on the playing field were written in the law. I grew up in the John Barnes era under Thatcherism, where the violence of racism enabled me to see how discrimination made the playing field uneven. My son is growing up in the Anthony Joshua era where the uneven playing field is not quite so clear, not quite so blatant, but the impact on black people remains overwhelmingly negative.
How, then, do you prepare your children for a society where they will be sent ‘to the crease, only for them to find, as the first balls are being bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game …’1
* Handa’s Surprise is an illustrated children’s book, set in southwest Kenya. Handa is taking fruit to her friend Akeyo in a basket on her head. One by one, various animals take a piece of fruit from her basket without Handa realising. Will she have any fruit left by the time she finally sees Akeyo?
* ‘Empire State of Mind’ was a song performed by Jay-Z featuring vocals by Alicia Keys. In the song, ‘Empire State’ means New York. Here, the West Indies exposed the fragility of the British Empire.
THE FIRST TIME IS OFTEN THE WORST. You never forget that feeling. Never quite forget how you responded or how you wish you’d responded. You hate yourself. Hate yourself for the way you felt. And that hate, hatred of the incident, hatred of your response to the incident, it never leaves you. Always stays, always scars. It never leaves you because every time an incident like it happens again, whether explicit or implicit, your immediate emotion harks back to that first feeling, back to that first response. Fright. Fight. Distrust. Disgust. You may know how to respond differently now, how to be more assertive, maybe more passive. But fundamentally, at that moment when you are confronted by racism, you dive right back to that first feeling, to that first response. Fight. Fright. Disgust. Distrust.
My first time occurred at Wembley Arena on 27 September 1980. I was seven. Wasn’t there in person. Observed it on TV. On screen, the Arena resembled a backstreet pub in the East End: smoky, uninviting, hostile and undeniably white and working class. You didn’t need to see the faces of the patrons in attendance to grasp their attitudes. Their fanatical moans painted a picture of flushed-faced, testosterone-charged, agitated men. The Arena may have been playing host to the world middleweight championship fight between Alan Minter and Marvin Hagler, but on this night, the world-famous venue had been transformed into a scowling theatre of hate.
I watched the fight with my father in our comfy living room in Second Avenue in Manor Park. We were one of maybe seven black families on the street, which was in the north side of Newham, one of the most racially mixed parts of the East End. My father was a painter and decorator while my mother had just started working for Laker Airways. I lived in the three-bedroom terrace with my two older sisters and my grandmother, who had her own bedroom and kitchen in the extension. I planted myself chest down on our rug in my usual posture, elbows grinding into the rug to support my head, which was perched on my hands. My father took his place behind me on our sofa, with its black synthetic armrests and orange seat covers, which sat in front of our lantern-patterned wallpaper, coloured three shades of brown.
I didn’t know Minter or Hagler at the time. However, I remember my father putting down his newspaper to concentrate on the fight, which signified its importance. It wasn’t too often that our 19-inch colour television commanded my father’s full attention. He had purchased it with my mother’s premium bonds winnings in 1970, just in time for the World Cup in Mexico, the first finals to be televised in colour. Ever since, it had become the most vocal member of our family. It was always on, whether anyone was watching it or not. It drowned out the noise of cars speeding down our street, the screeches of kids playing knock down ginger and the metal on metal bangs from our neighbours working on their cars. My father controlled the TV, always claiming to be watching something even if he was asleep or reading the Sun. I was his personal remote control.
On screen, the fighters were standing in opposite corners in the ring. Minter, a white boxer from Crawley in West Sussex was the reigning world middleweight champion, having wrestled the title from Italian-American Vito Antuofermo in Caesars Palace, Las Vegas in March 1980. Minter’s victory had been controversial. Most of the boxing writers sitting ringside thought Antuofermo won the fight. An informal poll of ringside writers had 10 siding with the Italian-American, five with Minter with two scoring it even. Two of the three judges on the night were split in their scoring between Minter and Antuofermo. However, the third judge, Roland Dakin from England, gave Minter 13 rounds to just one to Antuofermo with one round even, causing Boston Globe writer Bud Collins to remark: ‘He [Dakin] wasn’t the usual burglar, stealing in the comfort of the home precinct. He had gone into another man’s country to perform the overwhelming act of larceny, and never tiptoed.’
So, Minter had to defend his title against Antuofermo in June. The return, at Wembley Arena, was not controversial. Minter dominated, slicing Antuofermo’s face to pieces and causing the referee to stop the fight in the Brit’s favour in round eight.
Minter had been the golden boy of British boxing. A 1972 Olympic bronze medalist, he looked like a young Clint Eastwood, with a hard face but pretty features and a constant expression as if the sun was shining directly in his eyes. Out of the ring he wore tight flashy suits with his shirts unbuttoned to reveal his chest and gold chains. Minter had a flat nose, a wide face with a natural tan and a bouncer’s confident posture. His victory over Antuofermo made him the most famous sports star in Britain, sought after for sponsorship deals and ads. American fight critics didn’t think much of him though. Not surprising. American fight critics didn’t think much of most British fighters. These writers tended to load their articles with lazy jibes about what British fighters did outside of the ring (primarily drinking tea) and insults about how they fought in the ring (stiff and upright). Minter certainly did not move with the fluidity of fighters like the American Sugar Ray Leonard or Mexico’s Salvador Sanchez. And his biggest problem through the seventies had been his susceptibility to cuts, the core reason behind most of his defeats. But he was a gutsy performer, relatively light on his feet, with a piercing jab.
His opponent Marvin Hagler was bald, black and expressionless. Brought up in Brockton, Massachusetts, Hagler had earned his title shot the hard way, fighting for little or no money against a series of the division’s toughest contenders, many of them from Philadelphia. He too had fought Antuofermo, in 1979, but failed to win the title after their contest had been declared a draw. Most boxing critics thought Hagler had won the fight. Hagler thought he’d won too. But Antuofermo’s camp had refused to grant a rematch, instead preferring a contest against Minter. The result left Hagler bitter, moody and even more menacing. He even claimed credit for Minter’s title victory stating, ‘Minter is only champion because he gained the benefit of the beating I gave to Antuofermo in Las Vegas.’1 Hagler had an immovable presence on screen. Though his features were soft, his bald head, sharp cheekbones and steely glare gave him an intimidating look.
At Wembley the fighters bobbed and weaved in their corners as they readied themselves for the national anthems. The crowd heartily booed the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ while their slurred, groaning harmonies accompanied the British anthem. ‘Minter led the singing of the British anthem, which was bellowed out with such intensity by the capacity crowd that it was more a hymn of hate than an expression of pure patriotism,’ recalled Harry Mullan in Boxing News.
I didn’t understand the crowd’s hostility. Indeed, the anthems and the pageantry of boxing were all a blur to me, lost in the murky setting. Wembley Arena looked little more than a school gym. The spotlights were straining to shed light on the ring. Maybe it had been our television. Either way, I had no idea how big the arena was because it looked so dark, so congested. The entire crowd seemed as if it was within spitting distance of the ring.
As I watched Minter and