TheLongside.co.uk - A Book Of Eli: (Part 4) Racism - Football

Roger’s folks came from Dominica in the 60s to Bradford. It’s a beautiful island but covered in two things, mountains and forest. Industry and agriculture is limited. His dad was a carpenter and his mum a seamstress. Joining the ranks of those who came to the UK to find a better life they found success over here and raised their family of four.       “There was one day that me and my brother were rolling round on the floor wrestling and being awful. Mum never had any hesitation in giving us the slipper or the shoe if we had misbehaved. She could throw it and hit a sixpence from 20 yards away. Except this time she threw the shoe and it didn’t hit the sixpence it hit the glass cabinet door and smashed the glass. After that there wasn’t much point locking it. ”

     I’d looked up Dominica (memo; must book a cruise that calls in there). One interesting thing that I read up on was that the original inhabitants of the West Indian islands were the Caribs. They were there when Columbus bumped into the place. What followed over the next few centuries was the influx of imported African slaves to work the plantations. It seems that many pure Caribs still live in Dominica, some of whom are the descendants of those who fled there to escape the colonisation that engulfed their own islands. Being so mountainous Dominica was unsuitable for the worst of the large plantations that developed. So – Roger’s family and roots – true Caribs or of African origin; we’d both like to research this and find out more.

      “We may easily forget that racism, casual or concerted, malicious or just thoughtless, was previously so taken for granted in every corner of football culture that it was not even acknowledged, let alone debated and identified as worthy of corrective action. Throughout most of the 70s the sons of immigrant families from, in most cases the Carribean, learned as they became established at Loftus Road, Molineux, White Hart Lane, Kennilworth Road, Old Trafford, The Hawthorns, the City Ground and elsewhere that they just had to learn to live with the spit and bananas that rained down on them every time they took a throw-in or a corner, and the low, loathing, collective boo that rose up against them every time they touched the ball in open play. What else could they do? The only course of action available to them was to show by their deeds that they would not be driven out of football, just as their families would not be driven out of Britain.