK, their tried and tested methods don’t get the traction they’re used to on the Mainland.
Which brings us back to Kwun Tong. Last Sunday the Blue Ribbons had a stage set up. There are several videos of the speakers on stage and one can confidently say that what they were advocating wasn’t really resonating with the passers-by. What was interesting is that anyone who tried to film the stage was quickly surrounded by a number of people who blocked the camera and acted menacingly. Which beggars the question, why are they making a stage if they don’t want their message to be filmed and recorded? Maybe the person filming wanted to promote the message? The reality is these groups are very exclusive, not inclusive. They may be on the streets spreading their message, but their target audience is generally reserved for a small group of people who think exactly like them. Any challenging questions will be quickly met with intimidation, violence and gestures for you to leave.
A single person who supports democracy would be crazy to open up discussion in these areas, even a small group would? So, what would happen if a large group of pro-democracy advocates walked passed?
Well that’s exactly what happened last weekend in Kwun Tong. After a few incidents where Blue Ribbons violently intimidated Yellow supporters earlier in the day, a reasonably large group of Civic Passion supporters, with banners and flags walked by the Blue Ribbon stage and were immediately accosted by their guarding goons. A quasi-street battle ensued with the Civic Passion supporters getting the worst of it. All their banners were destroyed and they were left scurrying for safety. The police that were there stood by and watched the Blues rough up the Yellows.
As more police reinforcements arrived, the Civic Passion supporters complained to the police and were duly arrested for common assault. Six in total. No Blue Ribbons were arrested for instigating the violence. Instead some were sent away in ambulances while those complaining that they had been attacked were carted off to the police station. To show their indignation at the hypocrisy of the police, Civic Passion supporters then gathered outside the Kwun Tong police station for a vigil until their members were released. As far as I’m aware, the police are pressing on with their intent to charge those attacked with assault.
The implications for this event are far reaching for HK society. I wont even touch on the highly explosive idea of police openly supporting attackers and not those being attacked, but will save this for another day.
Instead, we will move on to yesterday’s incident in Tai Po.
There is a direct link to what happened in Kwun Tong and what took place in Tai Po. Civic Passion and Frontline Democracy(本土民主前線), decided that they would not be intimidated by the Blue Ribbon’s campaign of fear and intimidation on the streets. Leticia Lee, the face of the Blue Ribbons, was scheduled to have another street stand in Tai Po, so they would meet her there directly. They knew from the onset that they would experience incredible prejudice from the police if they turned up in numbers, which they did. But this would not stop them. The purpose of yesterday’s action was to highlight the clear hypocrisy and collusion of the police. In this respect, the operation in Tai Po was a complete success. Police hypocrisy was in abundant display yesterday in Tai Po.
It is an accepted part of HK society today that the police will let goons loiter around Blue Ribbon stands and not bat an eye-lid if they decide to rough up the odd Yellow Ribbon. In fact, police are often their as supporters. Supposed civilians who were manning the Blue Stage were later seen in police uniform at Tai Po police station. This is how hand-in-glove the Blue Ribbons are with the police. The violence that is ever-present around the Blues is an in disputable fact that can be field-tested by anyone brave enough to believe the contrary. Don’t take my word for it, go and test it for yourself.
In stark contrast to this, despite it being the Blue Ribbons that manifest violence on a regular basis it’s the Yellow Ribbons who are immediately mobbed by huge numbers of police should they begin to form up. This is exactly what happened in Tai Po. Once Civic Passion and Frontline Democracy began to move the police were all over them, pushing shoving and not letting them move freely.
Admittedly, the police argument is, if we let the Yellows near the Blues, there will be a danger of a disturbance, we’re only keeping the peace. And this is exactly the reason why everyone went to Tai Po yesterday. To highlight that there IS a danger of disturbance, and right on cue, the police let the Blue Ribbons repeatedly express their anger and violence, yet cracked down on the Yellows. The danger of violence is ever-present from the Blues, but the police always take the opportunity to antagonise the Yellows. Extreme elements of the Blues and the police are hand-in-glove. One of the same. The Blues are the political wing of the police and the police will not tolerate their message being closed down. Unlike the Yellows, which they’ll actively take part in.
Yesterday’s action was a clear show of force by the Yellows, A warning to the Blues, that they will not get away with their goon tactics in the districts, even with police support and the cost of them will significantly increase. The police are on notice too that if Leticia Lee wants to spread the message of hate and violence for them, then they will be met with a strong showing of power from the pro-democracy action groups. They will not be intimidated off the streets. The police will have to mobilise vast resources of men if they continue to let the Blue Ribbon Goons control the message in the districts. This is an important fight which Civic Passion and Democracy Frontline are leading.
Both HKFS and Scholarism have intentions to take the Pro-democracy message to the districts. The unspoken tactic from the government is that CCP United Front groups will prevent this through intimidation and violence and the police will look the other way. As a pro-dem supporter, you may think that Civic Passion and Frontline Democracy are too radical for you, but if they aren’t going to lead this fight, who will and the districts will become a place where no one other than the Blue Ribbons can speak their message freely.
The police were caught entirely on the hop with this action. Photos of the western commander turning up in his Sunday sweater shows that all their focus was on Central. On top of this, once again, the police proved that there really is no low for them and their political beliefs. Photos and videos of them providing bus services for the Blues, loading all their gear into police vans, letting blue Ribbons act disorderly yet swinging batons at Yellows who act similar all paint a picture of a police force in political and moral free fall.
For them it’s now personal, they are one in the same with the Blues and when they feel like they are threatened they will happily unleash the full powers invested in them as police officers to protect themselves. As a Yellow you can expect no such liberty anytime soon. The prejudice within the police no runs extremely deep. I have even felt this in my own personal life.
So, to conclude….The age of large demonstrations on HK Island is over.
The fight is now in the districts, please support!
One things for sure, we will see a lot more bad policing and goon behaviour before a victor emerges.
There is nowhere more soul destroying for a concert than the desolate Hall 10 of the Asia Expo Arena. Still, it’s Lily Allen and expectations are high. As always, getting anything decent to eat or drink was futile so I headed straight into the main hall. On stage a deejay was mixing a variety of sounds. The crowd seemed a bit thin on the ground but the atmosphere, nonetheless, was good. It wasn’t long before Lily Allen appeared, starting her set with ‘Sheezus’. She swiftly segued into ‘Not Fair’ and had the crowd singing along with her.The lighting and visuals were superb and Lily’s stage presence and interaction with the crowd were, as always, fantastic. But where was her band and where were the dancers? She performed several more songs from her latest album, ‘Sheezus’, along with a smattering of her older hits. Surprisingly she didn’t sing ‘Air Balloon’ and unsurprisingly turned down requests from the audience to sing ‘Alfie’. The visual arrangements continued to impress and there was a fun moment when she brought two hapless audience members up on stage to sing with her. The final song ’Fuck You’ had everyone singing along raucously.
It was a good concert but it did feel odd seeing her up there singing to a backing soundtrack mixed by the on-stage deejay rather than with a band. To be honest, it felt more like a glorified karaoke session than a real concert. Was this cost cutting on the artist’s behalf or by the promoter? If I had known in advance, I probably wouldn’t have bought a ticket for the concert. Is this a sign of the times? Will more artists coming to HK do the same and leave their band behind?
Lily Allen Live in Hong Kong 2015 When: 8pm, 31 January, 2015 Where: AsiaWorld-Expo
The VS Music Indie Festival will take place at the AIA Great European Carnival on Saturday 7 February and Sunday 8 February from 4pm until late. Sponsored by VS Music, the Indie music festival will feature up and coming performers from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Included in the line-up is Hey Rachel, Merry Go Round, Tri-dueces, Jabin Law, and Gravity Altestra.
A number of charitable organisations have enjoyed the carnival in recent weeks. Mother’s Choice, Po Leung Kuk and Shelterbox have held days inviting their members to enjoy the different experiences at the Carnival. The ShelterBox held a concert last Saturday featuring bands from Hong Kong such as Shepherds the Weak and Shotgun Politics as well as New Zealand group The Bollands.
Carnival organisers, along with title sponsor AIA have made the community programs and accessibility to underprivileged a feature of their event. “It’s recognised that not all members of the Hong Kong community can access the carnival so easily, so we have created unique and bespoke programs to enable both those less fortunate and those in need, to enjoy a great day out,” said Alex Gibbs, Director of Community Programs. On Tuesday, the Nesbitt Centre will have a day at the carnival and will also perform on the Live Stage at around 2pm.
If you are interested in having your school or charity participate in one of the programs please email Alex at [email protected].
