Devon Gordon
Ed’s note – Although the term ‘nigger’ is obviously deeply offensive and not one we would normally print, in the context of the article, on this occasion we will run it as the author intended.
I’m a second generation Jamaican, 52 years old and a season ticket holder at the Emirates (shut it Gary Neville, you idiot. Wenger out).
I grew up in a predominately white town, Northampton. I had a cousin who was a winger for the Cobblers in the mid to late Seventies when they were in the lower reaches of the Football League.
His nickname among the home supporters was ‘The Electric Nigger’. That hurt, and not just because he was my cousin. Shocking.
The stupid thing was that the Northampton Town fans loved him, chanted for him, absolutely adored him, yet they still called him that. I just couldn’t get my head round it.
Looking back, he should have been playing at a higher level, he was brilliant. Pacey, tricky and deadly. He gave me and my brother season tickets when we were in our early teens in the mid to late Seventies but the abusive language put us off and we didn’t go as often as I would have liked because of that.
I was born in London and a Gooner from a young age (Charlie George’s 1971 FA Cup final winner sealed the deal) but growing up in Northampton, I didn’t get myself to an Arsenal game until the mid Eighties.
The first black player to pull on an Arsenal shirt was Brendan Batson in 1971. But when I started going, Viv Anderson was playing for us at right back and he was good, bloody good. In fact, he was the first black player to win a senior cap for England back in 1978 when he was at Forest.
In the mid Eighties, a succession of promising, young black players started to make it through the ranks to the Arsenal first team. Notably, south Londoners Paul Davis, Michael Thomas and, most talented of all, David Rocastle.
In my opinion, that trio would have won far more England caps if they were white. I also think Viv is one of the ones who lost out at international level. But Rocastle is top of that list. Seriously, was Trevor Steven better than him? No. Rocky had the lot. He was fast, a wonderful dribbler, great passer, hard as nails and consistently excellent. He was up there with Gazza.
I think that, back then, black players had to be extraordinarily good to make it. The exception that proves the rule is Gus Caesar, he made me cringe with his obligatory mistake in every game. As well as always wanting Arsenal to win, I also wanted our black contingent to do the best they could and would pray that they weren’t the ones to make an error which cost us a game.
Caesar (Caesar!) couldn’t help what he was though, a bad footballer. That he was black wasn’t the issue. But when black players made a mistake then race became an issue in a way that it never would for a white player. The terraces became toxic with racist expletives when Caesar screwed up.
A few other of many memorable lows from that period:
* Everton fans chanting “shoot that nigger” every time a black Arsenal player touched the ball at Goodison Park in the late Eighties (The Toffees were all white at that time).
* Centre back and emergency forward Chris Whyte being dubbed ‘Chalky White’ by our own fans in reference to the racist portrayal of West Indians by Jim Davidson in the early Eighties, when the majority of our fans weren’t exactly progressive.
Whyte, as some of you will recall, went on to win a First Division winner’s medal with Leeds United.
You might be surprised to know that I actually have to rate Ron Atkinson. Obviously, he disgraced himself when he described (the world class) Marcel Desailly as “a big, lazy nigger”. That’s such a shame for a manager who consistently applied a racial meritocracy.
He once put out a team at Villa with something like ten black players when he was in charge there. And he was the one who famously and consistently picked three top black players at WBA in the late Seventies/early Eighties: Cyril Regis, Brendon Batson and Laurie Cunningham.
They were dubbed The Three Degrees and, although it was meant to be endearing, I wasn’t comfortable with it. Thomas, Davis and Rocastle were also dubbed The Three Degrees some years later and that pissed me off, too. It somehow detracted from their standing as accomplished footballers.
One of the things that I found hard to fathom is how fans were so selective when it came to racism. For instance, everyone loved Michael Jackson in the Seventies yet some of his fans would go to games and abuse black players, sheer hatred. I think that’s crazy.
