Racism, Football, Cardiff City, The bad old Days

I am of an age to remember the hostile atmosphere been met out to black players in English grounds in the late seventies to the mid-eighties in particular. The British Movement and National Front were actively seeking to recruit football fans has there ‘foot soldiers’ promising plenty of punch-ups. Most grounds you visited as an away fan someone would be selling the ‘Bulldog’ the NF magazine.

I did have a look at the magazine once when it was been passed around the train on the way to a game and straightaway I could see it was full of crap. They want your home, job, partner and your country was the basic message, and no white person was safe, bullshit.

It was never on sale outside my clubs ground to my knowledge, Cardiff City, Ninian Park or in the pubs I frequented before and after games, but I did feel and see racism during games. One incident I vividly remember involved the Manchester City black goalkeeper Alex Williams who on a visit to Ninian Park was showered in bananas. He received tremendous racist abuse at many grounds more than other black outfield players because he was a goalkeeper.

The idiots back then didn’t care if you had black players in your team the monkey chanting, bananas and general racist abuse happened. Coming from a multicultural part of Cardiff and of mixed race all this was abhorrent to me, sadden me really. Two of my top Cardiff City players were black players the Bennett brothers Dave and Gary and over the years there have been many more.

I remember a trip to Barnsley back in the early eighties on the supporters coach a young black teenager, and his mate got on the bus, and before he sat down from the back of the coach, someone shouted “N*****r on board” no one reacted except for some sniggering at the back of the coach. When we got to Barnsley and going into their supporters club the doorman announced “Was there any N*****rs in your group because they can’t come in”. The lad on our coach had wondered off with his mate.

Still he was soon picked out for some treatment by the home fans with chants like ‘U black bastard’ and the like during the game. There was a general lack of black and ethnic faces at football remembering where I stood at Ninian Park there weren’t any. Today its getting better but racism is still there bubbling under and sometimes rears its ugly head.

What as sparked this subject is a documentary tonight Whites v Blacks a football testimonial at West Bromwich Albion for Len Cantello's, an all-white team took on a side comprised solely of black players. I don’t remember reading or hearing about the game until I saw the trailer for the documentary. It is on BBC 2 tonight 9pm.