Skip to main content

Wembleys Windrush moment offers reminder of barriers for black players

Speakers including Hope Powell, Luther Blissett and Jermain Defoe discussed facing racism and ongoing fight for equality

A unique celebration took place at Wembley last week. Inside the main banqueting suite of the national stadium, generations of black footballers, their friends and family, and others from the English game, gathered to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush. There was jerk chicken, potent rum punch and much laughter, but the challenges that faced those first Caribbean immigrants and their descendants were not far from mind either.

Luther Blissett reflected on being reunited with his parents as a five-year-old after they, like many who left the West Indies for England, had had to travel without children to take up a new life. He recalled the first time he was called the N word as he grew up in Willesden, north-west London. Finally, he spoke too about becoming the first black player to score for England, on his debut, with a hat-trick.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/9eHSdq6
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Guardian view on Covid-19, five years on: lessons still to be learned | Editorial

Though many would rather forget the pandemic, we are living with its consequences. Are we any better prepared for the next one? “When asked what was the biggest disaster of the twentieth century, almost nobody answers the Spanish flu,” notes Laura Spinney in her book Pale Rider, of an event that killed as many as one in 20 of the global population. “There is no cenotaph, no monument in London, Moscow or Washington DC.” Most of us will better understand that absence after Covid-19 , which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization five years ago this week. Some cannot put those events behind them: most obviously, many of those bereaved by the 7 million deaths worldwide (not including those indirectly caused by the pandemic ), and the significant numbers still living with long Covid . Others want to forget the loss of loved ones, the months of isolation and the costs to businesses, families and mental health. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? I...
Post a Comment
Read more