On
13 July last year, in those delusional days of misplaced optimism after the end
of the initial lockdown, I played my first game of 6-a-side football in almost
4 months. The first set of COVID-19 restrictions had prevented a dozen of us,
who regard our weekly, competitive kickabout that has been taking place at six
o’clock on a Monday evening for the past two decades, as an essential, if not
sacrosanct, part of our lives, from indulging in the most liberating and
affirmative physical activity any of us partake in. It felt wonderful to be
back, so to mark the wider social implications of football (and in this article
I won’t be discussing cricket, rugby or any other sport) within the context of
events that had disfigured so much of 2020, I felt a compulsion, almost a duty,
to take the knee before kick-off in my return to the sport I love almost as
much as cricket.
My gesture probably went unseen by the rest of those playing; certainly, it was not remarked on by anyone, either at the time, or subsequently, but I’m glad I made the effort, however insignificant, as I felt the need to connect, to offer support and to share fellow feelings with those who’d suffered and who sought to defy their tormentors in my own modest way. Despite regularly reminding myself of the importance of replicating this gesture as an on-going sign of physical and ethical solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, I have not subsequently taken the knee, not even during that brief and foolish window of opportunity in December when the chance to play again returned. The shallow explanation for my sin of omission is a weak one; merely aged-related, multiple memory lapses. All too often, despite chiding myself all day in advance of the game, I forget to show my unconditional opposition to something that none of us should ever forget to oppose; the single, most evil and pernicious prejudice in this whole world. Racism.
In the periods between the first and second, then second and third lockdowns and now the cautious move towards normality, I have attended 22 football matches, the overwhelming majority of them being at what has been termed as grassroots level, namely step 7 or below. Not one of these games was prefaced by a single person taking the knee, even when black players were participating in the fixtures. I have no idea why that should be the case. I mean, I could speculate, but I won’t. Suffice to say, I don’t think it has a sinister provenance.
As a subscriber to Sky Sports with access to sundry free to air channels, I have watched, generally with a growing sense of restive contempt, an excessive number of Premier League, Championship, FA Cup, SPFL Premier and Championship games. To my enormous gratitude and relief, in almost every single one of them, kick off has been marked with an immaculately respectful, and respected in games where a crowd was present, taking of the knee by all concerned, other than St. Mirren’s shambolic Keystone Kops drill on the opening day of the season. Look it up on YouTube. Done properly, it looks superb, and it relentlessly hammers home the message that Black Lives Matter and racism has no place in this world, though I know such opinions aren’t shared universally. But so what?
Frankly, I don’t much care if houses all across the country resound at kick-off time to the bigoted, empty rhetoric of the saloon bar bore, compelled to unhelpfully ask; “what’s that got to do with football?” As a spectacle, I think it is magnificent and I am supremely energised by the message it is intended to convey. That is not to say games elsewhere have been played in an atmosphere uniformly supportive of the BLM movement, both on and off the pitch, as the predictable outpouring of bile from Millwall supporters before their home loss to Derby County last December showed.
The fact that the Lions’ next opponents QPR, a club with as multiracial and multi-ethnic a supporter base as any in the land, decided to reinstate taking the knee in support of BLM for that game, which effectively silenced all boos with the eyes of the country’s media on The New Den, having weeks earlier dispensed with the pre-game “ritual” as their director of football, the unimpeachable Les Ferdinand, termed it, is a point worthy of note.
This is especially true when one considers that the unvarnished and uncomfortable truth about the ideology, importance and effect of taking the knee in support of BLM is that while public displays of defiant solidarity are visually striking and emotionally stirring, it is clear from the torrent of racist sewage on social media that the opinions of sub-human pond life that hold such vile opinions have not been moved a scintilla by the proud stance taken by those who sought to disrupt the appalling narrative that blamed George Floyd for his own death, though thankfully a jury denounced such mendacity. Perhaps Sir Les, the polar opposite to an Uncle Tom, had sought to disengage QPR from what he felt had become a tokenist gesture. If he had become rightfully disenchanted with the empty rhetoric of the media talking heads, the indolent social media behemoths and the game’s smug, senior administrators whose outpourings of crocodile tears have achieved the thick end of jack shit in their alleged opposition to the indefensible state of affairs whereby racists, hatespeakers and other sordid mouthbreathers feel they have the inalienable right of free speech, then who can blame him?
Of course, the efficacy of the social media blackout over the May Day weekend by a huge range of professional and amateur sporting institutions, has yet to be evaluated. Whatever the outcome of that well-intentioned, campaigning gesture may be, the importance of taking the knee, and why I hope it continues as long as necessary, remains. In my opinion, it shames and intimidates racists into silence, as they know their beliefs and attitudes are not just socially unacceptable, but that they will be challenged head on in an uncompromising manner.
A few years ago, I used to think of Ian Wright as perhaps not an Uncle Tom, but an approximation the kind of cab driving, replica shirted, Carling swigging, kneejerk patriot whose every utterance made me nervous. However, and I’m not sure when or why, he changed and deepened his thoughts and responses, to the extent that the level of nuance, self-reflection and perceptive comment from the fella on almost every subject, even football, makes me no longer judge, but love him. His genuine, profound and furious indignation at racism in sport and society as a whole, which he so eloquently expresses, is suffused with the kind of moral rectitude and ideological truth that means to argue against him is futile. And wrong. It is also clear that what he says is respected, endorsed and reinforced by generations of young black players who do not tolerate hate speech in life, or on line. Ian Wright’s iconic status as a footballer and a human being is utterly deserved and absolutely essential in the world we inhabit.
Similarly, witness the absolutely sickening abuse endured by James McClean, a footballer whose legacy will not be his direct and robust wing play, but his principled and inflexible support for Irish Republicanism, inculcated by a childhood where the last vestiges of British imperialism saw his community in Derry persecuted and marginalised by an oppressor’s occupying army. His political beliefs have long been the root cause of bigoted ethnocentric slurs by racists hiding behind the guise of patriotism. The fact McClean refuses to apologise for declining to wear a red poppy, believing it to have been bastardised into a symbol of triumphalism by the British state, has made him the victim of tirades of abuse by the British media and the object of unending death threats on social media. He closed his Twitter so the Little Englanders with minimal comprehension of what Remember 1690 actually means, followed him onto Instagram to threaten his daughters with death. Brave, brave men eh? It actually amazes me that McClean has endured a decade of venomous abuse and performed at such a high level with Sunderland, Wigan, West Brom and Stoke. He, like Ian Wright for black players, is a tribune for the marginalised and disenfranchised across the whole island of Ireland and, equally important, for the young diaspora making their way in England.
Perversely, I am encouraged that a significant a percentage of the social media abuse is revealed by the victims. Being on the end of such insults is nothing to be ashamed of; I applaud those who are empowered by the snide denigrations hurled at them, which they return with ten times the force, utterly humiliating the anonymous on-line bigots. The old argument that names will never harm was discredited years ago. Turning the other cheek to those whose heads Trotsky counselled us to anoint with the pavement has not been a realistic option this quarter of a century or more. Chat shit; get hit is the motto to live by.
Let’s face it; footage of Fascists getting a pasting, singularly or severally, always raises the spirits. You’d have to be pretty hard hearted not to like or retweet the sight of a Proud Boy with his nose smeared across his dial. Therefore, the opportunity to roast and ridicule the poor grammar and piteous politics of a Facebook fascist sniping at Marcus Rashford, or telling Alex Scott to “get on with the hovering” (I kid you not) cannot be ignored. This is why we don’t ignore racist Neanderthals and hope they go away; we prefer to drive them into hiding, to lick their smarting cyber wounds.
I haven’t counted up how many instances there have been of black footballers, male and female, being subjected to abuse on social media this season. Such an activity would be the kind of liberal self-flagellation of an earlier era that eschewed Malcolm X’s vade mecum; By Any Means Necessary. Whatever the revolting total, it is far too many. Every week, or so it seems, another player draws attention to the fact he has been subject to screeds of abuse from fans of opposition sides who they’ve beaten, or even worse, so-called supporters of their own team screaming blue murder when they lose. Hear me ought though; while this is nothing short of a disgrace and a stain on society, the level of anger and outrage it provokes among the youth, both black and white, male and female, show social attitudes are changing. Yes, it is correct to call for legislative intervention; imprison the scum who post it and hit the hypocrites who control the platforms where it hurts, right in the pocket, for failing to maintain decent standards of behaviour, but never lose sight of the fact that the law is always running to keep up with what is happening in the real world. Until the legal framework is in place, we have to take the fight, on line and on the streets, to the fascists.
Also, despite the hurt these vindictive barbs may cause, we should not lose sight of the fact that those voicing this disgusting abuse are faceless, inadequate, pitiful excuses for human beings; who, in their right mind is going to look upon these wannabe Timothy McVeighs as a role model when you’ve got Marcus Rashford and Ian Wright calling these scumbags out? This is why we need to support and cherish the beauty and relevance of players taking the knee. It isn’t an empty gesture; it is an act full of import, relevance and power. This ritual kills fascists.
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