45 replies to this topic

[colenall funch]

Hey folks, first time poster, long-time reader and CFC since '68 (when I was born into a CFC family). This topic hits home because I spent a large part of my childhood away from UK, in the caribbean, and was therefore brought up in a much more sensitive-to-racism environment. Well, let's just say, as a white kid, I was a minority so out-and-out prejudice towards somebody of colour was not even something my little mind was instructed on since I played with kids of all different creeds (the Carib'n is full of mixes... you even get Chinese people talking patois) and therefore heard my first racist comment in my life when I was about 10 or so after living in UK for 3 years. The island I grew up on has a national hero in that he was one of the first black professionals to have made it the Football League and we were all proud of him: such was the atmosphere I grew up in as far as appreciation for black players goes... So I get to the UK (while my dad forever remained in the Sunshine Isles) and eventually I'm a socialized Londoner... my accent gets beaten out of me, bullying on the school-ground is just about the way it goes. In character, most people saw me as a freaky curiosity so I didn't get beaten up to much, but I did stick up for the other black kids. Which is funny, because later on once we became friends, the black kids told me how their first impression of me was that I was right real SUCK UP (which was almost as bad as being accused a snitch)... OK so I got through becoming a regular-style South West Londoner being around my older brothers (who had not gone to live in Carib for several phases like me)  and another major Londonization in me came from going down the Football. I'd go to the Shed, started just as the '86-'87 season finished but I would have to say my first full season was 87-88. It cost little more than 3 pints of lager to get in. I went to pretty much every match at home and at least ten or twelve away matches during that relegation year just to give you a bit of background. (I went with my older bruffa who'd stand with his mates elsewhere or even sit in the East Stand (!)) So much of my time joining in the songs and learning the ropes was spent alone in the mosh of the Shed, pretty confident nothing bad would ever happen. And hilarious because I went to a lot of matches where trouble was reported yet hadn't heard a thing.
But one thing I did hear was racist chants, and of all the things I would join in on, this one was the strangest and most alien to me (trust me, as a teen i was full of aggro and yelled blue-bloody-murder like the rest of them. However, I was also EXTREMELY LAZY so apologies to the Crew and Firms for not joining in the fighting... I wouldn't have been much help anyway... I got chased by Middlesbrough fans along the Brompton Road a couple of hours before the relegation rip off in '87. I was just walking alone, planning to take North End Road and get something to eat, no colours... mindin' my own bizness. They yelled out of their windows 'poofter' or something and I ignored them, walking with my back to them. Next thing I hear is the "Crunch-crunch crunch-crunch crunch-crunch" of the car doors opening and shutting and soon there were three of them. One with a knife. Sorry lads for not standing my ground, but one bit of athleticism I can be proud of is that I am extremely FAST over 20 yards, it's my most offensive weapon should you need me to catch your daughters' handbag snatcher. In this case I used it in defense and was soon losing the fat gits within twenty paces and could just cat call them all sorts ugly crap knowing their car was double parked and there was NO WAY the fat lumps could ever catch up to me... You should've heard it. Any of my real-life-at-the-time northern friends would've been sickened by what I told them Boro bar stewards.
HOWEVER, back to racism and any of the other -isms. I really can say it was weird to hear 'There's on one p@ki copper" or the 'N' word or the monkey sounds. I didn't know what to do. I certainly wasn't going to start saying to the blokes around me to STFU. My only way out was to stand somewhere else. So I would. But the humour and the banter and the aggro and the charm and the history and the spirit and the omnipresent excitement that danger could kick off at any moment kept drawing me back to the Middle of the Shed and finally being a part of the away following I'd been so proud to read about as kid, living on an island, unable to get in.
It was at Highbury, that night we lost 0-3 in winter weeknight play winter '88... and a bunch of whackos were lighting fires with bundles of the Evening Standard on the terraces of the Clock End. I sort of stamped the fire out near me (but didn't boss them around or tell them what to do, just didn't want to get burnt myself). Once this gang realized I was stamping it out near me, it egged them on to really make it happen. (We were 0-3 down and what else was there to sing about?) So I stamped the fire out near me again and this time sort of mouthed it up about how this was kind of how the Bradford fire started (we were pre-Hilsborough).
I was told to shut it and "Go stand with those arsenal 'f@ggots' if I din't like it' and basically figured, yeah, they were right. The Clock End won't burn down and so I squeezed to another place in the crowd. I remember groping my way through the dark to the Tube while the cops were yelling at people to 'STOP RUNNING'...as all sorts of scuffles broke out. It was the only time ever thought I put myself in danger by going alone to a football match--basically by opening my mouth. (However, the cops were just as much a threat).
I remember coming back from Leicester, it was the day OF Hillsborough...we were cramped and getting shoved all over the place... a real crush. People with radios were saying there'd been some deaths at Hillsborough. (Anybody travelling North up the M1 that year would have seen fans going to Hillsborough and also Villa Park. I remember hordes of Norwich on the roads that day too...) Anyway... you all know what happened. HILLSBOROUGH killed the terraces. We reacted to it in the same way America reacted to September 11th... far-more reaching than the original threat or offense... But that day, we weren't to know our lifestyle was about to change. I remember flooding back to Leicester (I've got some pics of our army heading back into town, lots of red-and-white hoop shirts that was our away kit I guess) major Chelsea in Leicester to see if we could make some 20 match unbeaten record. (We lost) But mostly we were sad about what was happening in Sheffield. Pre-internet twitter and texting, NOBODY seemed to know. But brothers were dying. People we'd seen on the M1 that morning might be some of the ones... Then we crowded around Dixons and other electronic shops and the news was now worse. Deaths up to 30 or 40... But we had to get on the coach..
Now Leicester is probably the most Asia cities you might see in England. Lots of Asians. I might add that I have great friends who are asians and I have a roomate from India so again, kind of weird to see Asians and then here somebody make a comment about their minority appearance. So, that day, leaving Leicester, there was this strange gloom on the coach going back... like a war, in my mind. I'd say it was worse than how I felt after 9-11 (and I was in America that day). So the coach inches through the Asian district of Leicester. We're on a regular coach, half filled with Chelsea, the rest a general mix of the population. From the back of the coach all we could hear was this torrent of racist hate coming out of some guy's mouth.. against the Asians he saw walking in the streets. He was just going on and on... wouldn't shut up. It wasn't like "Hey look at that fat git" and then back to the crossword puzzle. He yelled through the window at possible fifty or sixty pedestrians... it just wasn't the time or place. We'd all had a rough day... And I gotta say... there was a black Chelsea fan on the bus, sitting with his mates. He kept looking back and giving the cut-eye... Then he stood up, walked back and quietly said to the bloke... "Nice match today wasn't it...." Or some such stuff and the racist talk stopped. And we could all just get home and find out what was really happening.
So the open full out racism has died down in Football, like a major campaign to stop smoking. This is good.
I wish for those old days to be shared by the young, to know the amazing loss of ego that would occur as grown men and strangers danced in ludicrous loss of all control at the point of a goal going in... and having the wit to match every event on the pitch: this was what the Shed End was about. In fact, if you 'saw' what was happening, you were doing it wrong. But if you yelled out some racist crap, well you made me feel sad at your ignorance and how much the people on the island I grew up on admire English Football and talk about it as if it might be inclusive.
But here's an insight.
There was the homophobic stuff too. And I'm not homophobic at all, but gee, I gotta say I helped make songs about Elton John and Ron Atkinson and stuff like that... and yet I know in my heart I am not homophobic, and if it were to happen to day, I would not join in. So that's to say in the same way you couldn't believe the changes that have occured in the last two decades like not being able to smoke on the top deck of the 24 bus to Pimlico anymore... and the tolerance for shouting ludicrous ignorance is to be welcomed. But don't forget, they were different times, with different divisions between people and ideas, and I would plead, despite all that trash talk, some of the most humourous times I've ever had in my life (AND I LOVE HUMOUR, COMEDY LAUGHTER, IN FACT I hunt it for a living) were had standing in the rain at say, Notts Forest or Palace trailing 1-3 or what have you... and some quick spark ignites the crowd to respond to what's happening on the pitch, or elsewhere in the ground or even in the sky and so that unifying theory of life is suddenly driving through your veins... and it doesn't matter any more...any of it... coz you're no longer thinking. You're living, breathing, jumping and dancing Chelsea. Till you die.

[colenall funch]

Damb, sorry about that double-post. It wouldn't allow me to edit, so that second shot is the one on goal.

[moi]

I'd like to nominate colenall funch's post to be upgraded to a "page" - a fascinating read!

Sorry - I still don't know the correct way to do that

[Phillip]

Very interesting read.  I liked it very much, and very, very insightful.

[wxwax]

Great stuff. Sad but fascinating. Thank you for sharing it.

[shedhead]

As colenall funch said.
It was fun but the racists dragged it down into the gutter and beyond.

I used to stand in the shed until the late 70's . Couldn't stand the moronic racist tripe any longer and for my sins went into the east stand. Plenty of choice of where to sit back then.