Yet
another story about racism in football! I can hear your groans, dear readers. This
is a subject that has been flogged beyond saturation in recent months. From the
“monkey-dance” craze sweeping the
Eastern European football stands to Loius Suarez, John Terry and Jerome Boateng
who finally decided enough was enough. Surely, there are more important things
going on in the world. But it’s the weekend; you might run out of things to
discuss down the pub later this evening, so please indulge my rambling for just
a few short paragraphs.
Earlier
this week, West London Magistrate’s court found a man guilty of racially
abusing two football players. William Blything, an Everton fan, was alleged to
have committed this offence during a premier league match between QPR and
Everton at Loftus road on 21st October.
Now,
there are a couple of things I can say in argument for this man. First of all,
he was convicted based solely on the testimony of another fan who managed to
pick out his racist comments from the cacophony of hoots and inebriate chants
that you would expect from a football stand on a typical match-day. His two
victims, one of whom was from his own team, were unaware of this alleged abuse
and were not in any way involved in the trial. But his strongest defence, one
that he himself repeated over and over again, was that his daughter has a black
boyfriend and he has black grandchildren, thus he can not possibly be a racist.
Now, this last point is what has compelled me to write this post, because it is
an excuse I have heard before.
This
is an issue that goes beyond the football stands.
Britain
has one of the highest numbers of mixed parentage in Europe and there is bound
to be a good number of people out there who can trump up a black relative or
friend somewhere when they’ve overstepped the mark. William Blything should
realise that he was not convicted of being a racist but of “Racially
Aggravated Harassment”. Racism in itself is a charge that is almost
impossible to prove in a court of law as it is merely an ideology; a belief;
the principles by which you live and raise your family. You can say what you
don’t believe and believe what you don’t say, but you have to take
responsibility for whatever damage it does to your audience.
So
is William Blything a racist? I don’t know, and neither do the courts. But,
thankfully, that was never the question. They asked whether he uttered a
racially aggravated comment and, thanks to the testimony of a few witnesses,
the answer was yes. He will serve his time and it probably won’t change his
relationship with his black grandchildren when he goes back home, because they
are his family and they know what he is and what he isn’t.
But
if I was one of his grandchildren, I would ask Blything another question that
is not really that important to a court of law, but one that I believe is a
core principle by which we can build a tolerant society. I would say: “Grandpa,
your comments in the heat of the moment mean nothing to me since I know who you
really are, but let’s imagine there were a group of innocent children like me
in that stand, too young to have formed any political opinions of their own.
Now, after your exuberant chants, how many of those kids would you say you
persuaded not to grow up to be
racists?”
I am
a football supporter, but as a religious person, there are moments when I view
football fanaticism as a 20-billion-pound-a-year worth of madness. There are folks
from poor African villages unable to feed their own families, living under the
proverbial dollar-a-day, who will happily pay three times that amount to watch
a live premiership match; I have seen friends descend to near-suicidal depression
because their team lost a football game; the perplexing dilemma between real
responsibilities towards loved ones and that unfathomable devotion to a group
of men kicking a ball has led to the demise of many a family. There are more
football fans around the world than there are Christians (the largest religious
group on the planet).
At
the time Blything was cussing at Loftus Road he was going out on TV to hundreds
of millions of viewers of all ages and creed. Perhaps this is not what he
wanted when he started watching football as a young boy. Maybe his lure to the
football stand was escapism; a place where a hardworking man can go and let
loose without fear of offending anyone; an occult gathering of like minded
people where you don’t have to worry about weighing your words before you
deliver them.
But
football has moved on. And, whilst some traditional conservative supporters may
not appreciate this, their team certainly needs this change. That’s why they
are fighting to get to the top where they can then play teams in Europe and
around the world. To do this, they are going to have to get over their fear of
alien cultures and learn a thing or two about how other people live. Who knows,
it might even be fun. If this is not what you want, then I believe there is
still an exclusive group of white radicals somewhere who occasionally meet up
in some obscure forest wearing white pillowcases over their heads to do whatever
makes them happy. You might want to try them.
Like
I said, I am a supporter myself and I have been to enough premiership games. I have
sat in the expensive stands where fans are relatively reserved and amongst the
cheap rowdy lot in the far flung corners. And I have to say that for an
extrovert personality, these rowdy stands can be great fun. Profanities aside,
there is nothing quite like holding hands with a stranger belting out your
favourite club anthems when you are winning. Over the past few days, in the
safety of my shower, I’ve tried doing renditions of some of these football
favourites but without the profanities. It’s easy, English is a beautiful
language with a rich vocabulary; give me one obscenity and I’ll find you ten
elegant words that can rhyme in its place just as well. And the songs sound
just as good if not better.
My
point is that with this prodigious wealth and following football boasts, come
responsibility. It is not enough to say that if what’s going on in the stands
is merely a reflection of what’s going on in society, then that’s okay. An
organisation with followers exceeding a third of the world’s population must
aim to change society for the better. Churches don’t open their doors to
robbers and drug dealers just to have a fair representation in their
congregation, they do it with the sole purpose of changing them and making them
better people. We have to try another way to support our team in the best way
we can without harming others. It might take off and prove even more popular;
the guy who departed to join the pillowcase-wearers in the forest may be
convinced to rejoin this new wave of cheerleading that he can comfortably share
with his children and grandchildren. Heck, he might even bring back some of his
friends from the forest.
Football
can do this; get even just one person to hang up his pillowcase and join the
real world. It is one thing football can give back to that poor fellow who
starved himself for a couple of days to be able to afford a game. Maybe then,
he could go to sleep with the satisfaction that his sacrifice was for the
greater good.
Have wonderful weekend.
For
more about me and my projects visit www.michaeloren.co.uk
