I was enthusiastically about to sign the online petition which you have set up (Ed’s note – not our work – see below) to lobby the Club regarding their quite pathetic blanket ban on national flags. That was until I read the actual wording of the petition.

The petition states, quite rightly we assume, that this ban has been introduced as a consequence of the single display of a flag of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. You then go on to state that this had been displayed by a 'fan'. By bracketing the word fan in this way is to infer that because he (or she) was displaying that flag they cannot be a proper fan - ?? The situation is then further compounded by saying that this flag has "quite rightly" upset Greek Cypriot fans (note, no bracketing of their description) and then proceeding to list a long line of other flags which we should be able to display but cannot because of the "upsetting" TRNC flag. In doing this you have inadvertently, I hope, fallen into the trap of endorsing the Club's action by suggesting that the TRNC flag is offensive and should not have been displayed.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the political situation in Cyprus - on BOTH sides of the Green Line - the fact remains that the citizens of the Northern, Turkish, part do have a right to exist and to have their own identity and, yes, even support our Club. If we are going to get selective about which flags are acceptable then there will be those from plenty of other nations who have more dubious activities in their own back yard.

I wholly support the notion of lobbying the Club to rescind this ridiculous ban but it has to be all or nothing. Even if a particular nation's existence is in dispute, their citizens still have a right to display the flag of their allegiance in the same manner as the rest of us.

(Ed’s note: We were requested to publicise the petition by an email to www.onlinegooner.com by providing a link to it. It was not the creation of onlinegooner, as some may believe having read the relevant exclusive. In truth, the notification of the online petition was made in good faith, based upon our own belief that the club’s ban on national flags is indeed wrong. As to the validity or otherwise of the Northern Cypriot flag, we do not pretend to know enough about the situation to have an editorial policy. There was an assumption here that those who did not agree with the wording of the petition would not sign it. Our role in this was to inform website visitors of the petition’s existence, although we accept that its wording could have been better. If you don’t agree with it, fair enough. We are not saying that we do, although we do support the general principle that the ban on national flags is wrong. We suspect most people have added their name to the petition in support of the general principle rather than think too much about the situation in Cyprus and its rights and wrongs.)