On the pitch, at least, West Ham has done its fair share in the battle to break down the barriers that ethnic minorities so often have to overcome. It should be a matter of eternal pride to everyone associated with the Hammers that, at a time when black players were struggling to break into professional football, we were one of the first clubs in the UK to field three in the same League side.
Put the date in your diary and make a mental note to celebrate it quietly every year from now on: it was 1 April 1972 and the three players in question were Clyde Best, Ade Coker and Clive Charles. We beat Spurs 2–0 at Upton Park, with Coker getting one of the goals.
Clive Charles’ elder brother John had become the first black player to turn out for West Ham some nine years earlier, making it into the first team after captaining the side that won the 1963 Youth Cup. He was also the first black player to represent England at any level, winning five international caps as a youth. Clive was a decent footballer himself, and Coker showed early flashes of brilliance before ultimately moving to the US. But it’s Clyde Best who will be best remembered as a trailblazer by my generation of West Ham loyalists.
I loved the guy. Most of us did. Sure, he could be frustrating – he had the build of a boxer, the athleticism of an Olympic sprinter and could cover the ground like a downhill skier. Yes, with his talent and physical attributes he probably should have scored more goals than he did. But when he did get it right, no defender could live with him. Some of his goals were the sort of efforts that stay with you for ever – blistering shots from 30 yards; diving headers in a sea of boots; crisp volleys that left opposition keepers motionless as the ball flew past them. And he understood what the supporters expected from their players.
It’s fair to say I can’t work up quite the same amount of affection for Karren Brady, who was appointed vice chairman of the club by owners Gold and Sullivan shortly after they took over. She used her column in The Sun to big up the fact that, at the end of the 2010/11 season, the PFA – in her words – ‘came along and rated us highest of all the ninety-two senior clubs for players doing anti-racism and disabilities work.’
She was rightly proud of the achievement. But she then went and ruined a special moment by writing: ‘When you remember that East London was once a hotbed of racism, and a rain of bananas used to greet Bermudan Clyde Best when he first played at Upton Park in the ’60s, you understand exactly why the club is so committed and will remain so committed.’
Hang on a minute Karren – sorry, Baroness Brady – ‘a hotbed of racism’? That’s a bit strong isn’t it? Yes, over the years we have had a number of followers whose dislike of their fellow human beings is based on little more than the colour of their skin, but to suggest the entire East End was once a step away from Mississippi Burning? Some people could take offence at that.
You’re right in saying halfwits did occasionally throw soft fruit at Clyde Best. Others pelted him with peanuts. Some merely contented themselves with making monkey noises. The point is, they weren’t usually our halfwits. These clowns were generally supporting the opposition. I do remember one bloke referring to him as Sooty throughout a game, which is undoubtedly offensive but more indicative of an age that laughed at Love Thy Neighbour than one that identified with the Ku Klux Klan.
Crucially, the man at the centre of if all has no recollection of being abused by his own side. A couple of years before the Baroness’s article, Best had told a newspaper that uses rather longer words than The Sun: ‘I never had any trouble with the West Ham fans. All I felt from them was love. East End people are good people and they will always love somebody who gives their all. I always tried my best for them.’
Clyde Best, MBE, we salute you for making life just that little bit easier for those who followed in your stud marks.
I’m sorry to report that the same cannot be said of Clyde’s more famous namesake. I fully realise that George Best had a serious drink problem, but that’s no excuse for the racial slur I once heard him use.
He was on stage at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon as part of a question and answer session with fans of all clubs. It was days after Andy Cole had been transferred to Manchester United from Newcastle and Best was asked if he thought the record British transfer fee of £7 million was a reasonable price to pay. He contemptuously dismissed the suggestion with a description of Cole that began with the letter ‘n’ and rhymed with ‘trigger’.
There were gasps throughout the hall, but Best seemed completely unconcerned that his use of possibly the most abusive word in the English language could cause such offence. I stood to leave but Nick placed a restraining hand on my shoulder, just as I had done with young Mike at the Spurs Cup tie. He’d spent a lifetime learning to live with abuse like this and had the maturity to shrug it off. It was precisely the same sort of racist stupidity that would later cost Ron Atkinson his job as a TV pundit, but Best clearly felt it was all perfectly acceptable.
Ten years later Best died as a result of fatal complications with the drugs that he had been prescribed after a controversial liver transplant. Man U’s first game following his death was at Upton Park and, while I bowed my head to mark the sorrow of the family and friends he left behind, I couldn’t bring myself to join the minute’s round of enthusiastic applause that was offered up by way of a tribute.
When, I wonder, will gay footballers unearth a pathfinder cast in a similar mould to the likes of Clyde Best and John Charles?
It is inconceivable that every single professional footballer is heterosexual – the laws of probability dictate otherwise. I recognise that narrow-minded attitudes in the game, both in the dressing room and in the stands, make it difficult for players to be open about their sexuality. But there has to come a time when the anti-gay abuse will look as embarrassingly stupid as the monkey noises do now.
We dish it out to the Brighton fans whenever we meet – most clubs do. ‘Does your boyfriend know you’re here,’ and: ‘We can see you holding hands,’ are dusted off with monotonous regularity. I reckon the Seagulls have come up with the perfect response, though. ‘You’re too ugly to be gay!’
If any set of supporters is going to get behind gay players, I like to think it’s going to be us. In a way we do it already.
At Upton Park, if you hear the cry of ‘Come On The Hammers!’ it will almost certainly be from a pre-pubescent child attending their first game. What you will hear, often quite loudly, is ‘Come On You Irons.’ To the uninitiated it simply sounds like we are getting behind the team. Some of the better informed opposition supporters may even know we were once the Thames Ironworks, and think the connection lies there.
What they probably don’t know – particularly if they come from north of Watford – is that an ‘iron’ is also a shortened version of ‘iron hoof’, which in rhyming slang is a distinctly non-PC reference to the one in ten males who are sexually attracted to their own gender. If it’s not a phrase you’re familiar with, take a minute or two to work out what ‘hoof’ rhymes with. It’s a rather old fashioned term now, but it’s not that difficult. (If you’re Phil Brown – Sam Allardyce’s former assistant – give yourself a little longer; as the man who believed a player couldn’t settle in a foreign country because he was homophobic rather than homesick, you clearly need all the time you can get.)
Incidentally, can anyone tell me what an iron hoof actually is? I know about iron fists, iron lungs, iron horses, the Iron Age, the Iron Duke and even the Iron Cross. But what the hell is an iron hoof? I’ve always assumed it’s an ancient term for a horseshoe, but that could be as misplaced as a James Collins back-pass.
Whatever the explanation, it does rather give a double meaning to ‘Come On You Irons.’ Could you imagine a fan of any other club urging on their team while simultaneously suggesting that the whole lot of them are a little less than totally alpha-male? Of course not. But we do – and, given the testosterone-fuelled atmosphere inside Upton Park at any given moment, it is another clue to the workings of the claret and blue mind
. A case of ‘Come On You Ironies’, in fact.
If the bigotry surrounding homosexuality in football is to be broken down, it needs gay players to come out when they are at the height of their fame, not wait until they retire as Thomas Hitzlsperger did. One thing has intrigued me since the German international who turned out for us a few times in the dismal 2010/11 season made his announcement. Long before he joined West Ham he had earned the nickname of Der Hammer on account of the explosive shot he packed in his left foot. Had he come out when he was playing at Upton Park would it have been right and proper to rename him Der Iron? I’ll leave you to work that one out for yourself.
Given that touching on sexual politics is as risky as attempting to offer a peckish Luis Suarez the temptation of naked flesh, let’s take a leaf out of the early Allardyce coaching manual by giving this political football a serious hoof and getting it out to the wings as quickly as possible. The question, at West Ham, is whether or not that is left wing or right wing? The reason I ask is that a friend of mine once suggested his club was essentially left-of-centre – which set me thinking about whether or not football clubs in the UK were political and, if so, how would you categorise West Ham?
As with all the best debates, this one took place in the pub. David, being from Yorkshire, was supping a pint of northern filth with some name like Theakston’s Old Knee Trembler when he came up with his theory. I swirled my red wine gently to allow a little more oxygen into the already passable Merlot and listened carefully as he explained.
David, I should warn you, supports Sheffield United:
It was during the run-up to the February 1974 general election, when chants of ‘Heath Out’ would regularly be heard from the Kop, notably on the strange occasion when we played – yes – West Ham on a Tuesday afternoon, kickoff 3 p.m., instead of in the evening because of the floodlight ban that accompanied the three-day week. It’s possible that we regarded West Ham, being poncey southerners, as somehow representative of the government. Anyway, we won 3–0.
Hmmm. And is there more ‘evidence’ to support this argument? ‘Clubs on the eastern side of their cities have always been more working-class than those elsewhere because the east is where the capitalists built the factories, steel mills etc (so the wind wouldn’t blow the pollution in their direction). So United have always had more working-class fans than Wednesday, which is miles away in the suburbs to the west. It’s the same with West Ham and Chelsea.’
Back in 1974, of course, the Sheffield United fans got their wish and Ted Heath was ousted as prime minister. Unfortunately for us all he was to be replaced as leader of the Tory party by a certain Margaret Hilda Thatcher, who was no lover of football supporters wherever they came from.
Ten years later, when the most radical Conservative government of the twentieth century was busy ripping the heart out of industrial England, some West Ham fans would wave fistfuls of tenners at visiting supporters of northern clubs such as David’s and chant ‘We’ve got jobs, we’ve got jobs!’ No doubt the man who was MP for West Ham South at the turn of the twentieth century was spinning in his grave at that – although mention the name Keir Hardie to most East Enders these days and their initial thought is a large housing estate in Canning Town rather than the first leader of the Labour Party.
Despite David’s compelling case, my guess is that most West Ham fans care as little about party politics as the rest of the country. However in Italy, particularly Rome, there does seem to be a clear connection between followers of political parties and the club they support. AC Roma is generally considered to appeal to fans whose political beliefs lean to the left, while Lazio attracts those of a right-wing persuasion.
Lazio is the spiritual home of Paolo Di Canio, who many West Ham fans would like to see back at the club in the manager’s office. He himself believes it is his destiny.
He was a wonderful player for our club – one of the best we’ve ever had. Anyone who has ever seen his astonishing goal against Wimbledon as he morphed into Neo from The Matrix to volley home Trevor Sinclair’s cross will know instantly what I’m talking about. Goal of the season? That was the goal of a lifetime. There are so many Di Canio memories: the fantastic moment of sportsmanship that won him the FIFA fair play award when, rather than head home into an empty net, he caught the cross and demanded that play be stopped until the prostrate Everton keeper was restored to full health; the time he wrestled the junior Frank Lampard for the ball when we were awarded a penalty in the amazing comeback game against Bradford City in which we turned a 2–4 deficit into a 5–4 victory; the way he had pleaded with Harry Redknapp to substitute him only minutes before in the same game.
And there’s no doubting his love of West Ham; he’s even got the tattoo to prove it. The trouble is he’s got other tattoos as well, and they are a good deal less savoury. His back alone is a tribute to fascism, featuring a symbolic imperial eagle and a portrait of Italian wartime leader Benito Mussolini, complete with military helmet. Mussolini, Adolf Hitler’s closest ally and architect of one of the most repulsive ideologies mankind has dreamt up, liked to be known as Il Duce – ‘The Leader’. If the picture on Di Canio’s back wasn’t enough, his arm carries a tattoo that says Dux, the Latin translation of Duce.
In his time at West Ham, from 1999 to 2003, Di Canio wisely kept his political thoughts to himself. Neither did he celebrate any of the forty-eight goals he scored in 118 appearances by hailing the crowd with a straight-armed fascist salute. But he did just that when he returned to Lazio – the club he supported as a boy and notorious for its links to extreme right-wing politics. And he did it more than once.
Di Canio is adamant that he’s not a racist, which rather suggests he doesn’t fully understand what fascism is all about. A political movement that is based on the idea that the people of one nation are inherently superior to those of other countries and continents is inherently racist – and it doesn’t become any more palatable when the believers of this idiocy try to implement their way of thinking with extreme violence.
Politics has no place in football, say Di Canio’s supporters. I disagree – politics and money go hand in hand, and there’s a lot of money in Premier League football. But even if they were right, there are some things that are just wrong. To appoint a man who has aligned himself so closely to fascism as club manager would do untold damage to the credibility of West Ham.
I should probably be more disapproving than I am of the fact that West Ham’s owners made most of their money from pornography, which is not exactly one of humanity’s most noble endeavours. But you reach a certain stage in your life when you realise you can’t be outraged about everything – your mates stop talking to you for one thing – and while I accept that a significant proportion of the population is offended by porn, I personally don’t lose a lot of sleep over the fact some people are prepared to strip off their kit for the amusement of others. Censorship is more dangerous than sex, I reckon.
I do, however, still have it in me to stand up and protest against those who wish to subjugate me and mine. The East End has a proud tradition of resisting fascists. The Battle of Cable Street sent Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts packing as they tried to spread their message of fear and intimidation. And the people of the area withstood the worst Hitler and his air force could throw at them as the bombs rained down during the Blitz. They even coined a phrase to encapsulate their defiance – ‘We can take it.’
I think there is something in the DNA of every West Ham supporter that yearns for one of our great players to return as manager and create a side in their own image. But I’m sorry, Paolo, it can never be you. You see, if you were to get the job it would send out the message to those who want to intimidate Jews and Muslims and gays and anybody else they don’t like that it is somehow all right to do so. And that we couldn’t take.
Chapter 19
Dear Mr Bonds
I HOPE YOU DON’T mind me writing to you like this. You don’t know me – we’ve never met. I’ve wanted to
drop you a line for a long time now, but I’ve always been worried you’ll think I’m a bit daft for saying this. You see, you’re my hero.
Is it all right if I call you Billy rather than Mr Bonds? I know it’s a bit informal, but you don’t strike me as the sort of bloke who insists on standing on ceremony. To be honest, I’ve always thought of you as Bonzo, but I’m worried that would sound overly familiar in a letter from a complete stranger.
As a supporter you get the feeling some players think of us as nothing more than a bunch of mugs. Perhaps they’re right – putting your heart and soul into a football team probably isn’t the most intelligent thing in the world. But that’s what we do – and you got that, didn’t you? You understood the passion, the loyalty and the pride that drives us on. Not only did you understand it – you shared it. In fact, you personified it.
‘Legend’ has to be the most overused and undervalued accolade of our age. Give your mate a lift to work when his car won’t start and all of a sudden you’re a legend. But there was a time when to be a legend meant a whole lot more, and it is in that knights-of-the-round-table spirit I would use the word to describe you.
Please don’t think I’m trying to embarrass you – that’s the last thing I’d want. Having read a bit about you over the years (well, quite a lot actually) I understand that you are a deeply private person who would be horribly uncomfortable at the thought of receiving a letter out of the blue that’s gushing with praise for all the things you did at West Ham. I’ll try not to do that. It’s just that for me – and countless others – you embody everything the club should stand for. We’d like you to know how we feel.
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