It is not what you say it is the way that you say it

Racism in sport

There is a lot of press coverage being given to the alleged recent racial comments made by two footballers playing in the premiership, the first one was when Patrice Evra the Manchester United player accused Liverpool’s Luis Suárez of repeatedly calling him a N***** and secondly John Terry England and Chelsea captain alleged to have called QPR’s Anton Ferdinand a Black C*** but claiming he called him a Blind C*** how crazy that the focus is on the one first word and not the second.
What a fickle race of people we are. So many football fans blinded by support for their team and players and having no interest in learning the truth.

I remember my ex-wife used to say to me she was always getting into trouble for saying things, people used to say to her ‘It’s not what you said it is the way you said it’ I believe this is crucial in these circumstances. I do find it hard to come to terms with players receiving the huge salaries they do and letting opposing players get to them by name calling. I believe that just as in a civilised society everything should be done to stamp out racism, but let us not go over the top.
I am Welsh, British, short, some people would say old, have a spare tyre and could probably list dozens of names I have been called in the past some very hurtful and some very true, however as much as I despise racism and I do passionately as I always preach I have met good and bad everywhere and whilst some race, creeds and nationalities do have certain characteristics we are all individual’s and I repeat you will find good and bad everywhere. I have actually been the victim of racism not just as a Brit or a Taffy (a name I was called and proud to be in the army and elsewhere) during my time in the army I was close friends with one of only 3 black men in the regiment and as the others had almost 20 years’ service each never associated with the ‘boys for the craic’, however my mucka Glen ‘Chalky’ Smith not only a big guy but a hard man so fortunately did not receive as much abuse as if he had been a 9 stone weakling however I was actually targeted as I was his friend and the 9 stone weakling.

I was astounded as being blessed to be brought up in a small village in Wales I had never even saw a black person until I was 8 or 9 and that was just a young girl visiting for a week and I could count the number of black people I spoke to on both hands before I joined the army, however the racism I had previously been totally exposed to was reserved for the Irish as long as I could remember I heard all the jokes about the Irish being stupid etc. so was astounded to realise how racist a lot of the Irish lads were.

I remember back in 2011 and the UK suffered race riots I was a travelling salesman and our company did a lot of business with the Asian community and in fact many appointments had to be cancelled because of the riots, one Saturday there had been riots during the week in Oldham I was sent there and a day I will never forget I went to my first appointment at 12.30 sold a kitchen in 30 minutes and the lady of the house said have you got time to go to my sister she wants one too, half an hour later another sale and then she said can you go to see my uncle, so I picked up my bag and strolled down the street not bothering to go back for the car and within an hour and a half I had sold 3 kitchens which was the number of appointments we usually had for the whole day never mind sales. However when I finished and started the long walk back to the car a large number of Asian lads had formed themselves in groups and were just hanging around with nothing to do, that was not the longest walk I have ever made but it certainly felt like it, so many of those guys stared at me with pure hatred, just because of the colour of my skin.

Not long after that I was down in the West Midlands and another Asian area and as I said above we used to have 3 appointments a day, 12.00, 15.00 and 18.00 however sometimes the ‘sits’ as we called them could drag on longer or we would have a NCI ‘no customer in’ (however most reps used to take a leaf out of John Terry’s book and change the word customer. On this particular day my afternoon sit was a NCI so off I went to the next one to first of all find it (this was the days of A-Z well before SatNav) and secondly in the hope the 18.00 would be in and available and I could get an early night, no such luck so I did the next best thing and found a quite spot and had 40 winks, after an hour or so I noticed the car behind me was surrounded by a group of about a dozen men and a few harsh appeared to be being exchanged the next thing it was my turn and as one banged on the window I took the usual precautions, doors were already locked and I did not wind down the windows and the guy asked ‘What you doing here’ I explained what was doing he said ‘Well you better go’ ‘What’ I said ‘You better leave we have had some trouble with a white man attacking young girls so go’ it took a minute for it to register and then the red mist came down as I said at the start of the article call me what you want and if it is true so what however I expect most men would rather be called anything but a paedophile, I swear I was on my way out the car for ‘biffters’ until common sense took over and I realised the futility of trying to take on a dozen men especially as I realised some had baseball bats so I did what I was told. I have to say it was a horrible experience being accused just because of the colour of my skin. This never put me off going in to the Asian community I can count on the number of one hands I was offered food by the English, Welsh and Irish, (The Scottish are a different breed unless they had cake or biscuits you never got offered a brew) however many Asians cooked food whilst I was in their home, a tradition very much appreciated by yours truly as being on the road for so long the belly often used to rumble.