Free Pitch Black by Emy Onuora Page A

‘Fucking niggers, black bastards, fuck off back to Africa, you fucking ape’ had greeted them when their names were announced before kick-off. From the first minute to the last, there was no let-up. Every time they touched the ball, Berry and Hazell were greeted with boos and monkey noises from all parts of the ground. If the play took them over to the touchline, the noise levelsrose. Men, women and children, with their twisted, contorted, furious faces, spitting, gesturing, throwing bananas, threatening death, urging their own players to maim, hurt and kill.
    But Berry and Hazell were ready and were right up for the game. The two had been immense throughout. They’d been tough, menacing and intimidating. Their philosophy that day was: ‘The ball can go past. The man can get past, but not both together, not today.’ They relished the poisonous atmosphere, even wallowed in it. If any of the opposition were going to indulge in racist abuse, that was great, because the two were going to give some back and they were going to give it back with interest. They were switched on to bad boy mode. Swaggering, shouting and cursing in the Jamaican patois of their parents, nobody could understand what they were saying. At one point, Clive Thomas, an arrogant, officious referee from south Wales, had spoken to the two of them, telling them that although he didn’t understand what they were saying, he knew it was bad, and if they continued, he would book them.
    A tough victory had been earned that day and Berry and Hazell had been key in securing the win for their side. After the game, most of their teammates and coaching staff were already sitting on the coach and they were amongst the last to make their way from the dressing room to their waiting transport, only to be met by forty or fifty baying Leeds fans, the pride of West Yorkshire’s NF, who circled the two players and prevented them from getting to their coach.
    They quickly weighed up the situation and located the person who appeared to be the ringleader. Next to him was his henchman and they decided that these were the two who needed to be taken on. Hazell agreed to take out theringleader; Berry was to deal with his henchman. Agreeing that under no circumstances could they initiate an attack, they waited for the Leeds fans to make the first move. From nowhere, Berry’s brother arrived on the scene and pushed his way ahead of his brother and Hazell. Berry’s brother, who, like their father, had served in the army, spoke directly to the ringleader, telling him that if the mob wanted to attack the two players, they were more than welcome, but they would have to go through him first. To describe the situation as tense was a gross understatement as the racists seemed to take an age to consider the odds. Reckoning that forty defenders of the master race against three young, fit, athletic black guys was too much of a gamble, they backed off and let them through. It had been a close call, but Berry and Hazell were able to escape to the comfort of the team bus and Berry’s brother was allowed to go about his business.
    The experience of Berry and Hazell at Leeds was a marginally more extreme example of the kind of thing that happened to black footballers on a regular basis. At many grounds across the country, however, the number of black players was increasing as a new decade emerged from the embers of the 1970s, and the tide was slowly, but inexorably, beginning to turn in terms of how these players were viewed. The early pioneers had been largely looked upon as exotic embellishments to what had always been considered a white working-class game. Their novelty status was now starting to shift as a new generation began to add to the ranks of black footballing talent. They would be drawn from football’s traditional heartlands, the towns and inner cities, where black communities were overwhelmingly located. Making his debut in 1980, Bobby Barnes from eastLondon began to make his