No Win Race. Derek A. Bardowell

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СКАЧАТЬ Not every black person felt the same, however. Tebbit’s theory seemed to target people of colour. Not a nationality test. A colour test.

      Tebbit’s test mirrored much of casual racist commentary of the eighties. I couldn’t think of a time, a moment, when I was watching cricket through the eighties and regularly buying cricket publications, that white foreigners had faced as much scrutiny. For much of the eighties, black English players, like the footballers, stayed mute.

      Years later, when former civil servant Robert Henderson penned an essay in Wisden Cricket Monthly in July 1995 entitled ‘Is it in the blood?’, the casual racism and elitism of English cricket surfaced once more. Henderson, who referred to black people in the article as ‘negroes’, claimed that ‘a coloured England-qualified player feels satisfaction (perhaps subconsciously) at seeing England humiliated, because of post imperial myths of oppression and exploitation’. Myths. He would go on to say that ‘mixed groups’ would never ‘develop the same camaraderie as eleven unequivocal Englishmen’, describing foreign-born English players as ‘interlopers’ and describing West Indians based in England as ‘generally resentful and separatist’.

      The article was widely condemned by cricket legends such as Ian Botham, David Gower and Michael Atherton, who would resign from Wisden’s editorial board as a result. Black cricketers like fast bowler Devon Malcolm and all-rounder Phil DeFreitas, implicated in Henderson’s piece, would later successfully sue the publication (despite being advised otherwise by cricket’s players’ union). But the cricket authorities had been at pains to cover up the fact that the legendary publication had just published an ill-informed, ill-researched piece of racist propaganda. That Frith, Wisden’s editor, couldn’t see it, was hardly surprising. Frith once said that Jamaican-born Devon Malcolm ‘acts, thinks, sounds and looks like a Jamaican. This hits the English cricket lover where it hurts.’¹⁸ What qualified Frith to know what a Jamaican acts like, how they think, what they looked like, I don’t know. I’ve never read all of Frith’s articles. But I cannot remember him condemning South African-English players like Allan Lamb or Robin Smith for sounding South African. Did they look like typical South Africans? Translated: Malcolm is black and that hits the English cricket lover where it hurts. Even allowing for the time, the politics of the English press seemed embarrassingly dated, perversely discriminatory, lacking in self-reflection, humility or understanding. They may have known black players, been friends with them, gone to the West Indies, eaten jerk chicken and rice and peas, but they had little conception of what it meant to be black. They made little attempt to find out. The message seemed to be that blackness could not equal Englishness. Worse still, in my mind it felt as if these writers and commentators were implying that English identity was some sort of proxy for racial purity.

      Malcolm would later say in his autobiography You Guys Are History!, ‘My kids had all been born in England, for heaven’s sake. They went to integrated schools and had white godparents. We all considered England our home, and colour wasn’t an issue in our choice of friends at school.’

      Phil DeFrietas, who also had his Englishness questioned by journalists throughout his career, continued to play for the national team despite threats from the National Front to kill him and his family if he played for England. DeFreitas turned down the opportunity of going on a ‘rebel’ tour of South Africa during apartheid when white national team members sacrificed their England careers temporarily to cash in on the riches offered by the racially corrupt regime. DeFreitas, in his autobiography Daffy, said that he never had the ‘desire to play for West Indies’ and given that he had learnt the game here, he felt he had a debt to pay to England. Not all black folks the same. Just like white English folks, there will be some who will die for England, and others who will not. The problem had less to do with black players and their motivations and much more to do with England and its own fragile state. That appeared to be the barrier, or at least a rarely questioned barrier, to true cohesion.

      England attributed their failure to a crisis of identity because they were trying so hard to hold on to the idea of Empire as the bonding force for the team. But this conception was now dated. Imaginary. The past. The English team no longer reflected England’s imagined self. And that’s what really hurt.

      My PE teacher and cricket coach in secondary school clearly did not, in my view, see blackness and Britishness as compatible. A stout, flushed-face man, more darts player than athlete, he often verbally abused pupils with his breathy, sour tones. I found him intimidating. I did not join the school football team in my first year because of his constant shouting and bullying. When, for the first time, he umpired one of our cricket matches, I had been captain. I dropped an easy catch. ‘Why the hell were you made captain, Beardwell?’ he shouted. Always called me that, Beardwell, with a dismissive tone.

      He assumed I supported the West Indies. So, he would mock me and every other black kid during PE lessons when they lost. Can’t remember ever saying I had been a West Indies fan. Thank God for Viv. It seemed like every time this teacher found fault, Viv, even in his later years, would do something to shut him up. In the 1987 World Cup, the West Indies lost their first match against England. This teacher prowled around making scornful comments. He’d probably call it banter. But it was offensive. Often discriminatory. But I had little option but to take it. I mean, who could I complain to? And what would they really do about it?

      This had been a weakened West Indian team; no Marshall, Holding or Garner, no Greenidge or Lloyd. But to lose to England, still embarrassing. West Indies’ following match came against Sri Lanka, then still a minor side. But given that the Sri Lankans were playing at home, I feared the worst. Richards once more rose to the occasion. He hit 181 runs off 125 balls, momentarily silencing my teacher.

      Temporary reprieve. The teacher took the captaincy of the school cricket team away from me. No reason. Gave it to a white kid, one of his favourite players from the football team. The only white kid on the team. Under my captaincy, the team had been poor. Under the white kid’s leadership, we were just as bad if not worse. I wanted the captaincy back. I’d been playing well. Felt as if I was still the best player in the team.

      I approached the teacher and told him that I wanted to captain the team again, or to at least co-captain. He said no, insulted that I would ask such a thing. I asked him why. He refused to respond. So, I refused to play. He made me run laps around the sports field in every PE lesson. At the start of every session, he’d growl, ‘Are you going to play?’ I’d say no. And then he would make me do laps while the other kids played football or cricket.

      I didn’t know whether the teacher’s decision to take the captaincy away from me had been racially motivated, even if I suspected it was. Wasn’t the sole point. I didn’t like the way he dismissed me, the way he treated me, the way he bullied me. Without prompting, the rest of the team agreed with my assertion. They didn’t like my treatment either. So, they refused to play too. The cricket team went on strike.

      A black teacher summoned me and the other black and brown players to his classroom to try and end the strike. I sat staring out the window as he tried to reason with us, make us aware that it was our duty to represent the school. The meeting ended in a stalemate.

      The situation had become embarrassing to the school as it could no longer field a cricket team. The PE teacher relented. He made me co-captain. We ended up with three captains: one black, one white and one Indian.

      The PE teacher continued to shout at me. He continued to try to intimidate me. I don’t believe our results were significantly better, but it had been a slight victory. It was probably the first time that I didn’t minimise myself. The first time I had not been hiding.

      Cricket represented the first time that I can remember feeling a true sense of pride in my Caribbean heritage. At home, my cultural reference points were more Jamaican than they were English. Outside of home, black and Caribbean culture and its history had been non-existent. Indeed, the only black person СКАЧАТЬ