Tony Montana wrote:
So from The Bear's perspective he had to come from further back for the respect I guess. I just find it weird he was so respected at a time when it was easy not to. The whole football crowd were still 'getting used' to blacks.
I was on the Spurs board a few weeks back (for my sins) and one poster was saying the reason why the North London clubs had so many black fans was because blacks were accepted/respected both on the pitch and in the stands from the get go. I think this is after someone posted about Chelsea's fans and one of their first black players who, when he scored, no one cheered for. It was, 'oh, the n****r has scored, it's still 0-0'.
Now Chelsea have so many black players, more than us in the 25 man squad I think. It would be unthinkable...
Hmmm, not sure about that, I think it was more of a case of "having to" as both clubs had quite a few black players coming through, and it would have been a little crazy booing half your team I guess...also, with the location many more black fans were appearing and it just naturaly died out a little quicker than the other clubs like chelsea, who had that hard core combat 18 support. Denton came in to profile just as we were becoming a multi culturaly supported side, and, basically, many of that first wave of black support could look after themselves...quite a formidable firm, actually.
The "yids" thing was/is a little weird as well, from our lot even up to the 90's with the "gas the jews" chants...again, I heard that from chelski just a couple of years ago, ffs. Sprs think they were clever taking the name as a badge of honour, but I know/knew sprs fans both Jewish and gentile who hated it, and many jewish people see it as an insult to their faith.
...and interesting one is my childhood friend's dad, played for West Ham in the '60's. Black fella called john charles {RIP},,,he's a legend at west ham, played along side Bobby, Peters and that lot. At the time he was known as "Jonny the one", because, he was the only "one!" Didn't really get any abuse, but was treated as a novelty. Later on, early '70's they had a couple more black players, Clyde Best I remember quite well...again, didn't seem to "matter". In fact, I only really remember it making a huge issue was when Viv Anderson was picked for England, there was even a debate in the media {including BBC} as to whether "we" should allow black players into the England team! He got bombarded with bananas, as did John Barnes. Fucking idiots.
