British Tennis Forum

JonH comes home wrote:

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Mirabelle Njoze is one Ive never heard of!?

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 Coloured girl - played for 5 years plus - got injured - never made it back - based in Spain if I remember rightly.

Strongbow wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Mirabelle Njoze is one Ive never heard of!?

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 Coloured girl - played for 5 years plus - got injured - never made it back - based in Spain if I remember rightly.

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 I think you need to think about your use of language here. 

I realise that the term is considered offensive now and I know full well that it's no excuse but it is worth remembering that the term used above in the post was the 'polite' term for a long, long time - it was the correct term, the only acceptable term, anything ELSE was offensive.

In effect, 'coloured' was the polite, correct term and 'black' was offensive and rude

For people of a certain age, it's very hard to get on board that things have now come full circle

As said, it's not an excuse - things change and people have to change in line

But it doesn't mean that someone is racist or rude or whatever - it often means they are simply old and often default to what they were taught was the polite thing when they were young

(NB this is very different from derogatory terms for people of certain nationalities - there are words for Chinese or Italian or Spanish people, for instance, and indeed African or West Indian people, which were never, ever the polite term)

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 10th of May 2025 08:54:34 AM

Mervatron2 wrote:

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I get that hence why I stated the re think comment rather than calling it anything else.

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Yes, I realise, and you're right

my comment was more towards marat99's comment

who - if born in 1999 - might honestly not know how it was for someone who is now 80, say, in their youth - or might (their right) still think it's completely unacceptable 

Back to the list, and noticeable that there were only three (!) British women in the Top 300, which must be an all time low. I know there have been periods without a Top 100 player, but to me this is particularly bad. Or conversely, a sign of how far we've come.

indiana wrote:

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9vicman wrote:

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Back to the list, and noticeable that there were only three (!) British women in the Top 300, which must be an all time low. I know there have been periods without a Top 100 player, but to me this is particularly bad. Or conversely, a sign of how far we've come.

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 Jeepers !!   -  how easily one can forget such comparatively recent past.

I could have told you that we briefly had 4 women in the top 100 in 2012 ( as Heather and Laura crossed over with Bally and Anne K ) after a long period in the relative doldrums.

But if you had asked me to guess how many top 300 players we had at the start of 2016, no way would I have been going so low. Yet I don't recall huge despair?  Was it more just a glum acceptance?

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 The latter - we just accepted tennis wasnt a sport we excelled at. thankfully its different now, although it could still be better!