Windrush and football: Past, present and possibilities

A special conference hosted by Nottingham Forest and Leicester City explored how football can engage with Windrush Day to help combat racism and promote inclusion. British Future’s Steve Ballinger, a lifelong Forest fan, snapped up an invitation and reports back on the day.

Past, present and possibilities’ was the theme of a 19 June conference hosted by Nottingham Forest, Leicester City and British Future ahead of Windrush Day.

Building on the legacies of the pioneering Black players of the past, bringing greater equity to the game today and seizing the opportunities for football to drive future societal change were all topics for discussion at the event at Nottingham’s City Ground stadium. The history of this great club was very much present too, with a replica European Cup in the room, as well as one of the men who won it in 1979, Viv Anderson, who was also the first Black player to represent England at full international level.

We were also fortunate to have with us Revd Clive Foster, a self-identifying “Nottingham boy”, who had been appointed just one day earlier as the government’s new Windrush Commissioner.

There was a recognition of the positive changes in football and wider society that we have seen over the years – but also what a low base that started from. Patrick Vernon, Convenor of the Windrush 100 network, spoke about growing up in Wolverhampton but drifting away from his local team because of the racist abuse he heard from fellow fans, directed at their own Black players. Revd Mark Stewart, whose church serves the area around the City Ground, told a similar story, growing up in Nottingham in the late 70s and 80s when the club was at its height, but feeling that the City Ground wasn’t a safe place for a black boy to go to.

Yet football helped to gradually shift some of those attitudes too. As Patrick Vernon recalled, it brought Black faces into people’s living rooms on Match of the Day, at a time when there were few prominent Black people in British public life.  For Viv Anderson it was seeing West Ham legend Clyde Best on TV that inspired him to pursue a professional career in football.

Historian Bill Hern, whose book ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ documents the first Black players for every league club, was on hand to fill in the blanks in that roll-call of early greats of the game.

“We know the impact that Black British players have had, and the power of football for societal change,” Simone Pound, Director of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion at the Professional Footballers Association, said. “From Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson to those playing today.”

For former Forest striker Jason Lee, who chaired a discussion with Viv Anderson and Reon Stewart from Kick it Out,  that impact was felt personally. It was seeing people like Viv in his Panini sticker album that convinced him he wanted to be a footballer. “You see these players and you think, wow – I want to be one of these guys,” he said, adding an important caveat: “You also see the abuse they’re getting and know you’re going to need a lot of resilience.” Sadly that was certainly true in Jason’s footballing career – and fortunately the resilience was very much there, from someone who is still working now to make football more inclusive.

We heard that while Black players are now commonplace in football teams at every level, that is far from true in the manager’s  dugout or the boardroom. As Viv Anderson remarked, having managed a club himself, even Black players who’ve played at the top level find it extremely hard to get jobs in football after they’ve retired.

And while the days of racist chants from the terraces are thankfully far behind us, we have still failed to kick racism out of football. As DEI leader Edleen John pointed out, football clubs still need to work harder to make their stadiums feel safe and welcoming to people of all backgrounds. Fans can play their part too, showing allyship by calling out racism if they see or hear it on the terraces. But it is online, on social media, where Black footballers still face appalling abuse today.

The final panel looked forward to the future. Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, said we should use the power of football to engage wider audiences with the Windrush story and help build shared and inclusive identities, linking our shared history with today’s multi-ethnic society. At every club, he suggested, you could have conversations between the Black legends and younger players today. That point about the power of football was echoed by Richard Offiong, former England U-20 player and now campaign coordinator at Show Racism the Red Card, drawing on a famous story of a 48-hour ceasefire being called in the Biafran war with Nigeria when Pele’s Santos team played an exhibition match. That showed the huge impact and influence that high-profile footballers can have, he said.

“We have a massive opportunity in 2028 to mark 50 years of Black Lions,” said Sunder. “Fifty years since Viv Anderson became England’s first Black player. It’s a chance to talk about what has changed in that half-century – and what still needs to change.”

Football has played a big part in the societal changes that we have seen over that last half-century, shaping perceptions about inclusive identities, both at club level and nationally.

Our national game has a big part left to play too, in the decades to come. Our hope is that events like today’s help to bring awareness and forge the alliances we will need to make that happen.

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