2014 marks the 125th anniversary of the world’s first black professional footballer, so where are the black coaches?

Favouritism, discrimination and racism is preventing BME coaches from working within English professional football by Colin Joseph Last month a 16ft statue of the world’s first black professional football player – Arthur Wharton – was unveiled at the Football Association’s (FA’s) national football centre in Burton, West Midlands. The memorial statue was erected (thanks to… Read More

The Greatest Show on Earth

by Maurice Mcleod   Football frequently makes me a hypocrite. I’ve spent a sizeable chunk of my life thinking, writing and ranting about social justice but when it comes to football, I’m as blinkered as a Daily Mail reader. A bunch of philandering millionaires, kicking a bit of leather around, get my full-hearted backing in a… Read More

It’s Time to Talk About Black Tudors

by  Rowena Mondiwa A criminally neglected part of British history is the true scope of the African diaspora in Britain that reaches as far back as Renaissance Europe. A new book by Onyeka Nubia seeks to rectify the problem, examining the lives of the thousands of blacks that lived in the UK in Tudor times.… Read More

From Birth to Death – Our #NHS

by Glen Chisholm By the law of averages it is highly unlikely that if you’re reading this in the UK, that you have had no experience of the NHS. I’ve had many myself; from being born in an NHS hospital to trips for sports injuries over the years, from treatment for a heart problem to… Read More

What a Privilege? Oxford vs Cambridge

by Joyce Adjekum and Aisha Phoenix All that glitters I never thought that I would get into Cambridge University. Only a few of the brightest people at my college had applied to Oxbridge. Although my teachers helped me through the application and access scheme process, they never let me forget how slim the chances were… Read More

3D Racism – Denial, Disclaimers and Doubt

by Yasmin Gunaratnam and Karim Murji “I’m not a racist, I have good friends that are black and anyone that knows me knows I’m not like that.” Councillor Jeffrey Tucker ‘One of the crucial properties of contemporary racism is its denial, typically illustrated in such well-known disclaimers as ‘I have nothing against blacks, but . .… Read More

Football vs. Responsibility

by Shane Thomas Roy Hodgson, the England manager. A racist? Personally I don’t think he is. What struck me isn’t the debate over Hodgson’s character, the vagaries of language, or the ever-present and; wearying proclamation of “political correctness gone mad!“ Rather, it was the general consensus that made Hodgson the ‘victim’ in this story. And… Read More

Part 2: Britain: A history of shopkeeping, empire and racial tensions

Space, smells and cosmopolitanism in the British Asian corner shop by Sita Balani In my last post I sketched out a history of the corner shop as a key and mundane site of English nation building, subverted and reconfigured by post-war migration and the movement of colonial others into the heart of this national institution.… Read More

Britain: A history of shopkeeping, empire and racial tensions

by Sita Balani   This Is England directed by Shane Meadows (2006) is explicit in its concern with race and national identity: eponymous England is a place heaving with racial tension in the story of Shaun, a white working class boy in the North East in the early 1980s, who finds friendship and guidance in… Read More

Dear FIFA

by  Joseph Guthrie I usually begin my letters with the typical pleasantries but my patience with you has indeed worn thin and I’d rather just get right down to business.  I have questions that require answers and I hope you are prepared to answer them. Frankly, your fight against racism is nothing but lip service and… Read More