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Blog – Racism in English Football Introduction Racism is, and has been a widely spoken about issue within the sporting world and beyond for a long period of time. The definition of Racism can often be difficult to define as there are many different interpretations of what is ‘racist’, and how it can be confused with ‘nationalist’. As according to Oxford’s online dictionary (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/racism ) racism is a “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior”. Discriminating against someone means acting in a prejudice manner based on what someone thinks or understands of an aspect or group in society However, in the Collins English online dictionary, Nationalism is defined as “the desire for political independence of people who feel they are historically or culturally a separate group within a country.” (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/nationalism ). The difficulty with these two definitions is that there is a potential cause for confusion in distinguishing whether an action is an act of racism or nationalism. Nationalism is seen to be by nationalists themselves as being proud of the traditions of their country, and that they do not want them to change, e.g. people from other countries immigrating to England. However, racism could be described as an inner hatred to a race or ethnic minority group. History of Racism in British football (1930-1990) Throughout the history of football, black and ethnic minority players have been subject to various cases of racial abuse. The earliest evidence of racial injustice involved Everton striker Dixie Dean in the 1930’s, as written by Stuart, J (2004) Dean recalled an incident by where he was being victimised by an opposition fan, and whilst he was walking down the tunnel, he punched the offender in the face. However, Dean received no punishment as a nearby officer had overseen the incident, describing it to the offender that he had ‘deserved’ the punishment. Following the second world war there was a change of mind set, with more people wanting to go out and enjoy themselves without having the fears that were present before. This meant that football attendances peaked.  Racial abuse began to become more prevalent into the 1960’s and 70’s. This is around the time that the influx of black and over foreign players increased for several reasons. The period of the 1960’s and 70’s was a time a drastic change within the UK and on a global level, however although there were major changes to the world in terms of Music, Fashion, and politics, the country still had a major problem in controlling racism. According to Bradbury, S & Williams, J (2006) “The high point for English football (directly after the war), was followed in the post-1960s period by its low point of declining crowds, fan hooliganism, racism, poor spectator facilities and muddled and divided management.” There are several factors that contributed to this change in English football’s society; there was anti-race propaganda displayed and shouted around football grounds, with groups such as the National Front provoking this behaviour, these groups gave many people a feeling of de-individualisation, as they sensed a feeling of belonging, entitlement and membership to an organisation, where a certain aspect of society could not be included, which made it feel like it was ‘theirs’ so to speak, therefore inciting the radical actions towards ‘others’ which were other races. This can be best illustrated by the Merseyside Derby in 1987, and that the supporters have not learnt their lesson from even the 1930’s, where John Barnes of Liverpool, was pictured back-heeling a banana off the pitch during the match against Everton, “whose fans chanted "Ever-ton are white" oblivious and ignorant to the fact that Dixie Dean, their greatest ever goal scorer, had been the victim of such abuse some 50 years earlier.” (Stuart, J. 2014).

The Explosion of Media Media has always had an impact on the way that the public think, feel, and think. There are various forms of media that have been exploited throughout the history of English football, which has enabled racist propaganda to take place. Up until recently, the ways in which fans were predominantly able to portray how they felt was in ‘Fanzines’. Fanzines were handed out outside football grounds across the country which displayed information based on how fans felt about issues surrounding their football club. In these fanzines would have been anti-race information, which effectively tried to brainwash other supporters into all feeling the same way, and create a common enemy. The latest category of racial abuse in the media is through the format of social media. The reason for this, according to Cleland, J (2013, pp. 416) is due to “The creation of multiple platforms on the Internet has allowed for more “active” football fans (those fans who actively participate in the exchange of information with other fans, clubs, supporter organizations, and the media) to engage in everyday synchronised discussions concerning footballing and non-footballing matters.” This illustrates that an increase use of the internet, easy accessibility, and connectivity, has led to communication becoming a lot more straight forward to exchange information and engage in conversation with players and former players; therefore providing ‘fans’ a free platform to say what they want to say. With this comes many negative consequences, ever since the early days of when social media was a new concept, there have been numerous accounts of racial abuse. For example; the former Liverpool player Stan Collymore has come out and spoke numerous times on being the subject to various accounts of racial abuse. He said, according to a BBC News report in 2014 "In the last 24 hours I've been threatened with murder several times, demeaned on my race, and many of these accounts are still active. Why?" (BBC News, 2017). By Stan Collymore coming out and saying this, it shows that Twitter, which he later goes on to blame for not stopping the abuse, are not doing enough to eradicate the problem.

Racism doesn’t exist in English football anymore, right? It would be extremely naïve or ignorant to believe that racism is not still a part of today’s game. With incidents such as Luis Suarez and John Terry, both occurring in 2011, are evidence that even at the top of the game, racism still exists in football. However, the problem stems further than just on the football pitch, it is off the pitch with the supporters where much of the problem lies in the English professional game. (Conn, D. 2017) reported that there was a ‘35% increase in race related incidents from the mid-point of the 2013/14 season, to the mid-point of the 2014/15 season. In total, kick it out recorded that there were 184 of these events.’ These figures would propose that the effort to combat racism is not as effective as many would have presumed.  To support the point that the problem is only growing and not being resolved, (Fund.org, 2007, pp.8) recorded that “During the 2010/11 season there were 16 arrests at Football League matches and 23 at Premier League matches on or near the grounds. According to the Premier League, 20% of its matches witnessed one or more arrests. The FA told us that in total 43 arrests were made because of racist or indecent chanting during the 2010/11 season compared to 31 arrests in the 2009/10 season.” This illustrates that there has even been an exponential growth in racial occurrences since the 2010/11 season, as there were a significantly higher number of cases in the 2014/15 campaign. The wider problem in football is racism spreading into Grassroots football. The issue with this goes further than just handing out fines, and punishing this behaviour, it means that this disgraceful behaviour is taught to and learnt by the future generation of children playing football. The punishments that are given to offenders are either too lenient or relaxed, the main reason for this is that currently the Football Association (FA) are, according to (Fund.org, 2007, pp.12) ‘not taking the lead in developing and introducing a simplified and consistent procedure for reporting and dealing with allegations of discriminatory behaviour at grassroots level’. This shows that despite the FA having some procedures in dealing with racism, many spectators and/or players continue to offend due to either not being made aware of the consequences, or not caring about the extent of the potential punishments, as the actions taken are not consistent, which means that the likelihood of repeated offending and number of incidents will increase in the future if the FA does not act upon this issue. Resolving Racism Throughout history, the attempt to eradicate racism from football grows stronger and stronger through time. This is due to the increased awareness of how disrespectful and unacceptable it is to act in this way. In modern society and culture people are more accepting and tolerant, in conjunction with the politically correct nature of the world today. However, there are still examples of fans (Professional and Grassroots), players, and clubs where racism is taking place on a regular occurrence. In today’s game, the chief rule and law makers are the FA, one of their policies towards race equality is “Let’s Kick Racism Out Of Football” which was created in 1993 (in 1997 it changed to “Kick It Out”), the basic aim of Kick It Out, according to the website is that kick It out is an “organisation which enables, facilitates and works with the football authorities, professional clubs, players, fans and communities to tackle all forms of discrimination.” (Kickitout.org, 2017) Although social media has in many ways enhanced the problem faced with racism, there is proof that the use of the internet can help act as a new means by which incidents can be reported. “‘True Vision’—which is a website operated by the Association of Chief Police Officers—is an example of the way the internet can be used as a positive tool for tackling racism by providing information to victims and allowing people to report race crimes online.” (Fund.org, 2007, pp.9) At present, there is a concerted effort within grassroots football, in trying to combat and create new initiatives to stop and handle racist behaviour. For example, an organisation that was established just over 20 years ago was ‘Show Racism The Red Card’, the aim of this was for educational purposes in an effort to tackle racism in society. According to the website (Show Racism the Red Card, 2017) ‘the organisation utilises high-profile professional football clubs and footballers to communicate its message. Over one year, Show Racism The Red Card educates and trains over 50,000 different individuals.’ Despite it being evidential that the use of positive anti-racist role models is a good idea, the evidence for this type of behaviour does not correlate. For example, the BBC reported in 2012 that “Colin King from the Black and Asian Coaches Association says his organisation's 600 members report at least three cases of racism a week… from being called things like 'Paki', to the 'N-word'.” (BBC Sport, 2017).

Conclusion Overall, racism is still heavily associated in all forms of English football, whether that be; Grassroots, semi-professional, or at the top of the professional game. It can clearly be said that although there is still a problem, society has moved on from the 1970’s and 80’s, where most of the supporters’ behaviour would not be deemed to be acceptable in today’s game, and would not be tolerated by the FA. It has also been illustrated that the use of the internet can act as a both positive and negative aspect in relation to racism. The positive is that the ‘true vision’ website enables chief police officers to act and deal with anti-social discriminatory and racist behaviour, and therefore clamp down and provide sanctions to offenders. However, with the growth in the connectivity of the world, the internet has provided many ‘trolls’ with a chance to voice whatever they want, to whoever they like. Despite this, there are various strategies and plans being constantly produced from the FA and other organisations to deal and resolve these actions. The main belief is that if the professionals at the top of the game are to set a good example, the rest will follow. Word Count: 2036 Bibliography Association, T. (2017). The website for the English football association, the Emirates FA Cup and the England football team. [online] www.thefa.com. Available at: http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/policies/equality/race-equality [Accessed 29 May 2017]. BBC Sport. (2017). Racism in football: 'Problems still exist at grassroots level'. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/20365922 [Accessed 29 May 2017]. BBC News. (2017). Ex-footballer Collymore accuses Twitter over abusive messages - BBC News. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25838114 [Accessed 29 May 2017]. Bradbury, S & Williams, J (2006) Labour, racism and ‘new’ football in England, Patterns of Prejudice Vol. 40, Iss. 1 Cleland, J (2013) Racism, Football Fans, and Online Message Boards, Loughborough University, UK Journal of Sport and Social Issues Vol 38, Issue 5, pp. 415 - 431 Conn, D. (2017). Football Association welcomes a 70% rise in reporting racist abuse. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/mar/02/kick-it-out-racism-football-fa-david-conn-lord-ouseley [Accessed 27 May 2017]. Furd.org. (2017). Football Unites, Racism Divides • Online resources. [online] Available at: http://www.furd.org/default.asp?intPageID=22&intResourceID=33 [Accessed 26 May 2017]. Kickitout.org. (2017). Tackling racism and discrimination [online] Available at: http://www.kickitout.org/about/aims-and-objectives/ [Accessed 28 May 2017]. Show Racism the Red Card. (2017). Home. [online] Available at: http://www.srtrc.org/ [Accessed 28 May 2017]. Stuart, J. (2014, Nov 02). FEATURE RACISM IN FOOTBALL. The Western Morning News Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/docview/1619173581?accountid=9727