Pitch Black (12 page)

To keep the two apart, Canoville was driven back to London by the physio, while his attacker was allowed to travel back on the team coach. Even then, his attacker was keen to continue the dispute. He carried a brick in his bag, which he planned to attack Canoville with when they made their scheduled stop. As it turned out, Canoville didn’t stop at the scheduled service station, so another confrontation was avoided, but the next day he was told not to report to the ground. He realised he would need to look for another club.

He had an offer from Brentford but eventually signed for Reading, who were newly promoted to the Second Division. A bad injury at Sunderland was followed by a year of rehabilitation. He never recovered fully and was forced to retire at the age of twenty-six.

Canoville’s career at Chelsea had been blighted by racism from start to finish. Chelsea went on to have the first black manager since Tony Collins, who managed Rochdale in the 1960s, in Ruud Gullit, who also became the first black manager to win a major domestic trophy. That Gullit’s acceptance into the role was achieved with little apparent hostility is due in no small part to the trials and tribulations Canoville
went through. He now works with young people in schools and has made peace with Chelsea, working on their corporate side as a match-day host.

Canoville’s story highlights the casual acceptance of racism in the game at the time, but it was never seen as one of football’s major problems throughout the 1980s. The game itself, however, had been in a particularly dark period for some time. Attendance at games was at an all-time low; the game’s image was even lower. 1985 proved to be a watershed year in English football. In March, at an FA Cup tie between Millwall and Luton Town at Kenilworth Road, thousands of pounds’ worth of damage was done and thirty-one arrests were made as Millwall fans invaded the pitch and mounted battles against police. In May, a fire ripped through Bradford City’s dilapidated, antiquated wooden stadium, killing fifty-six fans, and, on the same day, a teenage fan was killed after fighting between Leeds United and Birmingham City fans. On 29 May, thirty-nine Juventus fans died when a wall collapsed during skirmishes between Liverpool and Juventus fans in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. It led to an indefinite ban on English clubs competing in Europe.

Racism was seen as a by-product of hooliganism and far-right activity in the game. This meant that any attempt to solve the problem at this stage was very narrowly focused, concerned only with terrace abuse. While ending terrace abuse was an important issue, this approach meant that the issue of racism was reduced to no more than tackling racist chanting, and then only as part of a broader crackdown on hooliganism. However, two issues had raised the wider consciousness of football fans: the impact of the Heysel Stadium disaster and the government’s proposal to introduce ID cards. The banning of English teams from European competition,
supported by the government, as a result of Heysel meant that sanctions were imposed not only on supporters with a record of hooligan behaviour on foreign shores, but also on groups of supporters whose record in attending matches in Europe had been exemplary. The ID card proposal required football supporters to carry an ID card to attend football matches and would have an impact on casual attendance at football matches as well as civil liberties implications. Together, these two events would spawn a new fan culture, one that would have anti-racism as one of its core objectives. It would kick-start the campaign to tackle racism in the game.

JUST OFF LODGE
Lane, one of the main thoroughfares in Toxteth, is Ken’s Barber Shop. Owned by Kenny Drysdale, the shop, like many in black communities, is where men go to chat, gossip, exchange ideas and find out what’s going on.

In Kenny’s shop, on the wall and taking pride of place, are two photographs of him cutting the hair of John Barnes. The images were taken on the day that Barnes officially opened the shop, not long after he signed for Liverpool. Drysdale, like most barbers, is required not only to be skilled in the wide variety of hairstyles for black men, but also to be a news agency, confidant, relationship advisor, consumer expert and political analyst. Within black communities, haircuts are tribal. A certain hairstyle identifies the wearer with a certain style, music, fashion or political outlook and throughout the years the hairstyles of footballers have reflected the changing patterns and fashions of black communities.

Within black communities, footballers have held a unique position as far as hair is concerned. For the most part, they were freed from the restrictions placed on hairstyles by
workplaces and schools and, much like musicians or college students, have been largely free to have any haircut they like. In addition, their ‘down time’ and relative wealth afforded them the time and money to spend on their hair.

Observation of any fan forum or blog about terrible football haircuts will inevitably bring mention of George Berry. In the 1970s, wearing an Afro signified the new black pride imported from the US and copied from American cop shows, bands featured on
Top of the Pops,
and other limited opportunities to gain a glimpse into black US culture. The older generation often disliked the Afro. It was viewed as unruly and rebellious, but nonetheless it was popular amongst younger members of the community.

Eventually, the Afro went out of fashion and, in fact, became something of a source of embarrassment. The bubble perm, which was popularised by Kevin Keegan and far too many ’70s footballers, was a white version of the Afro. A twist on the bubble perm with added ‘wet look’ became extremely popular in the early part of the decade. Called the ‘Jheri curl’, the style found perhaps its finest exponent in Luton’s Ricky Hill, but others also sported the look. It was perfect for footballers. The style signified ‘aspiration’ and could be seen in any club that specialised in soul and dance music. Their hair was expensive to maintain, requiring regular attention. Hill sported one well beyond its sell-by date and must have spent a small fortune in maintaining it.

There were other variations on the style. Dave Bennett, in his Coventry days, wore a combination of a Jheri curl and a mullet. Such was the monstrosity of the mullet, it seemed difficult to top, but Bennett managed it well. As bad as it was, the mullet also had a strange impact on black hairstyles. The late David Rocastle wore a variation of Bennett’s
style. It had less of a ‘wet look’ about it, but did have a distinct sheen.

In many ways the opposite of the Jheri curl was the short-cropped hair with a parting. Before the popularity of elaborate lines and patterns, a simple, but distinct parting on one side was cut into the hair. Cropped hair with a parting was for self-styled bad boys. This trend could be seen at many a blues gathering, and its followers hated the Jheri curl crowd. Jheri curl wearers were flash, high maintenance and slept in hairnets to stop their hair drying out.

As the 1980s progressed, a style not seen for some two decades made a return. Popular in the 1950s as worn by a young Pelé at the 1958 World Cup, it was known as the ‘Table Top’, but the ’80s version, which was called a ‘Fade’, was extremely popular. Les Ferdinand had a version, as did Des Walker – so much better than the woeful Jheri curl he sported early in his career. The style returned in the 2010s, as illustrated by Danny Welbeck.

At the start of the 1990s, the ‘Funky Dread’ became popular. This was a uniquely British invention, rather than one imported from the US. It was a cross between a Fade and dreadlocks: the sides were cut short with dreads on top. Where the traditional dreadlock was highly political, the Funky Dread said black and proud, but was less politically charged. Jason Lee of Nottingham Forest wore a version of this style and was ridiculed mercilessly for it; to some extent, it defined his career.

Over the course of the 1990s, the tribal nature of haircuts, whereby your style reflected music, fashion etc., gradually diminished. But it didn’t completely end. Dreadlocks made an appearance some twenty years after they first appeared in Britain’s black communities. The style had been too political
for mainstream tastes in the 1970s. It was a hairstyle worn almost exclusively by Rastafarians. Its appearance in the 1990s was still political, but its religious or spiritual significance was no longer a part of its character. Richie Moran and Ricky Otto, both of Birmingham City, wore their hair this way.

Other styles weren’t tribal, followed no particular association with any movement and were nothing more than a law unto themselves. Iffy Onuora, in a chance holiday meeting with a cousin of Paul Ince, was informed that the then West Ham midfielder did little with his hair except to wet it and pat it down. Ince later sported a low-maintenance crop and was clearly a man who placed the maintenance of his hair extremely low on his list of priorities. In contrast, Jamie Lawrence cared a great deal about his hair. Sporting a succession of bizarre colours on his closely cropped hair, there was no way Lawrence could have been part of a tribe, given that he would have found it difficult to recruit disciples to his cause. It’s easy to forget that Lawrence wore Funky Dreads early in his career, but he is best remembered for his bleached blond, bright red, green and purple hair.

Lawrence’s bleached blond affair was also seen on the heads of others. Jermain Defoe briefly deviated from his no. 1 crop to sport a blond one, and then there was David James. James’s hairstyles were legendary. He had the bleached blond crop à la Defoe and Lawrence, but there was so much more to his repertoire. He had cornrows and bleached cornrows, an Afro and a bleached blond Afro, and he also had a kind of Clark Kent effort. Rio Ferdinand, along with his brother Anton, has had almost as many styles as David James and as the 2000s and 2010s progressed, many styles were recycled and reinvented, Welbeck being a case in point. Raheem
Sterling, for example, sported a similar style to Tony Daley’s Jehri Fade, but with a dancehall twist.

Although he spent most of his career with a low-maintenance short crop, Barnes did sport a Jehri curl when he scored his wonder goal for England, but thankfully the style had disappeared by the time he signed for Liverpool. Barnes had been staying at a Liverpool city centre hotel when he was contacted by Charlie Sealey, a local DJ, who invited him to attend functions and social events in and around Toxteth. Sealey’s approach to Barnes developed links between him and the black community that remain strong to this day. Prior to Barnes signing, Anfield was renowned as amongst the least welcome places for black footballers. Paul Davis remembered both Anfield and Goodison Park, the home of their neighbours Everton, as being hostile places to play football.

The two clubs are located less than a mile from each other and have no obvious geographical affiliation from which to draw support. However, south Liverpool, where Toxteth is located, has a tendency towards support for Liverpool. Like the rest of the city, Toxteth is a footballing hotbed, with a number of successful and entertaining sides, but very few of the city’s black population had ever made it through to the professional ranks, especially compared to the likes of Manchester or Nottingham.

Cliff Marshall had rejected overtures from Liverpool and Manchester United to sign for his boyhood club, Everton. He made his debut in January 1975 and went on to make only eight further appearances for the club before becoming disillusioned with the club’s stifling, safety-first approach under then manager Billy Bingham, and drifted away to spend time
playing in the USA. Boyhood Liverpool fan Howard Gayle became the first black player to play for Liverpool when he made his debut in 1981. He made only a handful of first-team appearances before he moved on.

In the intervening years, however, both clubs seemed uninterested in seeking out talent from within the black community. This seeming reluctance, and the racist abuse served out to any black player who played for opposing clubs, caused a schism between the club and the predominantly Liverpool-supporting black population.

Barnes arrived at Liverpool at the beginning of the 1987/88 season. Everton had just won the league, and newly appointed manager Kenny Dalglish set about rebuilding the Liverpool side. They had tried to sign Barnes the previous February, but Graham Taylor refused to sanction the move and told Barnes he couldn’t transfer until the end of the season. Barnes informed Liverpool of the situation and while the club was happy to get their man at the end of the season, Liverpool fans interpreted his failure to sign for the club as a snub and he was racially abused by Liverpool fans in one of his final games for Watford.

A hole in the Kop end meant that Liverpool’s first four games were away from home and Barnes’s new club had started the season well, with their new signing as the standout performer. An air of expectancy filled Anfield in the run-up to his home debut. Liverpool won and Barnes scored, and if there was any residual hostility to his signing, by the end of his Anfield baptism it had disappeared.

The impact that Barnes’s arrival on Merseyside had on Everton fans set in motion a period of fifteen years or so in which the club was associated with racism and indeed was regularly nominated as the most racist in the Premier
League. The racists took pride in the fact that they were a white team, although whatever benefits this ‘whiteness’ had brought the team were difficult to identify as the team lurched from one mediocre season to another. As Barnes’s arrival was supplemented by that of Mark Walters, David James, Michael Thomas and Phil Babb, the racists relished the dignity or purity of the ‘all-white’ yet sub-par Everton side. As terrace racism subsided even at places like Elland Road, Upton Park and Stamford Bridge, it increased at Goodison Park. Attitudes in the game were changing and a sizeable chunk of Everton’s support steadfastly clung to the 1970s and ’80s models of match attendance and support.

Barnes’s upbringing in a military family meant that any complaints about racist abuse would have been given short shrift. He was always unmoved by the racist abuse he received, which was just as well because he got a lot of it. Barnes had a thorough footballing and sporting pedigree. He was named John Charles after the legendary Leeds, Juventus and Wales forward. His father had played for the Jamaican national side and had also been captain. After his playing days were over, Barnes senior coached the national side. He also played rugby at Sandhurst, where he trained as an army officer and became the military academy’s boxing champion. Barnes’s sister represented Jamaica at swimming and squash. Football was the dominant sport in Jamaica – unlike other Caribbean islands such Barbados or Antigua, where cricket was more popular – and Barnes played organised football from the age of six. At twelve, his promise attracted the attention of scouts from US universities and he was offered a football scholarship by Washington State University. His father was posted to the UK for four years, so the thirteen-year-old Barnes had planned to stay in the UK and return to
Jamaica at seventeen with a view to taking up the scholarship offer.

Barnes attended a rugby-playing school but played football for Stowe boys’ club from the ages of thirteen to sixteen. The club, based in Harlesden in west London, was a predominantly black team with only two white players. Barnes used to attend matches at QPR, where he saw Derek Richardson and remembered Vince Hilaire. He never considered the impact of Regis, Cunningham and others, as his experience in Jamaica and his predominantly black team in London meant that, unlike other black kids who’d grown up in Britain, he wasn’t looking for black sporting role models and wasn’t aware of racism in football. His first experience of racism in football came when Stowe boys, as winners of an all-London five-a-side competition, were invited to and won the national five-a-side competition in Bradford. He’d never been outside London and was taken aback when his all-black team played an all-white team from Newcastle: ‘There were all these lads going, “You black cunt, you black bastard” in these funny accents.’

Playing local league football for Sudbury Court, he was spotted at age seventeen and invited to sign for Watford. With his family due to return to Jamaica as planned, Barnes was offered a professional contract to play football. The family decided that they would return to Jamaica, but John would stay in England, leave school and pursue a football career.

At Watford, Luther Blissett was already an established player. Charlie Palmer, who would go on to acquire legendary status at Notts County, was an apprentice at Watford at the time. David Johnson and Worrell Sterling were a year younger than Barnes.

With the exception of the trip to Bradford for the national five-a-side tournament, Barnes had never come across racism while playing grassroots football, but as soon as he became a professional he heard it in training from his own teammates, even towards Luther Blissett. As Graham Taylor put it, ‘Some of the things said at football clubs during training would make the Race Relations Board call for an inquiry. It is all in-the-heat-of-the-moment stuff, more often than not good-humoured abuse. In the street, that is different. It is cold and calculated.’

Barnes signed as a first-year professional thus avoiding an apprenticeship. In his first match, a reserve game, he scored after thirty seconds. He followed this up with a youth game. In the first game of Watford’s season, an away game against Newcastle, Blissett was sent off for kicking an opponent after suffering a racist taunt. His subsequent suspension earned Barnes a place in the squad, where he made his debut with fifteen minutes of the game remaining. He did well and earned himself a start against Chelsea, after which he became a regular in the side after only three games as a professional footballer.