Skyeler Huntsman
Games and Play Final Report
Professor Greene
May 2015
Racism in Football
Imagine you are a team member of the Chelsea Football Club and you are playing your rivals, the Arsenal Football Club. It is an intense and brutal game. Every player is fighting to score and stop a goal on either team. The crowd is screaming and shouting, however to you and your teammates, it is just white noise. The game is still zero and zero and there are only a couple of minutes left. You pass the ball to the best player on the team and he scores the goal that wins the game. Everyone rushes over, gives him a hug, and are ecstatic. However, the happiness is short lived because of the crowd. Everyone hears monkey chants, people wave around bananas, and shout obscene language. Why? It is all because the player that scored the game winning goal is African/black. Most think this type of this racist behavior is “as outdated and old fashioned as bubble perms”, it’s something from the seventies and eighties. It never happens in this new, diverse century, this is wrong especially in soccer/football clubs in England.
For this essay, I am going to use the term football, instead of soccer because I am writing about English football and their clubs. Racism still exists amongst the fans, in the soccer clubs, and in the organization running football. Yes, racism now is not like what it was in the seventies and eighties, an issue that no one confronts about or tries to change the way the fans and athletes act. Just because anti-racism and anti-discrimination organizations exist, it does not stop the monkey chants, the throwing of bananas and racist language. This paper is to answer these questions: what are the reasons for the existence of this racism? Why does it continue? What are the experiences of the players, both past and present? And what has changed? Additionally, why is racism or racist behavior blamed on hooliganism, instead of blaming the English society for the existence of racism?
Racism is a major part of what people call “the beautiful game”. If there is this perceived beauty and united front in football, then why is racism such a big problem? To answer this question, the history of English football needs discussion and criticism. England, to some, is the birthplace of football. Football began in the nineteenth century, but it was not a professional sport. The working class, like miners, created and played this game, however only white men played the sport. Additionally, a game did not have the control of the mining boss or other industrial bosses. It was in the control of the players and the community. The formation of football clubs began as “community organisations such as churches, social clubs or work’s teams”. Football is a representation of working class England, a class devoted to faith, family, community, and subconsciously, racial purity. It also represents a changing of English society. A society that went from close and agrarian like, to a society that became industrialized; transforming into an area where in order to earn a substantial living, people moved away to urban areas. During this rapid change, it “provided opportunities for expressions of common identity during a period when it was becoming more difficult to feel a sense of belonging to amorphous, ever-expanding towns and cities.” These football clubs kept the stability and the rules of these white working class towns alive. It created a world where white male values never had to change, instead, they flourished and spread like cancer; having major consequences.
In the beginning, football clubs went against other football clubs creating rivalries between cities and towns. Community pride and gloating were the main reasons for the rivalries. This changed drastically in the mid to late twentieth century with immigration from “the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean.” Some immigrated from the West Indies by the ship the Empire Windrush and English society did not know how to handle this. These new immigrants, to the English, were ruining their perfect white society and they had no idea how to stop it. Some created groups such as the National Front, the White Defence League, and the National Labour Party; anti-immigration and racist social groups. They followed, or at least associated, with Enoch Powell’s River of Blood speech. Powell was a conservative leader and wrote his speech in response to the rush of immigration and anti-discrimination laws. Immigrants, “as they continue to multiply, and as we can’t retreat further, there must be conflict.” The shift in hatred went from club against club, to minorities/immigrants against the soccer club and their fans. This speech and other leaders inspired racist antics in the football stadiums in the 1970s and the 1980s.
Desperate and angry was the atmosphere of England in the 1970s and 1980s. This did not shy away from football. Some clubs like Manchester United, started to recruit and play black players. This led “extreme right wing movements to use the game as a basis for recruitment” and they “were regularly seen distributing and selling their literature outside the football grounds.” Additionally, they shouted racist language at the black players, would make monkey sounds, and create racist banners. These groups abused the athletes and the fans. This became a huge problem in England and the blame went to the people that the press and government called ‘hooligans’. These hooligans destroy the stadiums and scare fans; costing the clubs lots of money to repair the stadium and the loss of their fan support. Most of these fans are either not part of the working class or they do not fully understand the politics of these hate groups. Some are “from the lower working class, the ones we have identified as most centrally involved in hooliganism, appear to be attracted by the pro-white, anti-immigrant stance, and proclivity for violent demonstrations of these organizations.” These people, because women can be hooligans too, already have this hatred for immigrants, for no apparent reason, and the groups just excel this hatred. Most of the blame for the racism and violence against the athletes and fans, and the destruction of stadiums is rightly blamed on hooligans. However, the issue is that most people in English society do not see themselves as to blame for the racist behavior of football. Football is still a middle or working class game, to the upper society of England, it is not an elegant or intellectual sport like polo or cricket. They look down at the game, and in some ways the upper class does not care. They do not care about the violence against the athletes and the fans, it is hard to say that they are racist; however, they are not making it hard to make that conclusion. The hooligan is the ugly English society that most want to forget and destroy. However, this is not possible with television and now the internet because people are showing the chaos of this racist views. TV and the internet are showing the aftermath of racist fights, showing the banners, and reading materials of the racist groups attending the game. It is giving them press and attention, more attention that they need, also spreading hate. The majority of English society ignores the voices of the players and fans attacked by this racist language. Alternatively, their voices are lumped into one big oppression news bite. Most athletes dealt with the racist chants and bigotry in the running of the numerous clubs.
Clyde Best, a Bermudian born football player, is one of the best and admired football players. He played for the Bermudian football team, when he gained enough positive reputation, the English football club West Ham recruited him to play as a hammer at the tender age of eighteen. He was one of the few black players playing football. The pressure to prove himself as a great football player was high and it seemed to be a losing challenge. Best describes he got “a lot attention, people were watching to see what you were going do, if you were going to make it. Because at that time a lot people in England tell you we could not play in the court…show them that the conditions don’t matter.” He was fast and a great player, scoring and winning games for West Ham. However, these loyal fans could not see past the color of his skin, and he received numerous death threats. The abuse was tough, but he “found most times the best way to silence most of the people was to put the ball in the back of the net.” Best decided to use his talent to silence his critics, others followed this and others used different means to ignore racism.
Viv Anderson, player for Nottingham Forest, was the first black team member to play for England in the World Cup. Like Best, he was one of the few black players on an English football team. And like Best, he suffered abuse from the fans. However, he did have the support of his coach. One game, when fans were throwing bananas and other fruits on the field and at Anderson, he had enough. His coach told him “to get back out there, warm up, and then get me a couple of pears and an apple please.” The coach did make fun of it, which some might see as offensive or even rude. However, Anderson did say that the coach said, “if you want to make a career for yourself, you have got to get over these things or put them out of your mind. In the future, I will pick somebody else, if you are gonna be affected by people saying things. Whether they are the players or supporters, you ain’t gonna make a career.” He continued his career without giving any notice to the racist fans and supporters. Best and Anderson allowed the football clubs to recruit and take black players seriously. This allowed the feeling of being alone and isolated to disappear. More black players did not mean that racism went away, but it quieted many supporters/fans, and other racists. The team winning and earning money became, in some ways, more important than racism. It just became forgotten, but not for long though.
The twenty-first century is a century of lack of privacy and everyone knowing what it is going on in the world. Social media like Twitter, Facebook, and even Tumblr actual helps to expose racism in football. People on Twitter can write about their experience with racism, on the field and in the stands. A man under the Twitter name WeapzAFC, wrote the racist abuse he and sister experienced during a match. He writes “my sister and I suffered racist abuse during the Spurs game and I informed stewards. At FT, AFC fans were forced out of the stadium.” He was protecting his sister, put was harassed and dragged by his hood “back into the original seat and gave me a few more punches to the rib area.” There are numerous accounts of these abuses against fans. This proves that racism still exists in English football. So what do the clubs and football fans try to stop racism. Now clubs and stadiums have more police, some with body cameras. They have cameras everywhere, watching every move of the audience. Additionally, some clubs have reports or barred people from the stadium for their racist behavior.
It is great that some clubs and fans are taking action against racism. Courts are now prosecuting racist athletes and fans for their actions, some are getting fines, barred from the stadiums, and some are getting jail time. England is a country fully of multiethnic football teams. However, this does not mean racism has disappeared. Racism in football is just a problem in England, but all over the world. This problem needs to be resolved. Additionally, people need to know that the threat racism not only hurts black players, but also Asian, Indian, homosexual, and female players. Additionally, clubs need to hire more managers and workers of different races and genders. I know this will not make racism disappear. Football actually shows the danger of both racism and discrimination. Moreover, it needs to stop. If it does not stop, the human race will disappear. It is interesting that it takes the game of football to discuss racism. Racism is a worldwide epidemic and if it takes a game to expose it, have people to talk about it, and fight it, then so be it.
**videos about racism in english football**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9soKOMj3X4