Everton fans top racist 'league of shame'

[BlueTiggaOli]

Just read this in the guardian:

 

Racial abuse aimed at black or foreign players at football grounds is still rife, according to university researchers who carried out a survey of 33,000 fans.

Fans from Everton, Rangers and Celtic topped the league table for making the largest number of racist comments heard, the survey found.

Arsenal, Charlton Athletic and Wimbledon won praise for reducing racism through campaigns inside their grounds, but according to Sean Perkins, of the Sir Norman Chester centre for football research at Leicester university, racism overall has remained much the same since the last survey, in the 1996-97 season.

The research covered the four divisions of the English football league plus Rangers and Celtic, but only last year's Premier league teams and Scotland's two leading clubs were ranked in a "league table of shame".

Fans were asked: "Have you witnessed racism aimed at players this season (1998-99)." The percentages of fans who heard racist abuse were: at Everton 38%, at Rangers 36%, at Celtic 33%, at West Ham 32% and at Newcastle by 31%. Best in the ranking were Wimbledon on 11%, Charlton on 12%, Derby on 14%, and Southampton and Arsenal on 16%.

Everton fans became notorious in the 1980s for singling out the black footballer John Barnes, who played for Liverpool, during his first appearance in a Merseyside derby, when scores of bananas were thrown on to the pitch. The club was also one of the last in the country to have a black player in the team.

Other clubs such as Chelsea, Leeds and Rangers became fertile grounds for organised rightwing groups in the 1980s and vociferously abused black players and fans, with the football authorities and police turning a blind eye.

Dr Perkins said that although abuse overall did not appear to have diminished, it did seem to changing. More overt abuse, such as throwing bananas on to the pitch and groups chanting abuse, was rarer, and most examples were confined to individual bigots.

The abuse was not confined to black players: foreign players were also verbally abused.

"The fact that racist abuse in all its forms is being reported so readily could be an encouraging sign that the high profile campaigns make people aware it is going on," he said.

Since the 1980s, however, football has tackled racism. Many clubs have signed up to anti-racist initiatives and tried to attract non-white fans to their grounds. Figures continue to show that few black fans attend matches.

The campaign is led by Kick It Out, which has enlisted the help of leading footballers to highlight racism, organises anti-racist days at the clubs, had Kick It Out banners erected at clubs, and is launching an anti-racist campaign at the end of this month with the support of the England manager, Kevin Keegan.

The government has recently tightened legislation to stamp out racist chanting at grounds. Charlton Athletic said yesterday that leading clubs needed to do more to combat racism in and outside grounds.

Yasin Patel, of Charlton Athletic for Race Equality, set up by the club and the local authority, said: "It's good news for Charlton, but the survey shows that many clubs are merely paying lip service to the problem of racism."

Dr Perkins said the fears of football fans had also changed. "Before the Hillsborough disaster people were scared of being beaten up in grounds or crushed. Now it is more about lifestyle and sensibilities. Women and children, for example, who are now far more numerous in grounds, are offended by swearing, whereas men regard this as part and parcel of being a football fan."

Another new factor, caused by all-seater stadiums, was that fans could no longer move away if a fan next to them was offensive, as they had been able to on the terraces.

[MikeO]

"Have you witnessed racism aimed at players this season (1998-99)."

 

[smeghead1]

Id like to see who was asked in that survey, i havent heard any racist abuse at gp for years. Can anyone shed any light on this survey? Was anyone approached?

[BlueTiggaOli]

The journo was probably RS

Edited December 29, 2011 by BlueTiggaOli

[marcopaulo]

"Have you witnessed racism aimed at players this season (1998-99)."

 

 

exactly what i was thinkin..

[smeghead1]

"Have you witnessed racism aimed at players this season (1998-99)."

 

I missed that Mike, makes me wonder which rs fan has desided to bring this up then. Trying to take the heat of the Suarez issue no doubt.

[MikeO]

Twelve years out of date....

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/jan/07/race.world

[Hafnia]

At the same time the method of obtaining results could be used as a way of saying "everton fans are more against racism"

 

So they ask the fans in the ground "have you heard racism?" - I'm sure the ones who dish it out or agree with it would say no. The ones who are disgusted by it will say yes.

[c1982]

Just read this in the guardian:

 

Fuck me you're a slow reader!!!

[StevO]

I have heard racism at Goodison in recent years, i've always thought it was the same bloke to be honest, but never seen him. Only heard him, and half the fans around him just laughed when he shouted "thats three of the laziest niggers i've ever seen" when yak, saha and vic were on the pitch once.

No place for it. But as I said, always sounded like the same bloke. Exception to the rule, not the norm.

[c1982]

Chap behind me has been banned in lower gwladys - was about 2 seasons ago and he only had the ticket as his mate had broke his leg! He was a horrible fucker, he could hardly string sentence he was that smashed but it got to the point that it was embarrassing to sit near him as every other word was n***er or c**t.

[Zoo]

I think that racism happes all around football and although its not a good thing for the sport I think it would be very hard to get rid of altogether. The article posted above is quite un-clear as to what it has been seeing as racism, most clubs will have supporters in their stands that will use racist words as part of their vocabulary but don't mean it to any offence (for example - whispering a quite joke about Saha to his mate) whilst it's in no ways acceptable I'm sure that any club with black players will have people sitting in the stand making racist jokes about them. I mean the article says that Arsenal are one of the best grounds for anti-racism but your not telling me that some bloke at the back of the stand hasn't whipsered a quick joke every now and then to his mate about one of the players ethnicity.

 

For me racism gets too far when the abuse starts to get aggressivly aimed at a certain player which is in my opinion disgraceful (and this side of the game should full be stamped out). I remember back in 2003 (I think) Dwight Yorke was warming up for Blackburn Rovers when two of the fans in the main stand started to do rather exaggerated monkey impressions at him. Yorke himself pointed the guys out to his manager and they were both ejected from the ground - in my opinion that is when racism goes too far and should be wiped out from the sport.

 

Another example is in the Russian league not too long ago, Roberto Carlos was running down the wing when he had a banana hurled at him which forced him to leave the pitch in anger seeing as it had happened the previous week too. Once again there is no place for this kind of behaviour in football and there is no reason why it shoulden't be stamped out altogether.

 

The point I'm trying to get out about these two incidents is that I have never seen it at Goodison in the years that I have been going. Never once have I seen someone from the Upper Bullins hurl a bag of bananas at one of our players and I've never seen anyone from the Main Stand get up and start doing monkey impersinations, what I'm trying to say is that I disagree with the article totally, Everton Football Club has been penned a 'racist' club when there are much, much worse clubs out there.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Zoo

[pete0]

The only racism I heard at the match was about Emile Heskey '£11 million for..." chant. There was "Everton are white hello hello" as well but I dont know whether I've heard that right or has if it has another meaning.

The pubs are far worse, with the n bomb mostly used by the kopites(especially when they play utd), geordies, and mackems(the geordie and mackems used it more as a derogatory against everyone regardless of skin colour) from my experience.

[MikeO]

We were very late to include non-caucasian players at Everton, there's no doubt about that, and racism was pretty rife at games in the eighties (I'm talking away games because I lived in London and rarely got to Goodison). "We are white" chants were common. I was very uncomfortable with it but it was accepted behaviour....not just among the Everton fans I have to add....it was considered acceptable behaviour where I worked and drank as well.

 

Wasn't until Mike Walker brought in Amokachi and Joe Royle signed Earl Barrett that it really began to change so well into the nineties. Don't really like to speculate on the reasons for that....hope it wasn't any sort of unofficial club policy.

 

We did have Mike Trebilcock and Cliff Marshall briefly in the '60s & '70s.

[duncanmckenzieismagic]

I think racism is still rife at Everton games and so its no real surprise to me.

 

Its not really prevalent at Goodison anymore or at least not in the Park End where I sit but I have heard racist chants at just about every away game this season. Its precisely why I would never use Barnes travel ever again because there coaches always seem to be full of scallies and low lives who seem to be at the centre of such chants

[BlueTiggaOli]

I wasnt really sure what to think of it so i thought id get your cerdict on it, now i realise i misread it

[Avinalaff]

33,000 fans from where?

 

Outside the grounds, or on the Internet?

 

If it's on the Internet, I'd be surprised if 33, let alone 33000, actually ever visited an away ground.

 

Inside a ground, football fans often turn into apes. They get rid of their anger, aggression, and frustrations, and then go home ready for the week. Some take it too far.

[nutmegwolf203]

I think racism is still rife at Everton games and so its no real surprise to me. Its not really prevalent at Goodison anymore or at least not in the Park End where I sit but I have heard racist chants at just about every away game this season. Its precisely why I would never use Barnes travel ever again because there coaches always seem to be full of scallies and low lives who seem to be at the centre of such chants

 

 

I have heard racism at Goodison in recent years, i've always thought it was the same bloke to be honest, but never seen him. Only heard him, and half the fans around him just laughed when he shouted "thats three of the laziest niggers i've ever seen" when yak, saha and vic were on the pitch once. No place for it. But as I said, always sounded like the same bloke. Exception to the rule, not the norm.

 

I have to say, given the way that I've adopted this club as my own, and have experienced discrimination on a few levels myself, it's a shame I could potentially feel so unwelcome once I finally make it to a match home or away. I began enjoying this club for the way we play...I had no clue it was one of the least progressive out there in terms of these matters. I've known about that guardian article, and it's embarrassing. I'm not confident about my first prospective trip to Goodison, not at all. I watch as many matches as possible and I realize how alone I'll be. I come from a small town in Connecticut, I know what it's like to be a minority. But I'm willing to bet what I've experienced here is quite tame compared to what I could witness in 90mins at Goodison. Being compared to a monkey is one of the most demoralizing things that someone can experience, without being physically harmed.

 

Just an ethnographic question to put out there: Is this trend a result of the type of population in Liverpool?

[Cozza]

Racism has no place anywhere. We all bleed the same, breath the same and die the same. I remember watching a Rugby League match on the TV and one of our (Australian) national players is a Fijian by birth and was playing for his club at an away ground when someone on the sidelines called him a monkey while he was being substituted. The player (Petero Civonceva, trying pronouncing that) ran up to the spectator and almost throttled him (the player is a prop as well, so the spectator would have been shit scared). The player restrained himself and the spectator learned that Petero was definitely not a monkey. The spectator has been banned for life and the player is even more respected than before.

 

Racism needs to stop, the spectators are there to enjoy a game, not find people to mock. If anything mock the team, or the players ability, not for something that they were born with. That racist person is just lucky he has parents that are white or else he would be the one being mocked.

[MikeO]

I'm not a local Nutmegwolf so no expert but things are a lot different now to waht they were in the bad old days....even in the ten odd years since this survey came out the city has changed. This isn't about race but it'll tell you a bit about the city..from The Times last year....

 

How Liverpool returned from the dead

 

Stephen Bayley

 

 

Cities are living organisms. This means sometimes they die. Pompeii is one example, although no one saw it coming. Detroit’s fate was more predictable, possibly even inevitable: Motor City is stuck in reverse and headed for oblivion.

 

Liverpool nearly died. Like Detroit, it fell at great speed from economic and social grace. Unesco World Heritage credentials describe old Liverpool as “the supreme example of a commercial port at the time of Britain’s greatest global influence”. It was the New York of Europe.

 

But by about 1960 merely to say the name was to evoke misery, vice and wretchedness. Liverpool was Broken Britain before David Cameron was born.

 

For good and for bad, what a curious hold this city exerts. I rarely re-visit, but it often revisits me. I was born in Wales, have spent most of my life in London, merely went to school in Liverpool, but still regard it as home. Scouse sentimentality is infectious. And Boris Johnson was not entirely wrong when he accused Liverpudlians of being whining recidivists (although he may have misinterpreted the local art of ironic self-deprecation). The architect, Will Alsop, had a huge falling-out with politicking interests and told me: “Liverpudlians do not deserve such a wonderful place.”

 

Liverpool is a place of dramatic vividness: it has more architecture, art, poetry and humour than neighbouring Manchester. In particular, the architectural heritage is incomparable: Liverpool has a disproportionately high number of listed buildings. And the range of the fabric goes from sublime to tragic, passing through melodramatic and absurd. No wonder it produces fine poets and comedians.

 

Growing up there was a real sentimental education. The city taught me to think. And it taught me to think by making me look. Liverpool has an almost overwhelming physical presence, not all of it good. Brooding, slovenly, magnificent, romantic, miserable, tatty, funny, proud, heroic, shameless, tragic, exciting in turns, it’s a city that demands a response. I don’t know anywhere with more variety of building styles. As a child I realised, before I even knew what “design” meant, that while one composition of bricks, stone and glass was magnificent, another could be soul-destroying.

 

From an urban near-death experience, Liverpool has, over the past ten years, literally and metaphorically rebuilt itself. Becoming Europe’s City of Culture in 2008 provided a compelling deadline while an ambitious agency called Liverpool Vision has co-ordinated investment initiatives. The Duke of Westminster’s property company has created Liverpool One, the biggest development of its type in Europe. Here and elsewhere, serious architects — WilkinsonEyre, Piers Gough, John McAslan and AHMM — have made striking, new landmarks. There’s an energy and optimism in Liverpool not seen since the Luftwaffe visited.

 

Strange then that London politicians have not noticed. There is no more certain evidence of a healthy culture and a healthy economy than a thriving metropolis, but read the manifestos and it appears that no party understands the urgent necessity of stimulating growth by well-managed maintenance and well-designed new building. It’s the fabric, stupid.

 

I’d like to take party leaders to Liverpool to explain what makes a city great. And then I’d go on to explain that great cities produce great wealth and make people happy. I would have T-shirts printed with the legend “We make our environments and then our environments make us”. I would add that wealth and happiness are more likely to be created by great architecture than tinkering with national insurance contributions.

 

Historic Liverpool turned its riches into architecture. Now, there is a prospect that new architecture is going to attract riches. Liverpool is splendid proof that you can design your way out of a depression. Architecture changes our moods and expectations, enhances (or diminishes) our view of the world. And the best argument for good design is that it lasts for ever — unlike politics where, as we all know, a week is a very long time.

 

I am often asked: “What makes a good building?” And after years of thinking about it, the answer is quite simple. A good building is one that makes you feel better. A bad building is one that makes you feel worse. And great cities are accumulations of good buildings. That’s why architecture is more important than politics. And why Liverpool is an inspiration.

 

This you may find interesting also http://uk.answers.ya...24090216AAsmPAn

 

As to racism in the ground I can only repeat that it's gone from being pretty common in the eighties to the point where in the last decade (since I started taking my son after a long period of not going to games) I've not heard or seen any sign of it.....which of course doesn't mean it doesn't exist; but I really don't think we're any worse than any other club. Put 20/30/40,000 people together and you're always going to get a proportion of idiots in there.

[StevO]

I have to say, given the way that I've adopted this club as my own, and have experienced discrimination on a few levels myself, it's a shame I could potentially feel so unwelcome once I finally make it to a match home or away. I began enjoying this club for the way we play...I had no clue it was one of the least progressive out there in terms of these matters. I've known about that guardian article, and it's embarrassing. I'm not confident about my first prospective trip to Goodison, not at all. I watch as many matches as possible and I realize how alone I'll be. I come from a small town in Connecticut, I know what it's like to be a minority. But I'm willing to bet what I've experienced here is quite tame compared to what I could witness in 90mins at Goodison. Being compared to a monkey is one of the most demoralizing things that someone can experience, without being physically harmed.

 

Just an ethnographic question to put out there: Is this trend a result of the type of population in Liverpool?

 

I dont want you to be put off. To put it into perspective, im 27, ive been going to goodison since i was a baby, away games since 16, wembley at 11 and a few years ago. probably over 500 games, and ive heard racism about five times, mostly from what i suspect to be the same guy.

I dont think there is a problem with it at Goodison these days, just the odd prick here and there, but unfortunately people, including me, dont want to stand up against it. I dont agree with it, but i pay enough money to go the match, i dont need to be fighting with someone while im there.

[Dalziel Kane]

I'm always wary about getting into color debates even if the intentions are good as it's a fine line to tread and not much room for error

 

All I'll add is that I remember vividly some issues of the day regarding this club and some racial tensions , particularly around the early 1990s, Everton didn't have any (first team) colored players from what I can recall from the times of Kendall first time around and up until the mid 1990s,, Earl Barrett was probably the first colored player we brought in either by Royle or Walker, late 1994 for a good many years before it, after that there was an influx of names through the doors such as Bakayoko, Campbell, Amokachi and Nyarko to name but a few

 

This club as I recall did have it's problems with racial tensions from before, but this applies to so many, when John Barnes made his debut for Liverpool in 1987 (against Arsenal), the pitch was allegedly covered in banana skins, sadly this element remains today but on a lesser scale where black players will be subject to verbal attacks and moronic behavior from some quarters

 

I would like to think that racism in the game nowadays is illogical tosh which will inevitably be overcome by good football - it is just a matter of time and vigilance

[MikeO]

nutmegwolf im sure if you came to liverpool you would be pleasantly surprised,you have read stuff on here that makes liverpool and everton football club sound racist,i can assure you its nothing like that.

 

Best answer .

[Avinalaff]

nutmegwolf im sure if you came to liverpool you would be pleasantly surprised,you have read stuff on here that makes liverpool and everton football club sound racist,i can assure you its nothing like that.

 

Just be sure to bring travellers cheques and leave your valuables at home.