Wrexham’s James McClean refuses to stand with teammates for Remembrance silence | Football

Across all professional football matches in the UK this weekend, players observe a moment of silence and wear shirts which are emblazoned with Remembrance poppies.

McClean, however, does not support the tradition and stood apart from his teammates, who were all linked by their arms, during the silence at the Racecourse Ground ahead of Wrexham’s League One game against Mansfield Town.

After the moment of silence had ended, some Wrexham supporters in the stands began to sing McClean, ‘hates the King’.

Bloody Sunday was one of the most significant events of The Troubles conflict when British soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march in January 1972.

‘People say I am being disrespectful but don’t ask why I choose not to wear it,’ McClean wrote in West Brom’s matchday programme in 2015.

‘If the poppy was simply about World War One and Two victims alone, I’d wear it without a problem.

‘I would wear it every day of the year if that was the thing but it doesn’t. It stands for all the conflicts that Britain has been involved in. Because of the history where I come from in Derry, I cannot wear something that represents that.’

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