Arthur Wharton: The first Black Footballer

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2013-05-27 19:45Z by Steven

Arthur Wharton: The first Black Footballer

BBC Tyne
Culture
October 2003


BBC

Over 100 years before Dyer, Jenas and Ameobi, the North East had the UK’s first professional black League player. Meet the legendary Arthur Wharton.

Arthur Wharton was born on 28 October 1865 in Accra, formerly the Gold Coast, now capital of Ghana, West Africa.

His father, Henry Wharton was a famous Methodist Minister and Missionary from Grenada in the West Indies and his mother was Annie Florence Egyriba, was related to the Fante Royal Family.

Both of Arthur’s paternal grandfather’s were Scottish traders. One of his great grandmothers was an African-Grenadian slave.

Arthur’s uncle on his mothers’ side was a successful businessman and owner of the Gold Coast Times

Read the entire article here.

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Mixing Up the Game: Social and Historical Contours of Black Mixed Heritage Players in British Football

Posted in Books, Chapter, History, Media Archive, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2013-03-25 02:08Z by Steven

Mixing Up the Game: Social and Historical Contours of Black Mixed Heritage Players in British Football

Mark Christian, Professor & Chair of African & African American Studies
Lehman College, City University of New York

pages 131-144

in the volume Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues
Routledge
2011-03-29
288 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-88205-7

Edited by:

Daniel Burdsey, Senior Lecturer of Sociology
Chelsea School of Sport
University of Brighton

INTRODUCTION

As the world comes to terms with the reality that the most powerful man on earth, President Barack Obama, is of African-American (mixed heritage) background, it is evident that multiracial heritage has become a popular subject matter. Yet much of this interest stems from the fact that history has been made in terms of a person of colour holding court in the most powerful office in the world. That stated, the social world of mixed heritage persons continues to be one of mixed fortunes. In relation to football, however, there is little doubt that the emergence of players of mixed heritage is palpable in the English Premier League and England team set-up.

This chapter primarily focuses on the socio-historical experiences of black mixed heritage’ footballers within the context of British society. What qualifies me to write on such a subject as black mixed heritage footballers in the UK context? In the world of social science, my social background and academic training would probably be deemed “organically connected” to the phenomena under scrutiny. Indeed having been raised in the city of Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s, I am acutely aware of both British football and institutional racism. Moreover, my black British heritage and intellectual interests have intersected with my love for the beautiful game and the experience of black British players in general.

Additionally, I played for over a decade in the amateur football scene in Liverpool during the 1980s in predominantly black mixed heritage teams based in Toxteth/Liverpool 8, winning league titles and cups on a regular basis. During the 1980s, both of the city’s professional clubs, Everton and Liverpool, had very successful teams, yet it was rare to see a black face on the pitch or on the terraces. Racialised relations were rather poor, and it was difficult for local blacks in the city to go beyond the boundaries of Toxteth/Liverpool 8, where the majority resided, without incurring physical threats to one’s life. Moreover, the city council also had an appalling record of discrimination in employment against its local black population (Gifford et al. 1989).

Most importantly, beyond the structures of institutional racism in Liverpool, I know what it is like to be called a “black bastard” while playing a game of football. Indeed, racism was rife in amateur football on the pitch and in the professional game on the terraces. I recall John Barnes making his England debut in 1983, and later the chants of the England supporters: “there ain’t no black in the Union Jack, Johnnie Barnes, Johnnie Barnes”—a chant that would lead the academic Paul Gilroy (1987) to coin the phrase for his bestseller There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack

…HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF BRITISH MIXED-NESS

Britain has a long history of amnesia in what could be deemed a “racialised mongrelisation” memory loss. After all, it is a state that has historically “mixed” with many cultural groups. To be sure, since the earliest times of British history, peoples with varied ethnic backgrounds, beliefs, languages and cultures have settled in Britain; from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages (5000 BC-100 BC) to the Roman Britain era (55 BC-410 AD). Briefly, the Picts, Celts, Romans, Saxons, Angles, Danes, Jutes, Vikings and Normans are key historical cultural groups that led to the “normative” white ethnic category now described homogenously as “white” and singular in authoritative government census surveys…

Read the entire chapter (by permission of the author) here.

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To tackle racism, we must tackle ignorance

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2012-02-21 18:26Z by Steven

To tackle racism, we must tackle ignorance

The Times of London
2012-02-14

John Barnes

It’s not about football, it’s about destroying modern myths of colour, race and superiority
 
In 1987 a black friend of mine went into a shop to buy a coat. He asked the assistant if they had it in black and she said no, they only had it in nigger brown. She was a lovely woman, but what would we say if that happened today?
 
If I were to ask players of my generation if they had made a racist comment in a football match, anyone honest would almost certainly say yes. No one batted an eyelid 20 years ago. Now when Alan Hansen says “coloured” rather than “black” (because black used to be an insult) or Luis Suárez says “negrito”, everyone jumps up and down to distance themselves from such remarks. They believe racism has been consigned to the past…

…The Football Association ticks all the right boxes with its policies and campaigns, the Government passes legislation, the Prime Minister gets involved because someone didn’t shake someone’s hand, people queue up to say ignorance is no excuse. But they are wrong. Ignorance is the excuse. To stop it, we have to start talking seriously about race.
 
The idea that race is about colour is relatively modern. When Aristotle spoke about races he was differentiating between uncivilised barbarians and civilised Greeks. But it was introduced by governments, backed by the Church, to validate slavery and colonialism, to justify treating some people as less equal than others. Just as Linnaeus classified plants, so people were classified by the colour of their skin. Academics tried to prove differences in skull formation to give scientific support to the idea that black people were morally and intellectually inferior.
 
But race is not a scientific reality. You could find a tribe in Africa who are genetically closer to Europeans than to an African tribe a hundred miles away. Some Saudis have whiter skin than Italians.
 
The notion of “whiteness” is an ideology of superiority. Nothing similar has ever existed in black culture. Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda do not see themselves as the same. When the Labour MP Diane Abbott talked on Twitter about “divide and rule” her claims depended on a sense of black identity that wasn’t correct…

Read the entire article here.

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Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues

Posted in Anthologies, Books, Media Archive, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2011-12-31 20:40Z by Steven

Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues

Routledge
2011-03-29
288 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-88205-7

Edited by:

Daniel Burdsey, Senior Lecturer of Sociology
Chelsea School of Sport
University of Brighton

As the first edited collection dedicated specifically to race, ethnicity and British football, this book brings together a range of academics, comprising both established commentators and up-and-coming voices. Combining theoretical and empirical contributions, the volume will addresses a wide variety of topics such as the experiences of Muslims, the recruitment of African players, devolution and national identities, case studies of minority ethnic clubs, “mixed-race” players, multiculturalism and anti-racism, sectarianism, education, and foreign club ownership. Covering the both amateur and professional spheres, and focusing on both players and supporters, the book elucidates the linkages between race, ethnicity, gender and masculinity.

Contents

  • Introduction
    • 1. They Think It’s All Over…It Isn’t Yet! The Persistence of Structural Racism and Racialised Exclusion in Twenty-First Century Football Daniel Burdsey
  • Racialised Exclusions and ‘Glocal’ Im/mobilities
    • 2. ‘Dark Town’ and ‘A Game for Britishers’: Some Notes on History, Football and ‘Race’ in Liverpool John Williams
    • 3. Is Football the New African Slave Trade? Colin King
    • 4. Football, Racism and the Irish David Hassan and Ken McCue
  • Contested Fields and Cultural Resistance
    • 5. Racisms, Resistance and New Youth Inclusions: The Socio-Historical Development and Shifting Focus of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Football Clubs in Leicester Steven Bradbury
    • 6. What is Rangers Resisting Now? ‘Race’, Resistance and Shifting notions of Blackness in Local Football in Leicester Paul Campbell
    • 7. British Muslim Female Experiences in Football: Islam, Identity and the Hijab Aisha Ahmad
  • ‘New’ Ethnicities and Emergent Communities
    • 8. Flying the Flag for England? National Identities and British Asian Female Footballers Aarti Ratna
    • 9. Mixing Up the Game: Social and Historical Contours of Black Mixed Heritage Players in British Football Mark Christian
    • 10. ‘Tough Talk’, Muscular Islam and Football: Young British Pakistani Muslim Masculinities Samaya Farooq
  • The Cultural Politics of Fandom
    • 11. The Limits to Cosmopolitanism: English Football Fans at Euro 2008 Peter Millward
    • 12. ‘Wot, No Asians?’: West Ham United Fandom, the Cockney Diaspora and the ‘New’ East Enders Jack Fawbert
    • 13. ‘They Sing That Song’: Sectarianism and Conduct in the Informalised Spaces of Scottish Football John Flint and Ryan Powell
  • Equity, Anti-Racism and the Politics of Campaigning
    • 14. Negative Equity? Amateurist Responses to Race Equality Initiatives in English Grass-Roots Football Jim Lusted
    • 15. Football, Racism and the Limits of ‘Colour Blind’ Law: Revisited Simon Gardiner and Roger Welch
    • 16. Marrying Passion with Professionalism: Examining the Future of British Asian Football Kuljit Randhawa
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