Pitch Black (15 page)

The report attracted widespread media coverage, including a
Daily Mirror
headline on 29 March 1988 that read: ‘Fascist, racist and violent – club branded a breeding ground for the NF thugs’. The club had thrown down the gauntlet to LUARAF and had had their bluff called by the report. The negative media criticism of the club, which they would have been anxious to avoid, left them with no option other than to act. They produced anti-racist statements signed by the manager Billy Bremner and all the players, and distributed them to fans.

The local Labour council – who, due to their ownership of the ground, had local councillors on the board – had also, like the club, denied knowledge of any problems. They now suddenly remembered that they were on the board not as fans but as elected officials who should oppose racist abuse and represent the best interests of the club, and began to suggest that racists should be banned from the ground and other council facilities. Finally, a new police commander replaced his previous, highly critical, colleague, which led to a much healthier police attitude.

Slowly, due to persistent activism, continued pressure from the council and an eventual change of management at the club, the atmosphere at Elland Road started to improve. Regular statements from the club’s senior management condemning racist chanting and regular adverts against racist behaviour appeared in the programme.

It was at this stage that the club took its anti-racist work in a new and altogether more proactive direction, one that would begin to build bridges and heal the rift that the club had effectively engineered between itself and local black and Asian communities. Howard Wilkinson was appointed manager in October 1988 and represented a new and defining break from Leeds’ greatest ever manager, Don Revie, who had transformed the club in the 1960s and ’70s from a provincial outfit in a city where Rugby League and cricket were the dominant sports into European powerhouses. Leeds’s four previous managers, Allan Clarke, Eddie Gray, Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter, had all played in that successful Leeds side and were steeped in Revie-era culture and folklore. The team and, by extension, the club had famously developed a siege mentality during that period. This team had fostered a fearsome reputation on the pitch as a skilful but distinctly
tough and combative side. During Revie’s tenure, a strong bond between the team and its fans had also developed. As the only club in a large city, it had drawn support not only from within Leeds, but also from other parts of West Yorkshire, and had extended this support into significant parts of North Yorkshire, therefore giving it a large fan base. This siege mentality and bond between team and supporters had been perfectly illustrated in a league game between Leeds and West Brom at The Hawthorns in 1982. In serious crowd disturbances, forty-six Leeds fans had been arrested, fencing at the ground had been ripped apart and a pitch invasion had eventually been quelled by baton-wielding police. When asked about the behaviour of Leeds fans, manager Allan Clarke stated that he hadn’t seen the pitch invasion and that he was concentrating on team matters. He reiterated that Leeds support was the best in the country, said he was uninterested in second-hand reports of violence, and wouldn’t be drawn on suggestions that he should condemn the behaviour of the fans. That mentality had continued throughout the period when Revie’s four protégés had managed the side, and if there was little chance managers were going to criticise the fans for violence, criticism of any type of fan misbehaviour was off limits.

Howard Wilkinson’s appointment therefore represented a clean break with the past as he set about rebuilding the side. Off the field, Ces Podd had been appointed as the club’s community development officer and he set about the task of forging links between the club and local black and Asian communities. Leeds had had the legendary South African Albert Johanneson as its first black player in the 1960s, and Johanneson had formed an integral part of Revie’s first successful side. He had become the first black player to appear
in an FA Cup final, in 1965, and his participation and ongoing legacy had attracted interest in the club from within the black community. Podd had friends from Chapeltown who wanted desperately to go to Elland Road to watch Leeds play, but because of far-right activity in particular and the racist atmosphere in general, the ground was patently unsafe for supporters from black and Asian communities to attend, so that notion was completely out of the question. Seeking to build upon the legacy of Albert Johanneson, Podd could have taken on a similar role at Bradford City, but the opportunity to make a difference in his home town and amongst his own and other communities was an opportunity too good to miss.

The new hierarchy knew that the club desperately needed to shake off its racist and violent image. Terrace racism at English grounds was becoming increasingly polarised. It was largely absent at clubs that had black players, and could be extremely vicious at the increasing minority of clubs that didn’t. In addition, a new generation of footballers were coming into the game who’d grown up in and around black communities and had forged friendships and working relationships with their black peers in schools and through football. At Wimbledon, a team containing Eric Young, Terry Phelan, John Fashanu and the substitute Laurie Cunningham had won the 1988 FA Cup final. Vinnie Jones, a member of that side and a close friend of Fashanu, epitomised the new breed of footballer who was beginning to enter the game. Jones had pointedly remarked at Wimbledon that racism wasn’t something that should be dealt with solely by black players. As role models and team members, white players had to take a stand and demonstrate that racism was unacceptable. The response to racist abuse on the pitch by opponents was often organised by Jones and other white players like Dennis Wise.
It ensured that the issue was a team matter as far as Wimbledon were concerned. If you were going to abuse one of their black players, you had to deal with the Crazy Gang as a whole. That was the Wimbledon way, so when Jones signed for Leeds in 1989, he was informed that the club wanted to tackle racism in and around the club and that he would be an asset in assisting the club to achieve that aim.

Podd was surprised to be appointed to the role of community development officer. There were a number of former Leeds players who were out of work and could easily have been appointed and there were other potential candidates who had much stronger ties to the club than he did, but the club clearly appointed him to bring a fresh new perspective to its work and viewed him as someone who could build bridges between the club and black and Asian communities. He was given licence to develop the role as he saw fit.

He introduced a programme of activity to ensure the club was seen as welcoming. Each week they would go into schools and deliver coaching sessions and conduct anti-racist work. Wilkinson was highly supportive, as was club captain Gordon Strachan, who would ensure that any request for a player to conduct community work was met. If he couldn’t get a player to attend, Strachan would attend himself. Chris Whyte, a former teammate of Paul Davis at Arsenal, was a massive supporter of the work and Vinnie Jones was a brilliant advocate for the programme. Jones proved to be highly popular with children and young people and would enthusiastically slide tackle children and generally throw himself around as they played games of football during coaching sessions.

However, Podd was keen to ensure that his community work was more than mere photo opportunities and PR
bluster. Coaches working on community programmes would bring groups of children to the ground on match days, show them the changing rooms and other parts of the stadium and take them to the game. The work was also linked closely with the Youth Development Centre under the leadership of Paul Hart. Podd and Hart would work together to identify and develop promising players, and Podd was responsible for coaching the under-16s, where he worked with a generation of talented players including Aaron Lennon, Jonathan Wood-gate and Harpal Singh, the latter of whom would become one of the first Asian players to play professional football.

The campaign begun by a group of ordinary fans had succeeded in shaming the club into action. To its credit, the club developed a more proactive approach and through Podd’s leadership built strong links with local black and Asian communities. While there were sporadic outbreaks of overt racist abuse over the next two and a half decades, by 1991, the far right had given up and had ceased to organise and have a presence in and around the stadium. It had taken only four years for a small group of right-minded fans to see off the fascists, who’d had the run of Elland Road for over a decade, and, in so doing, they had proved what strides could be made with will, determination and good organisation. Other fan initiatives were launched in the wake of the Leeds United campaign, such as Leicester City’s
When You’re Smiling
, a fanzine that also had anti-racism as its founding principle.

A stand had been made. Along with providing a vehicle through which fans could air their views on a whole range of issues, the new fans’ movement had sought to challenge the popular perceptions of fans as right-wing, racist hooligans. Here was evidence that anti-racist campaigns could be
launched and, most importantly, could be effective. Confidence, as everyone in football knows, can take those with modest resources further than they imagined.

Finally, the government took action. ID scheme proposals, which had been put forward under the Thatcher-led government, had been shelved in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster. The scheme had aimed to issue football fans with an ID card in order to attend games. The impact of the proposals would be to infringe upon the civil liberties of football fans and prevent the attendance at games of casual supporters. Thatcher’s government had also actively supported UEFA’s decision to ban English clubs from Europe, and amongst the vast majority of new supporters’ groups and fanzines the government was viewed as being decidedly anti-football. So when the Conservatives ditched Thatcher in the wake of opposition to the poll tax, the new John Major-led government sought to place some clear blue water between itself and the previous administration. It deliberately sought to play up the new Prime Minister’s footballing credentials and Major and David Mellor, Cabinet minister and Treasury Secretary, made much of the fact that they were long-standing Chelsea fans. In 1991, the government introduced the Football Offences Act, making it unlawful for spectators to throw missiles, to get onto the pitch or – inserted as something of an afterthought – to participate in racist chanting. However, under the terms of the Act, it was only an offence if mass chanting took place. Significantly, individual acts of racist abuse were not unlawful and the practicalities of arresting hundreds or thousands of people all engaged in racist chanting were never addressed. In terms of a sanction against racist abuse, it was of little use, but, nonetheless, the legislation was important in representing a shift in government
discourse on racism in football. Whereas racist abuse had previously barely featured as a government issue, a degree of lip service was now being paid.

Meanwhile, historic events were taking place on the pitch. The 1987/88 season would prove to be a personal triumph for John Barnes. In his first season after a big-money move to Liverpool from Watford, his new side had won the title at a canter. As we have seen, he’d also finished as that season’s PFA Player of the Year and the Football Writers’ Footballer of the Year, thus becoming not only the first black player to win either award but also the first black player to win both in the same season. Barnes’s club, Liverpool, were narrowly denied a historic ‘double double’ when Wimbledon won that year’s FA Cup final.

In the previous March, England had played Holland in a pre-Euro 1988 friendly at Wembley. BBC commentator John Motson had described as ‘good-natured barracking’ the racist abuse meted out to then European Footballer of the Year and world’s most expensive player Ruud Gullit every time he was in possession of the ball. The Euro 1988 championships saw perhaps the most serious disturbances of any football tournament, with running battles between England and opposing fans. Once again, there was significant evidence of far-right involvement in the disorder. England was to lose all three games in the group stage and Gullit was to captain the Dutch to victory at the tournament.

In the wake of England’s disastrous campaign at Euro 1988, it was clear that changes were necessary. Paul Davis had received a call-up to the squad and was set to win his
first cap in October of 1988. In a game against Southampton, he’d received particularly close attention from Southampton midfielder Glenn Cockerill. Cockerill had committed a series of fouls and late challenges on Davis, who had asked the referee for more protection, but no action had been taken against Cockerill. When Cockerill stamped on him, the normally mild-mannered Davis exacted revenge. Davis had been an excellent all-round sportsman in his youth, and his response demonstrated that had he taken up boxing, there’s a good chance he would have been a decent pugilist. Davis floored Cockerill with an impeccable left hook and in the process broke Cockerill’s jaw. The incident wasn’t seen by the referee or the other officials, but was captured by TV cameras and Davis was charged by the FA. He was advised by Arsenal officials not to say anything in the lead-up to his FA hearing and rumours circulated in the media that Cockerill had racially abused him. This hadn’t been the case, but Davis’s silence on the matter exacerbated the situation. Had his punch been seen by the referee and he had been sent off in the game, he would have received a far more lenient sanction. A new ITV deal to show football matches meant that the broadcaster was keen to show off their new product and had displayed Davis’s punch several times and in super-slow motion. The subsequent media hype around the incident had contrived to significantly raise the profile of Davis’s action, and meant that the FA was under considerable pressure to make an example of him. He was served with a nine-match ban – at that time, the longest in the history of English football – and he received a £3,000 fine, a substantial amount for a footballer in 1988. Davis was removed from the England squad and lost the opportunity to represent his country. He would never gain an England cap.