Alex Kaye
Dear fellow Gooners,
I am writing this letter to you following my experience at the recent Premier League fixture away at Everton. I have waited until a couple of days after the game to write this because if I hadn't have done so this would have simply become an incoherent and angry rant, which is not my intention. The points made in this letter are extremely important so please stick with it all the way through, it will take no more than a few minutes of your day.
I have been attending away games for a few years and started going regularly last season. I want to preface this letter by saying I find the majority of my fellow fans to be great people who are dedicated to our team and provide amazing support to the players all across the country, week in and week out, come rain or shine. Anyone who regularly attends away matches will be aware that there is a sizeable section of the Arsenal away support who take great delight in singing derogatory songs about Tottenham. As a die-hard Arsenal fan I love the rivalry with Tottenham and I am perfectly happy for us to sing about hating them as much as we possibly can; it's all part of being a Gooner!
However, a problem arises when this hatred of Tottenham slips so seamlessly into despicable and vitriolic anti-Semitism. Once again, anyone who attends away games will know it is standard procedure to hear derogatory songs about Jews, under the pretence that it isn't about Jews, it's about Tottenham. For example, the 'we hate Tottenham' song is beautiful because of its simplicity; I love it! It says exactly what we want to say without any ambiguity. However, each time it is sung it is followed by a chorus of the 'y-word'. I don't want this letter to become a debate about the use of this word because it has been done to death and is a conversation for another day. In fact, I have come to accept that this word will be used to describe Tottenham fans and I have perhaps naively convinced myself that the fans who sing it don't understand what it means. It is easier for me to pretend these supporters are ignorant rather than anti-Semitic, even if I know deep down that probably isn't true.
If you haven't already guessed I am a Jewish Arsenal fan and both those things are extremely important parts of my identity. That's right folks, not every Jew in North London is a Tottenham fan! Up until the Everton away match, the example I gave above was the main example of anti-Semitism I have heard at Arsenal away games, although there are others. Despite hearing it at every single away game I have attended, I have managed to block it out for the most part and it hasn't soured my experience of going to support my team. That isn't to say it's ok, just that the familiarity of it has numbed me to the pain it should probably cause me.
However, I now come to the game against Everton where the veil of the 'y-word' was dropped and the anti-Semitism that lies beneath it came storming to the surface for all to see. It was completely undeniable such was its lack of subtlety. This was not directed at Tottenham; this was aimed squarely and unapologetically at the Jews. The chant occurred inside the terrace area around 15 minutes before kick-off, where regular away Gooners congregate to sing until we go and find our seats a few minutes before kick-off. Up until Saturday this had always been my favourite part of the away-day experience because it brings us all together as a community to share our passion for the Arsenal. On Saturday I was happily joining in with various songs about our players, our club and also about how much we hate Tottenham. However, for the first time ever I removed myself from this pre-match ritual such was my shock and disgust at what I heard. The lyrics to the chant I heard (another regular away-day song) are below and I make no apology for using the exact words they used; I need to in order for you to understand why this affected me so much. Despite the song being a common one, there was a slight twist I have never heard before, which I have put in brackets in order to highlight.
(To the tune of 'She'll be coming round the mountain'...)
"We'll be running round Tottenham with our willies hanging out, we'll be running round Tottenham with our willies hanging out...
Singing I've got a foreskin, haven't you? (F***ing Jew)
Singing I've got a foreskin, haven't you? (F***ing Jew)
Singing I've got a foreskin, I've got a foreskin, I've got a foreskin, haven't you? (F***ing Jew)"
I attended my first Arsenal match at Highbury at the age of 7, I am now 25. For all those years Arsenal has felt like something I belonged to, where I was unconditionally accepted simply because I was a Gooner and nothing else mattered.
At Goodison Park, I suddenly felt like I didn't belong. I felt like an outsider looking in. I realised these chants are not directed at Tottenham, this is simply an excuse for people to verbally attack Jews.
I know people will say to me that I should ignore these people because they are a minority of idiots who do not represent the club. With all due respect that is of absolutely no consolation to me at all. Why should I and other Jewish Gooners travel across the country (sometimes the continent) every other week to support our team and accept being the subjects of racist abuse from those who are supposed to be on our side? Why should a section of the Arsenal fan-base be made to feel like they don't belong simply because of the religion they are born into?
And here is the key question for me... why is nothing being done about the blatant anti-Semitism heard every single week at Arsenal away matches? There were at least 50 or 60 people chanting the lyrics I wrote above and it was met with complete apathy by everyone in the stadium. Nobody looked disgusted by it, nobody said or did anything. It seems that racist abuse towards Jews is just not seen as a big deal. There were a number of stewards and police officers standing yards away from this group of people and none of them did anything at all.
You may ask me why I didn't approach this group of people and ask them to stop... but ask yourself what you would do if a large crowd of people were chanting racist slurs about you? I think everyone knows the sensible thing to do in that situation is to remove yourself from it, which is what I did. I should not have to put myself in a situation where I may be in danger in order for people to understand that anti-Semitic chanting is unacceptable.
It is time that someone stood up and said something about this because it has been swept under the carpet and accepted as par for the course for too long. A lot of us speak regularly to each other about how racism has no place in football, yet when we hear blatant racist chanting inside the terraces we do nothing about it. It is time to take a stand and I hope this letter can be a starting point.
My fellow Gooners, here is what I am asking of you. If you hear anti-Semitic chanting (or any racist chanting) at a game, don't be the person who stands back and does nothing. Let's put pressure on stewards and the police to eject these people from the stadium. Perhaps if this happened they would think twice about repeating their behaviour at future fixtures. Perhaps they would understand that racism is something the football community takes seriously.
How many of you were disgusted by the leniency of Luis Suarez' punishment when he racially abused Patrice Evra? How many of you were dismayed with the way John Terry was allowed to get away with the same offence against Anton Ferdinand? For those of you who answered 'yes' to those questions; how many of you hear racist chanting on a weekly basis and do nothing about it? We cannot castigate the English FA for not taking racism seriously, when we are guilty of doing exactly the same! It needs to be a joint effort from everyone in the game, including the fans.
It is completely unacceptable for any Arsenal fan to go to a game and feel like they do not belong to our community. At the end of the day, we are all Gooners and nothing else should matter. Let's be the club that sets the standard.
Yours faithfully,
Alex Kaye
