Chris Ramsey is a successful black English manager – but he's working in South Carolina, where Gavin Willacy found him bitter at his treatment in his homeland
Chris Ramsey spreads his arms out wide, palms up to the cloudless sky, and looks around him at the neat yellow stands of Blackbaud Stadium. “Just think about it,” he asks. “Where would I want to be? Here or Rochdale?” The coach of Charleston Battery, arguably the best club in America’s A-League (one level below the MLS), expects the answer to be “here”, in idyllic South Carolina, where the air rarely dips below 70 degrees. But challenge him and he admits he would love to be coaching back home in England. The problem is, he’s black. “Being black has certainly been a stumbling block in my career,” he claims. “Put it this way, I’ve had obstacles to overcome that other coaches haven’t.”