John Barnes claims racism is stopping him managing again

[VladimirIlyich]

Barnesey is correct but his own example doesnt resonate as much as maybe other Black coaches and wannabe managers.

He is correct to say that the Leagues are full of white managers with a history of non success and more clubs than Tiger Woods ex missus.

When you listen to the likes of Mr Fracture(Dave Whelan) you understand why Black and ethnic ex players struggle to get managers jobs.

Shame Whelan wasnt so pro British when it came to looking after his Sports Company's staff.

Pro British obviously means British from all ethnic backgrounds and colour.

[Stu Monty]

Short version of your post: what Fat Ron thought of the effortlessly eloquent in multiple languages Marcel Desailly.

 

Come now; he may well have been a monster of a player and may well be multilingual but "effortlessly eloquent"? 

 

Quite often hearing him speak is like hearing a sentence being beaten up in a back alley. 

 

It's a better effort than my French like but, come on.

 

Best reply ever, sadly those of the "everything is racist" will disagree.

 

Reality often ruins an argument, unless you are blind to reality.

 

Colour is only an issue if those of a colour have an axe to grind, reality of the truth is, if you are good enough, you are good enough, colour doesnt come into it.

 

You will never get rid of racism until colour doesnt come into every argument, men are men, women are women, what difference does the skin colour have to do with it? answer? none, until you try to use it as a reason for anything you want it to be the reason for.

 

I didnt get the job because im black, I didnt do well as a manager because im black, I got arrested because im black.

 

Why cant it be

I didnt get the job because someone better for the role got it

I didnt do well as a manager because I wasnt good enough

I got arrested because I broke the law.....

 

Stop using colour and we might one day get away from colouring people instead of just saying "people".

 

Never cease to be surprised how many people still can't grasp the shit other people have to put up with (usually white, straight males).

 

How can anyone not understand that with people like Whelan running football clubs and Mackay coaching at them you are obviously going to have issues with discrimination. 

 

As The Daily Show said recently. "You're tired of talking about this shit? Try fucking living it every day!"

[stringvest]

Come now; he may well have been a monster of a player and may well be multilingual but "effortlessly eloquent"? 

 

Quite often hearing him speak is like hearing a sentence being beaten up in a back alley. 

 

It's a better effort than my French like but, come on.

 

 

Never cease to be surprised how many people still can't grasp the shit other people have to put up with (usually white, straight males).

 

How can anyone not understand that with people like Whelan running football clubs and Mackay coaching at them you are obviously going to have issues with discrimination. 

 

As The Daily Show said recently. "You're tired of talking about this shit? Try fucking living it every day!"

 

If I was looking for a job in football I would definitely discriminate against Whelan and Mackay.

[Longview1982]

Best reply ever, sadly those of the "everything is racist" will disagree.

 

Reality often ruins an argument, unless you are blind to reality.

 

Colour is only an issue if those of a colour have an axe to grind, reality of the truth is, if you are good enough, you are good enough, colour doesnt come into it.

 

You will never get rid of racism until colour doesnt come into every argument, men are men, women are women, what difference does the skin colour have to do with it? answer? none, until you try to use it as a reason for anything you want it to be the reason for.

 

I didnt get the job because im black, I didnt do well as a manager because im black, I got arrested because im black.

 

Why cant it be

I didnt get the job because someone better for the role got it

I didnt do well as a manager because I wasnt good enough

I got arrested because I broke the law.....

 

Stop using colour and we might one day get away from colouring people instead of just saying "people".

 

Let's imagine for one moment that you have a point here, and that we have a situation where colour isn't even a consideration. Is that the only form of discrimination in football recruitment? Given how women are represented much more frequently at executive level in "normal" businesses, isn't it strange that there are so very, very few in one of the richest businesses in the country? 

 

Now, why would that be?

 

It's because football is unique in being the fiefdom of prejudiced, white males who view anyone who isn't one of their own as unworthy of anything other than menial labour. 

 

Football attracts so many of this type of owner/executive/manager/player/fan precisely because it has a governing body that isn't the least bit bothered in changing such a culture and is happy to povide a safe haven for such attitudes and behaviours as long as the money keeps rolling in. 

 

The facts are there. Black managers are denied jobs, or don't apply, because football tacitly allows racist discrimination. Women are denied jobs, or don't apply, in executive roles because football tacitly allows sexist discrimination.

 

That's why colour is an issue in football.

[Megadrive Man]

That video's pure gold Lizzie, just randomly clicked somewhere in the middle and he's been shown an image of a black baby being fed to an alligator and he can't understand how that's racist. Then he shows him various golliwog masks with ridiculously over exaggerated lips and he refers to one of them as Diana Ross. It's like a comedy mock documentary.

 

Agreed.

 

Ron completely failing to realise what he's even done wrong and Max Clifford trying to take the moral high ground!

[grazywalker]

He did sign Michael Rickitts and keep playing him . Shit like that is gonna stick .

[Trumo]

He did sign Michael Rickitts and keep playing him . Shit like that is gonna stick .

 

He also signed a player for Celtic by the name of Scheidt. That lad was on a hiding to nothing.

[dennis tooth]

Did anyone see it? God I love Johnny Barnes Johnny Barnes hes the fucking man

[Tony Moanero]

dennis tooth knows.

 

John Barnes is the reason I'm a Liverpool fan. I was fucking stupid as a kid and on the verge of doing the unthinkable and switching allegiance from red to blue. That was until John Barnes signed for us and I realised just how boss he was. Phew!

[Denny Crane]

Barnes is boss but I would like a bit more evidence than because the same people keep getting jobs that is due to racism. I'm not naive to understand that people hold all sorts of absurd views but football is pretty cut-throat.

 

Football clubs would employ convicted rapists and peados if they thought it would give them any sort of advantage.

 

There are people who discriminate for all sorts of reasons in football. It’s very much a job for the boys historically. Although I think that is changing. I am not so sure if that is racism. It seems to be a case of how well connected you are, or if you have someone to champion you.

 

It is pretty much accepted that Ferguson vouched for lots of his former players apart from Keane and Ince who have hard a time getting jobs, but you would say both have a rep as being prickly characters.

 

If you are a football club owner and Fergerson writes saying Bruce deserves another chance, you get an interview.

  

I went through the 88/89 team and not many of them had many more chances at managing than Barnes. Spackman,  McMahon, Aldridge, Nichol, Molby. Whelan. The likes of Beardsley has been a youth coach at his home-town team and Kevin McDonald was at the Aston Villa academy a long time. There paths look very similar to Barnes a couple of jobs and media work. This assumes how much any of those wanted to manage anymore.

 

I don't think it is as clear-cut as what people are making out. A letter from Ferguson or Mourinho would help any aspiring manager more than any Rooney Rule or some bad press articles about you can taint your reputation immensely.

[Baltar]

[Razoray]

Losing Lambert to injury and especially Larsson to that horrific leg break were as big as any managerial shortcomings that the 37 year old Barnes had. Replacing him with a busted flush in Ian Wright was a tragic call. Its like Liverpool losing Sturridge and replacing him with Balotelli.

Hd did buy Stan Petrov who was huge player for Celtic for years after.

[Denny Crane]

FA told Graham Taylor not to pick ‘too many’ black players for England

• Exclusive: new book claims FA tried to impose unofficial quota system

• There is no suggestion former England manager adhered to the policy

A new book recounts former England manager Graham Taylor saying that senior figures within the FA attempted to pressure him to keep the national team predominantly white. Photograph: PA

Daniel Taylor

1,572

 

 

The Football Association tried to impose an unofficial quota system on the number of black players an England manager should be allowed to use, according to a new book about racism within the sport.

 

Pitch Black, written by Emy Onuora, includes a passage in which one of the sport’s leading anti-racism campaigners claims Graham Taylor admitted to him he had been summoned by two members of the FA’s hierarchy and told “in no uncertain terms” he should not go beyond a certain limit.

 

There is absolutely no suggestion that Taylor, with a long history of working with some of England’s leading black players over the past 30 years, adhered to this policy but the book recounts him saying there were senior figures trying to put pressure on him to keep the team predominantly white.

 

Taylor is said to have revealed this during a function at Watford’s ground during the 1999-2000 season when Richie Moran was the guest speaker. Moran, a Birmingham City player in the 1990s who eventually quit the game because of the racial abuse he suffered, recalls in the book: “Graham Taylor came up to me and said: ‘Look, I’m going to tell you something … I’m never going to admit it, I will be sued for libel.’ He said: ‘When I was manager of England I was called in by two members of the FA, who I won’t name …’ I volunteered two names. He said: ‘I’m not prepared to say, but I was told in no uncertain terms not to pick too many black players for the national side.’”

 

This also ties in with a Kick It Out function on its 10th anniversary in 2004, attended by Taylor, when it was reported that a former England manager had revealed the same conversation to other guests but declined to go public.

 

Taylor has been made aware of the book and told the Guardian he could not specifically remember the conversation with Moran. “That is not me trying to evade it – and it also doesn’t mean I didn’t say it – but if anyone looks at my record with club and country it would be obvious to everyone anyway that I didn’t follow what was apparently said. If anyone looks at my record, I could never be accused of blocking the way for any black player.”

 

Onuora’s book, officially launched on Friday, makes the same point but the allegations do potentially raise serious questions about the attitudes of some FA figures during a period of the game – Taylor managed England from 1990 to 1993 – when the sport was supposed to be leaving behind the more obvious elements of racism from previous decades. The FA has been notified about the revelation but has yet to comment.

 

Onuora, whose brother Iffy was a striker for nine professional clubs and later managed the Ethiopia national team, has a masters degree in ethnic studies and race relations and has lectured extensively on issues of race and sport. His analysis is that Taylor is unlikely to be the first England manager to have been given these instructions in the past.

 

Read more

“Moran’s revelation reveals that the FA’s primary concern was to preserve a predominantly white image of the England team, an image that they themselves had constructed and took great steps to preserve,” the author writes.

 

“There is no question of Taylor having acted on those instructions, but the episode raises some important questions as to how many other England managers were given the same instructions and therefore felt pressurised to limit the numbers of black players selected to play for the national side.

 

“During his playing career, Paul Davis had wondered whether some kind of unofficial quota system was in operation, but had never considered it beyond mere speculation. It would raise the question of how many black players had had their chances of playing for England restricted and what impact this might have had on England’s fortunes.”

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/06/graham-taylor-told-not-pick-too-many-black-players-fa-england

[matt1983]

Makes Carlton Palmer's caps total even more confusing...

 

Seriously though, I do wonder why Taylor was so keen to poo-poo Digger's opinions on his lack of management opportunities during that documentary. The idea that those kind of conversations have happened as late as that makes you wonder if his claims have some credence.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Another article on the book.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/shocked-players-stories-racism-footballs-9191389

 

As a boy growing up in 1970s Liverpool, Emy Onuora knew what it was like to face racist comments in the street and in the school yard.

But one matchday at Goodison Park shockingly brought home the full extent of prejudice on the pitch and the terraces.

“One of the defining moments of my life came when I went to a game where Everton were playing Stoke and Garth Crooks came on as substitute,” remembers Emy. “I must have been about 11 or 12 at the time and I’d never heard anything like 20,000 people giving a black guy racist abuse.

“I wasn’t naive, there were only about two or three black families in our school so of course I was familiar with racist taunts one-to-one but this was completely different, I’d never seen something on that scale before.

“There were monkey chants, people shouting ‘ni**er’ and ‘black b***ard’, coming from adult men and women not from kids, and it was so loud you couldn’t not hear it.

It was such a hostile atmosphere, I remember wondering how he must feel to have all that aimed towards him.”

Emy says he was aware of the reaction towards black players on Match of the Day. “You could hear chants and boos in the background on TV whenever Laurie Cunningham or Clyde Best came on or touched the ball, even though the commentators never mentioned it, but to be amongst it was quite overwhelming.”

The experience stayed with Emy, whose younger brother Iffy Onuora played for teams including Tranmere, and became coach and Ethiopia national team manager.

The eldest of nine children, growing up in Wavertree and Crosby, Emy went to Liverpool University to do an MA in Ethnic Studies and Race Relations before working with young people in education and tutoring.

Writing occasional articles for football fanzine What’s the Score and other publications, he began researching racism in the game but felt the books available were limited.

“So someone said to me ‘instead of just complaining about them, why don’t you write your own’?” he laughs. “I’d never sat down to write anything that substantial before but I made a wishlist of players to interview.

“I was keen to speak the ones I remember from the 70s and 80s in particular and talk to them about what it was like when they first started playing. I wanted to speak to people like Cyrill Regis and Brendon Batson, who played for West Brom and were part of what Ron Atkinson called The Three Degrees - the other one was Laurie Cunningham who’s no longer with us. I got to do that, which was great, and I spoke to Viv Anderson because he was the first black player to play for England.”

Emy also interviewed former Chelsea player Paul Canoville, the club’s first black player in the 1980s.

“He was actually booed by his own supporters,” says Emy. “When he scored goals they said they didn’t count.

"In the programme, where every other player was sponsored by a local firm - like a taxi company or builders - he was the only one who didn’t have his kit sponsored by anybody. He just had a dog’s life to be honest.”

Emy says he’s satisfied that the end result, Pitch Black: The Story of Black British Footballers, offers a valuable cross section of eras and experiences.

“I pretty much asked everyone the same or similar questions then allowed the conversations to follow their own course,” he explains. “They told me quite personal things, about how their mums would come to their first games and be so appalled at the abuse that they couldn’t bring themselves to go again.

“And they gave me an insight into what the dressing rooms were like, and the impact and politics of a black player coming into a club. One of the big things that comes out in the book is the resilience they displayed and the sense of camaraderie with other black players, even on the opposition teams, but some of it was eye-opening, even to me.”

Emy will officially launch the book at the Writing on the Wall festival in Liverpool on Friday, at an event featuring a discussion on racism and football. He will be joined at The Kuumba Imani Millenium Centre in Toxteth by his brother Iffy and ex-Birmingham City footballer Richie Moran in a night hosted by Peter Hooton from The Farm.

Racism in football was thrown back into the spotlight after Chelsea fans were filmed singing racist chants and refusing to let a black man on a train ahead of the Champions League clash against Paris St Germain.

So, does Emy think anything has changed since the 70s and 80s?

“Yes and no,” he reflects. “I think football is good at telling itself that it has moved on in terms of racism, and strides have been made because if a section of the crowd were to chant abuse at a player now then there are things in place to deal with that. But there still aren’t very many black sports writers, or black commentators or black managers or coaches so it’s still a big issue. Some progress has been made but lots more is still needed.”

For tickets for the Writing on the Wall event on Friday, 7pm, visitwww.writingonthewall.org.uk/