Archive for the ‘Monday Talking Point’ Category

Monday Talking Point With Graeme Garvey

Aug 30th, 10 / 3 Comments

Graeme is having a holiday, of sorts.

Over the next four weeks, as I travel around a post-World Cup South Africa, I will be looking at a number of issues including the effect the World Cup has had on the country and its people, as well as the debt Leeds United owes to black South African players. Being 10,000 km away also gives the chance to look back on some important events in the club’s recent history with a degree of objectivity. It also gives time to reflect on some of the oddities of being a football supporter and what it’s like to be an ex-pat fan.

Looking first at how South Africa has been affected by the World Cup, the short answer is – in a positive way. The whole country embraced the tournament and it has helped both tourism and the infrastructure with better roads and transport being particularly noticeable in the major city of Johannesburg. (The birthplace, incidentally, of super-sub Somma.) Something important has changed, too. There is a sense that football is no longer just for blacks, rugby just for whites, as the World Cup gained interest right across the board, including amongst the rugby-mad Afrikaners. Also, the fabulous Soccer City stadium which hosted the Final has recently been the venue of the Rugby Tri-Nations thriller between South Africa and New Zealand. Playing international rugby in a black township (in this case Lucas Radebe’s Soweto) was unthinkable until the World Cup, firstly because there was not a stadium good enough where blacks lived and secondly because the fear of violence was too great. As well as me, things have come a long way.

The ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of Football’ is a worthy campaign in England. It has made much progress and it has needed to. It was not easy for black players in the past and Leeds United had its moments of shame. You don’t have to be a very old Leeds fan to remember the disgraceful chant used when we were playing a team from, say, Merseyside; “I’d rather be a n****r than a Scouse.” This supposedly hilarious chant could be endlessly varied to fit Cockney, Brummie, etc but the racist slur was always the same.

Things are so much better in 2010. Black players are welcomed at Leeds nowadays – so long as they are any good, which is only fair. But it has been a long road and South Africa, particularly Johannesburg has played an important part in that journey. In July 1957, 27-year-old Gerry Francis, from Johannesburg, signed professional forms for Leeds. He was the first black player to turn out for the club and his signing encouraged a second player from the same city to sign for Don Revie and Leeds in October 1959 – Albert Johanneson – who went on to become the first black to play in an FA Cup Final when Leeds faced Liverpool in 1965.

I didn’t see Gerry Francis play but I did see Johanneson and remember all the ‘Come on Albert’ shouts of encouragement as he scurried down the wing. His failing career and decline into alcoholism and his premature death aged 53 may or may not have had something to do with his colour, but being a black person in the past in Leeds could be a lonely business. Plus the true test of our tolerance is how we treat people when they are no longer successful.

The year before Albert died, in 1994, Phil Masinga and Lucas Radebe signed for the club. The early days were very difficult for them as they tried to adapt to rainy England. Even though Masinga only stayed a couple of years, he clearly has fond memories and his website to this day proudly features him in his LUFC kit, Thistle Hotels shirt and all. Proudly, his site talks of how, in 28 games, he scored ‘five crucial goals’! Meanwhile, Lucas has risen to iconic status after a wonderful career. He is held in such high regard both in Leeds and South Africa that Nelson Mandela on an official visit to Leeds told the dignitaries: “This is my hero.”

“I felt I could burst with pride,” was Lucas’s modest reaction. “I was thinking: ‘Me? A hero to him?’ He’s a true hero.”

We shouldn’t have had to come so far to find out that we could look up to black men, but, still, I think we’ve finally made it. 

Graeme Garvey.

Front Page, Monday Talking Point

Monday Talking Point With Greame Garvey, A Thumping Worth Bragging About

Aug 23rd, 10 / 1 Comment

The neutral area

Greame shows respect.

No use pretending. It was not just a win for Leeds on Saturday, or even a thumping win. It was a thumping win against Millwall. As such, last season’s embarrassing home defeat can be seen as a one off, since The Lions have a poor record at Leeds down the years. The main reason for feeling pleased above and beyond the result itself is because Millwall have gone out of their way to wind up Leeds fans, the lowlight being the shameful incident last season at the New Den when one of their supporters wore a Galatasaray shirt, mocking the deaths of Kevin Speight and Christopher Loftus and, presumably, to provoke a violent reaction from the Leeds fans. Another fan was ejected from the ground and arrested for waving a Turkish flag. On Saturday, Leeds finally answered any such provocation in the best possible way – by playing their opponents off the park.

About three years ago, I did an interview in the FourFourTwo magazine with fans from Cardiff, Chelsea and Millwall. The point of the article, I suppose, was to show that not all supporters are hooligans. We were asked to meet in theTorture Chamber of The London Dungeon as some kind of visual joke about violence but, despite being potentially cheesy, it was a good, fair interview. We had a chance to give our viewpoints and they were reported honestly. Also, the other blokes were nice guys, which just goes to show.

Representing Millwall was Peter Garston who is a Fan Director at Millwall. No fool, he had seen plenty of action in his time but was and is working very hard to make the hooligan element unwelcome at the club. I’m sure plenty who read this will have a view as to how successful his efforts have been. I don’t think it very likely that peace and love will break out between Leeds and Millwall, for example, because, for each set of fans there is so much history and, to be honest, both clubs have supporters who, in another time, would have found guaranteed employment as storm troopers. Garston, though, made a couple of valid points; firstly that the media has a huge responsibility in not sensationalising violence and that all clubs have a hooligan element. As Leeds fans, we know this well and another strange thing about following football is that we have more in common with ‘the other lot in the corner’ than we do with those people who get their kicks out of IKEA and can’t stand football.

That said, we are fully entitled to bask in the team’s fine win and maybe even to rub it in a little, here and there. And I’m not saying all Leeds fans always behave like gentlemen, which illustrates Garston’s point about every club having problems with some supporters. Yes, there were incidents at E.R. last year after we lost to Millwall but the overwhelming majority took our defeat on the chin and drifted off home.

Football is a miserable sport when your team loses but, pathetic though it might seem to the IKEA outsiders, the whole world is a lot more bearable with one simple thing – a win. Then, when it is an emphatic win, like Saturday, and when it’s against a team who have been annoying you of late, the game of football has everything. Played properly, with a vocal crowd cheering, it has all you need in a spectacle; entertainment, emotion, excitement, skill, passion. And when it all works – and you win well, football is without doubt the greatest game in the world. 

Graeme Garvey.

Monday Talking Point

Monday Talking Point With Graeme Garvey: When 2 for 1 just isn’t good enough.

Aug 16th, 10 / Comments Off

Graeme has seen a few refs in his time

Graeme hands out the season’s first rant at officials.

Yesterday at Nottingham, Leeds United suggested they should be able to cope in the Championship. After a Shakin’ Stevens of a start, they settled into the game and, by the end, were perhaps a little unlucky not to take all three points. But two games is really too early to judge anything or anybody, unless you’re Sheffield United judging Kevin Blackwell. Next Saturday’s match against Millwall has become very important. A win will give a huge confidence boost, especially if Leeds compete against them in a way they failed to do last season. 

According to the BBC, Leeds committed14 fouls to Forest’s 5 but that tells nothing like the whole story. You can’t blame the BBC’s stats for the useless officials failing to give more fouls against Forest – and four times Leeds suffered a major injustice. Becchio was wrestled to the ground just outside the box in the second half – no free kick was awarded and a goal scoring opportunity denied. Leeds should also have had three penalties. One in the first half – when, to add insult to injury, a free kick was given to Forest, two in the second half, one for Naylor being cuddled to the ground in an unseemly manner that was completely missed by the ref. The referee’s failure to spot the stamp on Sanchez Watt by Gunter was either incompetent or cowardly. He was close to the action, much closer than his two officials, and ought to have seen it clearly. The stamp was almost pantomime obvious. Then, continuing the theme of farce, both officials sidled up to the ref, standing close on either side and whispered sweet nothings to him, behind cupped hands. Instead of a straight red card, penalty and Forest down to ten men, the ref booked both the stamper and the stampee. Thank goodness the officials don’t get paid for such incompetence. What’s that? They do? You’re kidding.

The problem is that the ‘He should have gone to Specsavers’ line might be funny in an advert but isn’t if poor observation means your team don’t get that crucial first win. You hear ex-referees saying that you often need eyes in the back of your head in a game. I’d settle for having officials who used the eyes in the front.

The final act of the pantomime/farce/comedy came on Sky Sports News where, in a typical act of lazy, sit in your London office and make things up journalism, it said, “In a bad-tempered match at the City Ground…” whilst showing the Leeds and Forest players jostling after the outrageous stamp. Excuse me. That’s a bad tempered match is it? Have you seen rugby or ice hockey slugfests? Lumps fly off them and then they all shake hands at the end.

It would have been just as lazy and stupid to show the previously mentioned ‘cuddle to the ground’ by the Forest player on Naylor and say, “In a love-in at the City Ground…” In fact, with the sweet nothings being whispered and Forest’s goalie called Camp that would have been marginally less ridiculous than the one Sky went with. And to bring down the curtain Sky showed interviews with the managers and made no attempt to warn viewers they were in for a load of cobblers from William McIntosh “Billy” Davies who said Forest should have been 3-0 up at half time. No, William You’re Talking Tosh Davies, Forest shouldn’t. How about a group booking for you and the officials at Specsavers? Simon Grayson is a decent bloke and, thankfully, described a game we all could recognise – if we’re honest.

Graeme Garvey.

Monday Talking Point