Black Pearls- Racism and Kick It Out

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In recent weeks, the spectre of racism has reared its ugly head yet again. For years, we kidded ourselves it had disappeared from football in England. What had really happened is that we had swept it under the carpet. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that fans and officials alike had
ignored the fact racism still existed.
The situation came to the top of the agenda with the Luis Suarez incident when the F A charged him for racially abusing a Patrice Evra, found him guilty and banned him playing football for eight games. Then the John Terry incident happened whereby the TV cameras captured him making racial comments to Anton Ferdinand. The FA charged Terry, subsequently found him guilty and gave him a four-match ban.
We now have the Kick it Out campaign which is aimed at ending racism in football. This I feel is a sad indictment, not just of football but society as a whole. Why in the 21st century do some people feel they can abuse someone just because they have a different colour skin or hold different religious beliefs?
For weeks now, I have been thinking back to when I was much younger. I can recall West Ham having some fine black players back in the 60s and 70s; we were pioneers. First, there was John Charles who played for us in the 60s. He won five England Youth caps making him the first black player to play for England at any level. In 1963, he captained our youth team that beat Liverpool 6-5 in the Youth Cup. John played with all the West Ham greats like Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and John Byrne. In an interview he gave to Brian Belton, author of Black Hammers – well worth a read – he said, “I never remember any real racism, certainly not from other players at West Ham or our crowd. Maybe some players respond to it too quickly and become a target when everyone knows it winds them up. If they’d just keep playing they would stop… The idea that West Ham fans are racist is rubbish! They didn’t ask if you were black or white; they asked if you were West Ham.” I saw John Charles play many a game for the Hammers and, like him; I cannot recall him receiving any racist abuse. He was just another Hammer, a local boy. At the age of 26 after making 118 appearances, a serious injury cut short John’s career. What I remember, he always gave 100%. Sadly, John passed away in 2002.
One of my favourite black players was Clyde Best who played for the Hammers between 1969 and
1976. He played 188 league games, scoring 47 goals. Clyde looked more like a heavyweight boxer
than he did a professional footballer. At times Clyde looked awkward on the ball and I can recall press reports claiming Ron Greenwood sent him to ballet classes to improve his poise and balance. Possibly, this is my imagination playing tricks on me, or one of those apocryphal stories that do the rounds from time to time.
Clyde’s career was just starting when John Charles retired June 1969/70 season. It was around this
time football was changing, television was getting a foothold and hooliganism was starting to rear its
ugly head. The fans, quite unfairly in my opinion, made Clyde the scapegoat whenever the team played poorly. This was the period when racism became rife in football. Some idiots would throw bananas onto the pitch in the direction of the black players. It was rare for the police or other authorities to take action against these racist bigots at the time.
Because of the way Clyde approached his football, he became one of the fans favourites and I believe
qualifies for “leqend” status for the contribution he made to the game and for the trail he blazed for
future black players. In January 2006, Clyde received an MBE for his services to football and the
community in Bermuda.
On 1st April 1972 West Ham became the first top flight team to field three black players in the same
team. Clyde Best, Clive Charles (John Charles younger brother) and Ade Coker were in the team that
beat Spurs 2 – 0 that day.
I am proud to say that West Ham was part of the black revolution in football; but it saddens me to say, that beneath the thin veneer of today’s politically correct society, racism still lurks waiting to show its face at the first opportunity. There is still a lot of work to be done to Kick it Out.