The Barnsby Blog

This must be seen as an addenda to my recent email ‘David Beckham at Ashbourne Grove?’. (This can be downloaded on my website www.gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk)

Thierry Henry and Ian Wright stand out as the champions of Anti-Racism in modern football but they stand on the shoulders of those who pioneered the struggle, not least Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regis and Brendon Batson at West Bromwich Albion. This is a story still without an end. It involves Sam Allardyce who might be our next England manager, who comes from the Black Country and who has mastered the art of managing Black players although he speaks no foreign languages and whose financial resources are severely limited. It involves the present manager of West Bromwich, Bryan Robson, both for his contact with the aforementioned players and also because he is an ex-captain of England. It involves Paul Ince, the first black captain of England and now captain of Wolves. It is a political story linking with the case of Stephen Lawrence whose companion on the night he was killed has now been compensated and received an apology from the London police. This is Duwayne Brooks who 13 years after that foul murder with Duwayne treated as a suspect of murdering his friend, he has now
been given a £100,000 payout by the Met. The West Midlands police were equally culpable at one time, but became the first police force to voluntarily admit to racism and seek an independent training authority. They then became the most progressive police authority in Britain under the Birmingham Islamic councillor Mohamid Nazir, surely unique in Britain.
Councillor Bob Jones of Wolverhampton has now became spokesperson for all police management committees in England and he controls the most advanced police force in the country. It is significant, of course, that Tony Blair wishes to disband the West Midlands force and amalgamate it into a vast country wide force. And guess who will NOT be appointed chief of that force, any one who has protested at taking police out of local control?

Racism continues to be widespread, as does anti-racism. There are heroes and villains and sometimes people can be both, as is the case of Ron Atkinson, an ex-manager of West Bromwich Albion who was removed from decent society for talking about ‘niggers’ in football. This seemed entirely out of place with his managerial record with black players, Brendan Batson claiming that he was the greatest influence on him when he was almost ready to quit the game because of racism.

The post-1945 story of Anti-Racism is outlined by me in my ‘I Love Arsene Wenger’ This details my 70 year love affair with Arsenal and 50 year support for Wolves. When I came to Wolverhampton in 1954 it was considered rather peculiar that I was an Arsenal supporter since Wolverhampton Wanderers were then at the peak of their powers, the greatest side in Britain. When Wolverhampton went to Hungary or Moscow they took with them, as an interpreter, Percy Young, a hugely erudite musicologist who was a lecturer at what was then the Wolverhampton Polytechnic. Percy also found time to write ‘A History of British Football’ which is my bible on football matters up to 1963. But more than this, Percy was also an anti-racist who was at one time the chair of W’ton Race Equality Council.

The most complete early story, however, is contained in the book Samba in the Smethwick End by Dave Bowler and James Bains and it is to this book that I now turn.

The first point the book makes is that if you want to know what football is about you must look not at league tables, but in the hearts of the players and supporters.

West Bromwich Albion were something special in the 1970s. If Manchester United had the Holy Trinity of Best, Laws and Charlton, then the Baggies had the Three Degrees of Cunningham, Regis and Batson. By 1974 Johnny Giles had gained promotion to Division 1 and when he retired, somewhat surprisingly, after two years, WBA soared, briefly under Ronnie Allen and then memorably under Ron Atkinson reaching their zenith at Old Trafford at Christmas 1978 when they dismantled Manchester United 5-3. For one black player to make a mark in English football he would have to score goals. WBA had two such players, Regis and Cunningham. Laurie Cunningham became the first black player to play for an England B team. (The first player to wear a full England shirt was Viv Anderson connected with Brian Clough in the East Midlands and Arsenal.) For perhaps a season, the West Midlands was the hub of English football, and the Three Degrees accomplished the revolution that led to advances for black players elsewhere. But the supremacy of the West Midlands was not to last. Wolves, Albion and Birmingham became almost bankrupt and the West Midlands, including Aston Villa, reverted to what it usually has been, a meaningless football lump between Liverpool and Man United in the north and Arsenal and sometimes Spurs in the south. This is told in the introduction of the book.

Chapter One of the book explains the Conservative Party policy of the 1960s. ‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.’ This was in the election address of the official Conservative Party candidate for Smethwick, Peter Griffiths, in the 1964 general election and he won a safe Labour seat. He was to be followed by the most formidable of all official Conservative candidates who in 1951 won the S.W.Wolverhampton seat from a Labour MP and who remained an official Tory MP until he removed himself from the Tory Party to become a leading figure in Northern Ireland. This was the ‘rivers
of blood’ man, Enoch Powell. He was replaced in Wolverhampton SW by an almost equally racist official Conservative MP, Nick Budgen. No wonder David Cameron is having such difficulty in converting modern Conservatives into anti-racists and opponents of the war in Iraq. Good luck to him in his endeavours.

Again, in the 1970s, the Smethwick End packed with Wolves’ supporters for the local derby with Wolves drumming on the corrugated iron sheets at the back of the stand in jungle rhythm, ‘Nigger, nigger, lick my boots’ or ‘Pull that trigger, shoot that nigger.’ Proof that nothing much had really changed.

Another centre of black immigration was London. Laurie Cunningham, London born, began his footballing career as a schoolboy training at Arsenal. At eighteen Cunningham did not reach the standards demanded by Bertie Mee and his trainer Don Howe and was signed by Leyton Orient. Laurie did not much fancy being rejected by Arsenal and was reluctant to go to Orient. In the 1980s Arsenal was developing through their directors and management, the reputation of being a multicultural club by playing the first great crop of Arsenal black players. These included Viv Anderson, Brendan Batson, Paul Davis, David Rocastle, and Michael Thomas. Michael shares with Charlie George the honour of scoring the two most important and dramatic goals in Arsenal’s history. Charlie’s brought the Double to Highbury. Michael’s goal in extra time prevented Liverpool performing the Double and brought the League Championship to Highbury in 1989. Such was the impression made by Michael that Liverpol bought him the next season, although he never reached the same heights as with Arsenal and his career petered out.

In 1979 West Brom with Bryan Robson, Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis were on the verge of greatness and one of the richest clubs in Britain. They squandered it. Ron Atkinson accepted almost £1m for Laurie Cunningham who went not to an English club but to one of the greatest clubs in the world, Real Madrid - 24 years before David Beckham. Laurie later returned to England and won an FA Cup medal with Wimbledon in 1988. He died in a car crash near Madrid a year later.

Cyrille Regis’s life was transformed by the death of his friend Cunningham. Cyrille tells how they both went to a West Ham game and were showered with bananas. Paradoxically this racial abuse acted as a spur and totally committed them to prove that black players could make the grade. Cyrille became a Christian after the death of his best friend. He became a coach and
later a fotball agent. Cyrille is still active, believing that Institutional Racism is not being tackled in football. Although 20-25% of footballers are black only two coaching/managerial posts were occupied by blacks in 2004, one at Spurs and one at Wolves. Brendan Batson is also active in combatting racism in football. He became a deputy head of the Professional Footballers Association. There are no black managers in the Premiership and black faces in board rooms are equally scarce. But racism in British football is fortunately much diminished with its 10 point independent campaign of Kick it Out adopted by the European body UEFA. It is in Europe that racism still exists and Rio Ferdinand’s appeal to eliminate ‘the plague’ of racism and request to address the European Parliament for action against the Spanish authorities with use of the power to call matches off and power to deduct points from clubs is the latest effort to fight racism. Unfortunately, hooliganism has not been conquered, and where this prevails, right-wing racist forces such as the BNP are never far away.

I want to close this piece by returning to the importance of Wolverhampton as a centre of anti-racism in general and the place that Sam Allardyce is likely to occupy in particular. Allardyce, born in 1954 at Netherton in Dudley spent his early years watching football at Molineux. His football career began in 1969 when he was signed by Nat Lofthouse as a 15 year old by
Bolton. He played with many clubs, with spells at Tampa Bay Rowdies and West Bromwich. In 1989 he was assistant to Brian Talbot at West Bromwich when his 20 year old football career came to an end. He was sacked. He then became a youth development officer with Sunderland until he became a manager in Ireland at Limerick. He can be criticised for having never won an England cap or played in the top division for only one season. But his record of creating winning teams and gaining promotion is without a parallel and his interest in matters as widely differing as art and psychology make him a popular candidate for the job of England coach.

My final plea is for the struggle against racism to be pursued in Wolverhampton and district and the people I would want to research it. The first thing is the popularisation of the book Samba in the Smethwich End. Nowhere does this appear in the bibliographies of racism in football. The Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research at Leicester University does not mention the book nor is it recommended by Shirin Housee of Wolverhampton University who I have long regarded as one of the most important lecturers on Race Relations in Britain and who should be in charge of training of
Wolverhampton public employees. Other questions regarding the book are who and where now are the authors Dave Bowler and Jas Bains? Others in Wolverhampton I would want to consult include Eric Taylor, one time scout for West Bromwich Albion and meticulous contributor to the Dictionary of Labour Biography of Black Country labour leaders. Then there is Bob Jones once a lecturer in Dudley Technical College with me who remains active in school football politics as a referee and administrator. Also Bill Wain, neighbour of mine and long term WBA fanatic supporter who is also an active social worker.

Of the busy football fraternity I would like Bryan Robson of both WestBromwich and England who I know to be in touch with most black players who have served the Baggies to let me have details of their current activities.
Also Rachael Heyhoe Flint of Wolves, distinguished in her own right as an ex-captain of England’s women cricketers but also spokesperson for Sir Jack Hayward, Wolves recent bankroller and fanatic English patriot.

There seems to be room here for a bulletin of the past and present activities of our black footballers as envisaged by the Football Association and League in their ten point programme of active participation in anti-racist activity.
This would also have the active support of the Professional Footballers’ Association who are keen to tackle the racism which has so far prevented Asian footballers from emerging as well as the lack of black managers, directors, coaches and administrators, and also the small numbers of blacks who feel it safe to attend football matches.

Other people I would wish to consult include Keith Wymer former head of Bilston Community College, the first multicultural and open access college in Britain closed by villains who include Blunkett and Blair. Now through the Freedom of Information Act Wymer is battling to prove that the college was illegally closed. Keith now runs the website www.sportforallglobal.com
stressing the connection between politics and sport where the poorest and ethnic minorities lose out in both respects.

Finally I would like to thank my family members in London, mostly Arsenal supporters and readers of my BLOG and particularly Darryl Collins, my nephew, who achieved the unlikely distinction of being a London crossword setter who for several years set crossword puzzles for Scottish football teams!

Wolverhampton is the town that raised itself from being known as the racist capital of Britain in the days of Enoch Powell (1951 to 1974) to an important University City and anti-racist centre from 2000 AD. As with racism in general, racism in football could erupt again unless positive measures to prevent it are continually practised. The purpose of all my activity is to help to keep Wolverhampton in a leading position both multiculturally and in sport.

My name is George Barnsby. I am 87 years old. I wrote ‘I Love Arsene Wenger’, recognising the revolution he has wrought in world football. This also told of my 70 year support for Arsenal and my 50 years support for Wolves. I also wrote ‘Arsene, Why have you Broken my Heart’, when he played virtually second teams in successive matches in the Carling and FA Cups this year thus almost ending our prospects for the season

I am one of the rapidly dwindling number of supporters who have personally witnessed both the great Arsenal teams of the twentieth century. How do they compare? Well I will say that the 1930s team were better behaved and they produced the only genius who could stand with Thierry Henry in Alec James. But James was not an Englishman he was a Scot, and Arsenal were not an ‘English’ side, they were as cosmopolitan in their day as is Arsene Wenger’s side is now. The power house of the half back line contained Herbie Roberts the first and greatest stopper centre half of the 1930s who was half Welsh and only half English and the two other half backs, Bob John and Charlie Jones were Welsh to the core.

But the Arsene Wenger team with its double in 2002 and its run of 49 games without defeat in 2004-05 have played perhaps the most exciting, thrilling, purposeful and attractive football that the world has ever seen.

The question of David Beckham coming to Arsenal first arose when Beckham was exiled from Manchester United by Sir Alex Ferguson and before he settled into Spanish football. I then wrote that Beckham was rich enough to pay his own transfer fee and to pay his own wages! But Arsene had settled for Henry, Viera, Bergkamp,Lungberg, Pires, Wiltord, Ashley Cole, Sol Cambell etc. who became the team of all the talents.

But 2006 is a different ball game, Arsene needs on old head for his new breed of highly talented youngsters and if his wife is not settled abroad and if David does not want to move from his new mansion and centre for his operations not far from Ashburton Grove the most obvious London team for him is Arsenal. We will soon know whether Arsene agrees.

With regard to the reception that Patrick Viera will receive from Arsenal fans when he plays for Juventus in the next round of the Champions League, I am sure he will be warmly welcomed as part of that magical team of Arsenal unbeatables. I do not consider that the transfer of Patrick was a mistake made by Wenger, however. His present form with Juventus suggests that he will only reach his greatest performance level occasionally. That in Italy he suffers the indignity of playing before about 1,000 people on occasions. There will always be a welcome at Arsenal for Viera, but the world has moved on.

This brings me to whether Thierry Henry will stay at Arsenal. There now seems to be fewer reasons why he should leave. No team now offers greater prospects of silverware than Arsenal.

But Henry is not just a footballer, he is one of the most influential people in the modern world. It is unthinkable that Henry should support the war in Iraq. He initiated the shirt and wristband of anti-racism. If he does not entirely share the view of Maradona that Fidel Castro is the greatest person next to God, he has worn the shirt with the logo of Che Guavara thus
associating hmiself with the anti-Bush world of Hugo Chavez, Lula da Silva, Evo Morales and those of other South American countries, also India, Pakistan and China who all reject the imperialism of Bush and Blair. This is where the future of mankind will be decided. Here are those who will make the abolition of poverty their aim and whose sportmen and women will support
their governments in achieving these aims.

However Henry belongs to the world and will always be his own man. This is why Sepp Blatter, chair of FIFA appointed him World Ambassador for football. If Henry feels that he can serve the world better by playing somewhere else in Europe,or playing in Africa where his roots are, or Asia, or in the America of Maradona and Pele his decision will be respected.
He remains one of football’s all time greats whether he stays at Arsenal or not. But for our sake we hope he remains.

Now that Tony Blair has virtually confessed to Parkinson that he was wrong in supporting Bush’s war against Iraq it is time to ask why the four leading communicators, Paxman, Marr, Jon Snow and Kirsty Wark failed to challenge Blair, what other communicators would have done in their place and whether we can decide on a source of news which would be nearer to objectivity than the Blair-speak which at present passes for news in Britain.

It seems highly unlikely that commmunicators such as Jonathon Dimbleby of ITV or Lindsay Taylor of Channel 4 would have interviewed Blair and not challenged him on his support for the illegal war on Iraq, but we need BBC communicators like Gavin Esler, Martha Kearney and lesser newscasters to declare their position on their attitudes to the duty of a broadcaster to
follow truth wherever it might lead.

What is needed is an agreement as to what constitutes the nearest we can get to objective reporting. The obvious agency is al Jazzera which now has an office in Britain but also Lord David Frost as its London reporter. Another possibibility is Medialens which was set up to monitor and record lapses of the mainstream medias’ unwillingness or inability to tell the truth. Or
Richard Hill’s The Paper; a project of a working class newspaper much more widely financed (something like the old Daily Herald before it fell into Murdoch’s hands?) and therefore more effective than the present only working class newspaper, the Morning Star. Or the use of the good offices of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. There is also the world wide anti-Iraq war network of Indymedia and the Activist Network.

Each of these and other initiatives need to be pursued to ensure the freedom of the press and rid the Labour movement of the New Labour scoundrels who have hijacked the movement, sanctioned continuing war in Iraq and threaten the loss of all our liberties and indeed the continuing existence of Britain as a nation.

So it took that consumate master of interviews, Parky, to drag out of Blair the confession that he might have been wrong on Iraq and that he communed with God in making the decision.

It has been a long battle to expose Blair and Bush as the war criminals they are and in that battle there have been a number of unlikely heroes. But not many in the Labour Party who have fatuously continued to give Blair standing ovations at Labour Party conferences.

I would pick out Question Time as one of the vehicles for the exposure of Blair the war criminal. Richard Dimbleby is one of those who have offended the establishment and so is not eligible for the knighthood which he may or may not crave. But it was the Tory MP Boris Johnson who first challenged Blair on the programme stating that the war in Iraq was illegal. Since then David Cameron, the new Tory leader has had the courage to align his party with the opposition to the war in Iraq. Also the election of Ming to the leadership of the Liberal Democracts whose 53 MPs covered themselves in glory voting against the war in March 2003. We thus have near to a united front in Parliament as well as in the country against the war in Iraq.

So why do our 4 commmunicators Paxman, Marr, Jon Snow and Kirsty Wark still refuse to reply to my charges that they have violated the duty of journalists to follow truth wherever it leads as well as their well known personal views of opposition to the war and have on six separate occasions refused to reply to my charges against them.

For the seventh attempt to get satisfaction I pick out Andrew Marr and Jeremy Paxman.

Marr interviewed Tony Blair and did not even mention foreign policy in any shape or form. What agreement had they previously reached that he would not question Blair on the illegality of the war? Paxman I will hoist with his own petard. ‘Why does not this bastard who I know is lying lie to me?. Yes, Jeremy, why are you the bastard who refuses to reply to my accusations of failure to challenge Blair on the illegal war in Iraq.

Answers now please.

Dear Ming,

Congratulations on your becoming Lib Dem leader.

Your robust criticism of Tony Blair for his illegal war in Iraq makes you a fitting leader to what is becoming a united front against the war as David Cameron says that he also is a Lib Dem in his heroic efforts to turn the Conservatives into a modern anti-war party.

Tony Blair’s latest statement in the Observer of 26 Feb 06 claims that he is the guardian of liberties in Britain, whereas in fact he is their destroyer.
His statement makes no mention of the war in Iraq and is therefore an evasion encouraging those pundits on whom we rely for news to evade their responsibilities. I speak particularly of Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, Jon Snow and Kirsty Wark who have all interviewed Blair or his satraps and failed to challenge him on the war in Iraq.

Our public life needs broadening to include those countries where current power resides. I think of Cuba the country Bush still plans to evade who have 2,260 medical personnel in Pakistan’s Earthquate zone, more that any other country in the world, although they do not even have diplomatic relations with Pakistan. I think of Evo Morales the new president of Bolivia, the first indigenous leader to be elected and whose first visit was to Cuba where he was offered 50,000 free eye operations and 5,000 scholarships for Bolivians to study medicine in Cuba. With Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil, Kirchner in Argentine, this is the continent rejecting Bush and his Neo-Cons and adopting Socialist policies.

Then there is India where Bush has now ventured and is being chased by irate Indians who want nothing to do with US imperialism. Then there is the torture camps at Guantanamo which the United Nations has demanded should be closed and the other turture camp at Abu Ghraib in Iraq where even the collaborationist government has demanded should be closed.

Problems such as these will have to be discussed by the Lib Dems and thus open up territory at present forbidden by Blair the war criminal and serial killer who continues to slaughter Iraqis and won’t even count the dead, the barbarian who destroys irreplaceable Islamic monuments and traitor who pretends to protect our liberties, but in fact destroys them.

George Barnsby
GB Working Class Library & Free Communist Bookshop,
141 Henwood Rd. Wolverhampton W.Mids WV6 8PJ Phone & Fax 01902 751888
Web: www.gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk

In an article in the Observer, 26 Feb 06, Tony Blair claims to protect our liberties, but he is in fact the destroyer of our liberties.

In the article Blair makes no mention of the war in Iraq. This bring a further charge against him - that of dishonesty. For he knows full well that the charges against him are that he is a war criminal going to war in Iraq in 2003 knowing that Bush and his Neocons had decided to wage continuous, rolling war against the so-callled Axis of Evil, that the armaments had to be amassed and invasion take place in one of the few months of the year when conquest was feasible. Nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. The plot was killed stone dead by the al-Quida type resistance of the Iraqis.
This made Blair the second most important war criminal in the world. Blair then went on to become a serial killer refusing to stop the war and not even being willing to count the casualities he was responsible for. Blair then demonstrates that he is a barbarian by sanctioning the destruction of irreplaceble monuments of early Islamic civilisations, and finally a traitor for the destruction of liberties in Britain he claims to protect.

Blair’s article is thus a partial statement of events, and the public are denied a true picture of events, although a majority of the population continues to be opposed to the war in Iraq. The failure of Blair to mention the war in Iraq allows those who have interviewed Blair in the past and have failed to challenge him on the war further excuse to evade their journalistic duties. I refer in particular to Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, Jon Snow and Kirsty Wark. This will be the fifth time I have challenged them and they have refused to reply to me.

What should be done? Perhaps the Observer ought to have refused to publish Blair’s article as only part of the truth. Blair’s attitude differs strongly from the interviews of al-Jazeera with Osama Bin Laden where no punches are pulled and Bin Laden replies to everything put to him. (See Messages to the World, the Statements of Osama Bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence,pub.Verso).

Finally I write at a time when local Muslims, the Tipton Three, who endured the tortures and humiliations of the Guantanamo monstrosity which Blair is still failing to condemn. Moazzam Begg has spoken again of his experiences and his father Azmet mounted a campaign for his son ’so powerful that there was scarcely a household in Britain that hadn’t heard my name’. He also spoke at a Liberal Democratic party conference whereas Blair would certainly not sanction his speaking at a Labour Party Conference. Now that the United Nations has called for the closure of Guantanamo, and even the collaborationist Iraqi government called for the closure of Abu Graib in Iraq, make Blair’s claim to be the protector of our liberties totally false.
The film about the Tipton Three, soon to be released, will give powerful support to those at Guantanamo now on hunger strike and ought also to assist the campaign to arrest Blair for his war crimes.