Nil By Mouth

The transfer window did not slam shut at 11pm on Tuesday 31^st January 2012; it closed with a barely discernible muffled thud that was only noticed by those who work in the media or live their lives on social networking communities, with their acutely tuned ears and psychological need to inflate trivial banality to an undeserved level of pompous import. In the real world, there were no Spurs fans performing Jan Palach style auto-immolations following the return of Steven Pienaar to Goodison Park, while Bobby Zamora’s sedate procession up the Fulham Palace Road to Hammersmith and thence via the Uxbridge Road to QPR was not accompanied by a New Orleans style jazz funeral of weeping Cottagers. Though it has to be said that followers of Newcastle United breathed a sigh of relief at the continued presence of the quality quintet (Krul, Coloccini, Tiote, Cabaye and Ba) on Tyneside; the scars of the previous year’s departure of Carroll have left an imprint of distrust regarding the final day of the first month that not even the arrival Papiss Cisse can fully eradicate.

Anyway, we were entitled to be in high dudgeon about something else; namely  the nonsensical ban meted out to Yohan Cabaye on account of the fact he has “tautened facial muscles” (thank you John Champion) in the game against Brighton, where’s the Dreamboat’s guilt was presumed as Gus Poyet received an SMS from a friend confirming it. These days trial by television is not enough; ESPN insist on trial by text.

After a quiet January, it is time for football to face again the most significant aspect of this season; the repulsive, hateful spectre of racism that has moved from haunting to polluting the game. Sadly, from the events witnessed on and off the field in 2011/2012, I don’t feel I am engaging in wild exaggeration or unhelpful scaremongering. Football is a mirror of society and when we gaze in to it, we are currently confronted by the bloated, leering expression of the inadequate bully in the England shirt, whose weak mouth is dripping Carling-fumed oaths of unspeakable xenophobia and race hate.  The truly tragic side to this is that the moron screaming abuse is not simply the testosterone-fuelled cretin in the ground or the pub, but is just as likely to be a player and that is plain appalling.

As I write this, news breaks that John Terry has denied the charge of a racially motivated public order offence that was brought against him following clearly identifiable words spoken to Anton Ferdinand in the QPR versus Chelsea Premier League game back in October. The cornerstone of British justice is the concept of being innocent until proven guilty, with the onus on the prosecution to demonstrate that the accused has, “beyond all reasonable doubt,”  committed the crime of which they have been charged. In addition, as the case is sub judice, any speculation as to innocence or guilt could prejudice a trial, so I am unable to comment on the case further. For the same reason, presumably, the FA has taken a step back from concluding the Terry case, as they do not wish to be seen to be pre-judging the issue with an on-going criminal case to be considered. This is, I feel, right and proper.  Obviously the fact Terry is free to play for both Chelsea and England until such time as the case comes to Crown Court (early July I believe) is a purely coincidental boon for the Blues in the Premier League and the other countries who’ve qualified for Euro 2012.

However, there is one case that has run its course; the squalid tale of Luis Suarez and his abuse of Patrice Evra. Whatever linguistic and cultural nuances Liverpool sought to ascribe to their player’s comments, it is plain from the judgement issued from the FA (and I read the whole damning document) that Suarez deliberately meant to cause offence by using Evra’s colour as a term of abuse; that is racism, plain and simple and Liverpool FC (unlike Chelsea whose coded response to the Terry charge did not lay them open to charges of rampant paranoia or blind protectionism) took themselves in to the gutter with their defences of him. From the contradictory and rapidly changing accounts of Damien Comolli and Dirk Kuyt as to what they believed Suarez had said, to the ill-judged, calculatingly offensive and totally unnecessary pro Suarez tee-shirts the squad wore at Wigan, to Dalglish’s confrontational, stubborn and disingenuous press conferences on the matter, to the fucking moron making monkey gestures at the 4^th round FA Cup tie against Manchester United, the whole episode brought the entire history of that club in to disrepute. Until such time as Liverpool FC issue a full and frank apology for the disgraceful conduct of their player, their manager and a section of their fans (don’t forget the abuse meted out to Tom Adeyemi in the 3^rd round FA Cup tie at Anfield), I will hold them in absolute contempt.

The fact that certain players, who spend their entire careers mixing with a vast array of nationalities on a daily basis, feel that they can somehow descend to bestial levels of abuse towards fellow players in opposition shirts, using the Blatter defence of heat of the moment banter, is simply not on. You don’t need to look at multi-millionaire superstars to see the effect racism is having on the game, as twice this season I have witnessed the effects of racist abuse in the non-league game.

On Monday 2^nd January, I watched Benfield, the only team in the Northern League with a black manager in Alusene Bangura it has to be remembered, lose 3-2 at home to Guisborough Town; as a Benfield fan I should have been deeply disappointed by such a poor result, but that lost importance after it emerged that Benfield’s Jordan Larty had been racially abused by a Guisborough Town player. The only other time I’ve heard any racism at a Northern League game was a Shildon fan at Benfield in December 2003; I told him to shut his ignorant mouth, which he did. I didn’t need to report him to a club official, as a Shildon committee member told him to clear off out the ground, which he did. Sadly, Guisborough weren’t of the same stamp as Shildon; initially they denied the offence, which has now gone to the North Yorkshire FA as, somewhat unbelievably, Sky TV were filming the game for their new regional sports website which is due to go live any time soon. Also, at the game, several Benfield fans became vociferous in their complaints; I don’t know this to be a fact, but Benfield in having black fans (the club draws support from the widely racially mixed areas in the Byker to Wallsend environs) may be unique to the Northern League. A Guisborough official at this game seemed to regard these outraged fans as being as bad as his team’s player because of their use of “bad language.” Such simpering inadequate ignorance disgusts me.

During the game, Larty brushed off the abuse and got on with the game; I admire him for that. Far more upsetting was an incident I saw, but did not hear, in a game between Percy Main and Carlisle City in November. Playing centre half for us that day was Aristote Diamos, a young lad who has moved up from South London to attend university here and signed for us as he wanted to play football beyond the social standard of the intramural Corinthian League. He wasn’t brilliant, but he tried his best. Sadly, he’s no longer with us. That day versus Carlisle, an opposition player said something to him, something so offensive that it resulted in Aris being booked for his reaction. An altercation on the far touchline, in front of the linesman, led to Aris breaking away and screaming in a Carlisle player’s face. Almost in tears, Aris exclaimed, “what did you say? What did you call me? You can’t say that! That’s out of order man! You need to apologise!”  Despite this outburst, the linesman claimed he’d heard nothing and a visibly upset Aris was yellow carded. At full time he sought to play down the incident and wouldn’t make a statement, though without the corroboration of the officials, nothing would come of it anyway. A few weeks later, Aris left the club. I don’t know if that incident caused his departure, but it can’t have helped. This, to me, is the saddest aspect of all the disgusting incidents of racism that have taken place this season and further evidence why players need to show responsibility for their actions.

I’m not asking players to be paragons of virtue or to be moral guardians on or off the pitch, I am simply asking them to be civilised, decent human beings. I want them to look around the dressing room at the people they see next to them, their team mates, and to recognise they have a basic human responsibility to show respect. If the players can’t behave decently, then why can we expect fans to do so? That isn’t to say that football fans are morons or simple minded fools unable to make their own judgements about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behaviour. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of fans, as well as players, find racism unacceptable; unlike the 70s and 80s, widespread racist chanting has died out, or so we had thought.

I’m undecided whether the Terry and Suarez incidents caused fans of Liverpool (in the two FA Cup ties already mentioned) and Chelsea (away to Genk in the Champions’ League and at Norwich in the Premier League where chants about Anton Ferdinand were prevalent) to behave in the way they did because they wanted to show support for their team’s player or whether the FA charges uncorked the bottle of race hate, somehow legitimising such behaviour in the minds of participants. We simply can’t know what people are thinking and in many ways it is impossible to change that, if those who are racist refuse to engage in rational debate (though Trotsky’s point that we should acquaint their heads with the pavement has a compelling logical force behind it). However, what can be enforced is a zero tolerance policy as regards what people say in the ground.

I’m implacably against racism, as I believe is everyone who is worthy of the description civilised human being, but I’m against the causes of racism as well; capitalism causes the conditions whereby racism is seen as either acceptable or even justifiable. I know removing the current political apparatus may take a bit of work; in the meantime, I simply want racists to shut their mouths and think just how disgusting and offensive their conduct is. This is not “woolly-minded PC bollocks,” as the charges against Suarez and Ferdinand were referred to on one on-line Newcastle forum; this is a recognition that, 19 years after his murderers were finally brought to justice, it wasn’t Political Correctness that killed Stephen Lawrence, it was racism. We must stamp it out.