COMMENT: Too many minute silences

At yesterday's F.A. Cup semi-final at Wembley a small group of Chelsea fans disrupted the pre-kick off minute's silence. This has re-ignites the debate about respect in society and, specifically, the behaviour of football fans.

But doesn't that miss the point, to some extent?

In recent years there has been a massive proliferation of minute silences for all sorts of things. Increasingly the reason for the minute silence isn't known or understood, and, increasingly, the minute silence has no relevance to the fans.

Yesterday, for instance, the minute silence was to mark the 23rd anniversary (hardly a significant one) of the Hillsborough disaster - a match that was between two completely different teams, the most affected of which, Liverpool, is a fierce rival of the two teams playing.

Sure, I get the point that it is polite to respect a minute silence whenever it is done and for whatever purpose. In an ideal world that would be the case but, as far as I can see, there are now do many minute silences at sporting events that they have been made insignificant. There currency is now worthless

To me there are two solutions:

1) Restrict minute silences to truly significant memorials, and, on the whole, only ones that the teams playing are affected by

2) Have more minute of applause when that is appropriate - I accept it isn't always appropriate but when it is it is vastly preferable.