The Archive

Mansley Allen reviews what was an exciting end to the season but points at the overall drop in standards in Division Two

With promotion issues decided in the last minute of the last match, the Second Division was an exciting contest but it was hardly a vintage year. Stoke’s 8-0 home defeat by Liverpool in the Worthington Cup and Brentford and Port Vale’s removal from the FA Cup by Kingstonian and Canvey Island respectively, hinted at the overall standard. This was of course offset to some extent by Wycombe’s magnificent run to the last four in the FA Cup, but this was largely a case of a moderate squad being fired up to play above them­selves by an astute management team.

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Dave Hill's book Out Of His Skin analysed the racial tension surrounding the arrival of John Barnes at Liverpool in 1987. In an extract from the introduction to a new edition, Dave Hill reflects on the reaction to his book

Ever since the watershed of the Taylor Report, an anti-racist climate has undoubtedly been fostered in British football. Vocal racist elements within football grounds find it harder to proceed as if they have a divine right to define and dominate the mood, to chant, threaten and generally get away with things that would not be tolerated in any other public place. A wide-ranging campaign has been mobilised against racism in a way that would have been impossible as recently as the mid-Eighties. Such is the optimistic reading of the story of racism in English football since Out Of His Skin was written. It has substance and deserves ap­plause. But any suggestion that racism has ceased to have a disfiguring impact on our football would be dangerously naive.

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Roger Lytollis reckons the fall into semi-pro football is feared more than ever

Hold the back page: the third division wasn’t very good last season. How else could miserably ordinary sides like Hartlepool and Blackpool make the play-offs? For every quality player there were dozens of Gary Brabins and Steve Torpeys. Cheltenham were typical. In only their second League sea­son any romance was long gone. Their rel­iance on negative, strong-arm tac­tics left most op­­­ponents looking like extras from Gladiator by the end of the afternoon’s “entertainment”.

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September 2001 marked the 20th anniversary of John Barnes's debut for Watford. We asked five other black players of the same generation to recall their problems with racism in the early part of their career and reflect on how things have changed since

Alex Williams
Debut for Man City: November 1979
Now: Football Community manager, Man City

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Ernst Bouwes looks at the largely positive expereince of black players in Holland, where the descendants of migrants from Surinam have become a powerful force in the national team

It is a well known fact that Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the native Americans for the equivalent of about 30 dollars in 1626, but more obscurity surrounds the exchange of the same property for Surinam with the British some 40 years later. Among historians this is widely regarded as the worst real-estate deal of all time. One thing is certain though: not one person from the New York area ever made it into the England squad, while Surinam has produced dozens of talented footballers who have radically changed the look of the Dutch national team in the past 20 years.

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