TOPLINE The plight of Black players on the England national team who were hit with a torrent of racist abuse after the team’s loss at the 2020 Euro final last Sunday has taken center stage on Instagram this week, with a particular focus on 23-year-old Marcus Rashford, who has opened up in-depth about his personal experience since the game.&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



Data from social media tracking firm Newship shows the 12 posts with the most comments on Instagram since Sunday all concerned at least one of the three Black players on England’s team—Rashford, Bukayo Saka, and Jadon Sancho—who have all been attacked for missing penalties during the final shootouts against Italy.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51885" width="675" height="450" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1328724051-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Charlotte Tattersall/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



These posts, earning up to 4.6 million likes and hundreds of thousands of comments, ranged from reporting on the attacks by major British news outlets like BBC News and Sky Sports to more personal posts about the players.&nbsp;



The vast majority centered around Rashford, a Manchester United striker who has published multiple top-trending posts since England’s loss, including an in-depth reaction the day after the game which drew the most comments (230,000) of anything published on Instagram this week.&nbsp;



In the popular July 12 post, lauded in the comments by a number of other high-profile soccer stars, Rashford apologized to fans for missing the penalty, but said he will “never” apologize “for who I am and where I came from.”&nbsp;



He also highlighted the response to the defacing of a mural of his face in his hometown of Withington, Manchester, saying it brought him to the verge of tears to see fans&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/16/marcus-rashford-mural-racial-police-manchester-artwork" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cleaning up the vandalism.</a>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE&nbsp;</h3>



“I’ve grown into a sport where I expect to read things about myself, whether it be the colour of my skin, where I grew up, or, most recently where I decide to spend my time off the pitch,” Rashford wrote. “I can take critique of my performance all day long, my penalty was not good enough. It should have gone in but I will never [apologize] for who I am or where I came from.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51886" width="612" height="408" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1329410687-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Alex Livesey &#8211; Danehouse/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h3>



Though neither gained as much engagement as Rashford’s, both Saka and Sancho, who are 19 and 21 years old, respectively, also posted statements on social media reflecting on the game. “There are no words to tell you how disappointed I was with the result of my penalty,” wrote Saka to over 2.5 milion likes and supportive comments from fellow Arsenal players Ben White, Joe Willock and more. Meanwhile, Sancho deemed missing the penalty “by far the worst feeling I’ve felt in my career.”&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND&nbsp;</h3>



The loss at last week’s match—which marked the first time England has reached a major final since winning the World Cup in 1966—immediately sparked a torrent of racist attacks against the young trio on social media. The abuse was quickly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/07/12/racist-abuse-targeted-at-black-england-players-denounced-by-uks-boris-johnson-fa-and-prince-william/?sh=5a388c0d1b65">condemned</a>&nbsp;by England’s Football Association, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and even Prince William, and arrests have since been made in relation to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.espn.com/soccer/england-eng/story/4432974/arrests-made-over-racist-abuse-of-england-players" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">offensive comments.</a>&nbsp;The targeted players have pushed for meaningful action from social media companies to prevent the online hate from resurfacing.&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC&nbsp;</h3>



“To the social media platforms @instagram @twitter @facebook I don’t want any child or adult to have to receive the hateful and hurtful messages that me Marcus and Jadon have received this week,” Saka wrote. “I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive and that is a sad reality that your powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING&nbsp;</h3>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/07/12/racist-abuse-targeted-at-black-england-players-denounced-by-uks-boris-johnson-fa-and-prince-william/?sh=5a388c0d1b65">“Racist Abuse Targeted At Black England Players Denounced By U.K.’s Boris Johnson, FA And Prince William”</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



By Jemima McEvoy, Forbes Staff

Italy v England – UEFA Euro 2020: Final

‘All I Can Say Is Sorry’: England’s Black Soccer Players’ Experiences With Racism Dominated Instagram This Week

During the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, journalists were among those leading the charge to eradicate slavery. Two centuries later, they’re continuing to inspire change, with leaders at the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and the&nbsp;Boston Globe&nbsp;teaming up to apply the same pressure to ongoing racial injustice.&nbsp;



The result:&nbsp;The Emancipator, a platform cofounded by author, historian and Boston University Center for Antiracist Research director Ibram X. Kendi and&nbsp;Boston Globe&nbsp;editorial page editor Bina Venkataraman that will spotlight antiracism practices through the multimedia work of journalists, historians and scholars. Content will include written stories, research and interactive events like roundtables.&nbsp;



The idea for the initiative came to the cofounders in June, when, after discovering their shared interest in Boston-based, 19th-century antislavery publications, they started wondering, “Could we create a publication, a megaphone for leading thinkers, ideas and debates about bringing about a racially just society, in the same way that those abolitionists created a megaphone for thinkers who wanted to bring about the end of slavery?” says Venkataraman.



“In many ways, I have married scholarship and journalism in my own work, and what it’s allowed for is the ability to have the research techniques and methods and methodology combined with writing in a way that’s accessible for everyday people,” Kendi adds. “Putting both together under the same roof with [The Emancipator], I think it’s going to be quite effective. Quite impactful.”



Though the platform doesn’t officially launch until later this year, the cofounders are already establishing a team (they’re currently looking to hire two Boston-based co-editors-in-chief) and finalizing details. They’ve decided, for example, that all content will be free to the public. “We really believe that in order to move our society forward in this really ambitious way, we should be reaching as many people as possible,” says Venkataraman.&nbsp;



The team has also recruited an advisory board of journalists and scholars, including the&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;Pulitzer Prize-winninginvestigative reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, Harvard historian and author Annette Gordon-Reed, journalist and immigration rights activist Jose Antonio Vargas and The 19th CEO and editor-in-chief Emily Ramshaw. Members of the founding team also include Dr. Monica Wang, associate director of narrative for the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, and Kimberly Atkins,&nbsp;Boston Globe&nbsp;columnist and MSNBC contributor.



Joining the effort is a full-circle moment for Atkins, whose first journalism job was at the&nbsp;Boston Globe. Atkins will serve as&nbsp;The Emancipator’s lead columnist and will author its biweekly newsletter, Unbound.



“This will be something more than simply a news organization . . . it’s something bigger,” says Atkins. “I’ve been asked a lot over the last year, ‘What can I do? How can I help? How can I understand?’ And there&#8217;s no easy answer to that. . . . A lot of that understanding needs to be grounded in research; it needs to be grounded in study and analysis. I can direct people [to&nbsp;The Emancipator] and say, ‘If you want to understand more, this is a place to start.’”



Kendi hopes to grow&nbsp;The Emancipator&nbsp;into “the premiere vehicle for sort of data-driven, research-based, evidence-based journalism and scholarship and opinion on the most important racial issues of our time.”



“If we can get to a time in which we could say that we’ve abolished racism, people will look back on The Emancipator and see that this multimedia platform was critical in that work, just like when we reflect on the movement against slavery in the 19th century,” he says.



By Brianne Garrett, Forbes Staff

Celebrities Visit Build – March 10, 2020

‘It’s Something Bigger’: This New Platform Is Reimagining The Role Of News Media In Eradicating Racism

Disney+, which last year added a content advisory for racism on several older films streaming on the platform, has added a stronger warning to films including Dumbo and The Jungle Book, following some viewers’ criticism last year that the platform’s initial messaging was not strong enough.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h4>



Disney+ has rolled out a new message on a handful of classic cartoons, which reads: “This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. . . . These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.”



Films with the new disclaimer include&nbsp;The Aristocats&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Lady and the Tramp, which both depict negative stereotypes of Asian people, and&nbsp;Peter Pan, which contains racial slurs against Native American and First Nation people.



The initial disclaimer out last year read: “This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



As a growing number of entertainment streaming services breathe new life into old classics, the need to contextualize negative stereotypes and racist depictions that were widely accepted decades ago has become apparent. Disney+ isn’t the first streaming service to roll out this measure in the midst of a wider reckoning in the entertainment world following widespread antiracism protests this year. In June, a then-new HBO Max temporarily&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/06/10/gone-with-the-wind-temporarily-removed-from-hbo-max-in-wake-of-george-floyd-protests/#770baabcef11">pulled down</a>&nbsp;1939’s&nbsp;Gone With The Wind, saying it could not leave the film, often criticized for its glorification of slavery, on the platform without “explanation or denouncement” of those negative depictions. The movie&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/06/10/gone-with-the-wind-temporarily-removed-from-hbo-max-in-wake-of-george-floyd-protests/#770baabcef11">returned</a>&nbsp;two weeks later with a warning about the “horrors of slavery.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h4>



Some viewers pushed Disney to make its disclaimer more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963014/disney-plus-racism-cultural-disclaimer-dumbo-song-of-the-south-warner-bros-tom-jerry" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">explicit&nbsp;</a>like rival studio Warner Bros.’ “wrong then and wrong today” label when it launched the warnings in November.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h4>



<a href="https://deadline.com/2020/08/disney-nears-5-year-streaming-goal-in-first-eight-months-with-57-5m-subscribers-1203003841/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">60.5 million</a>.&nbsp;That’s how many subscribers Disney+ counts globally, CEO Bob Chapek said in August.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h4>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/06/25/gone-with-the-wind-is-back-on-hbo-max-with-a-warning-about-horrors-of-slavery/">‘Gone With The Wind’ Is Back On HBO Max With A Warning About The ‘Horrors Of Slavery’</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963014/disney-plus-racism-cultural-disclaimer-dumbo-song-of-the-south-warner-bros-tom-jerry" target="_blank">Disney+ warns viewers about past racism, but not as well as Warner Bros.</a> (The Verge)



-By Isabel Togoh, Forbes Staff

Disney plus : Illustration

‘Wrong Then, Wrong Now’: Disney+ Strengthens Disclaimer About Racism In Older Films Including Dumbo, Peter Pan

Right, a comparison: Three players now at Manchester City would have a statue unveiled in their honour in about 2055, books celebrating them would be published and, for good measure, a TV program made.
The civic, national and even global acclaim would be centered on the threesome’s contribution to the season just passed – one in which Pep Guardiola’s side trailed in third in the Premier League.
With every respect to Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne and others, it isn’t going to happen. But it is happening to the dynamic, unusual components of the West Bromwich Albion team who gave Liverpool a good run for their money in the title race of 1978/79.
West Brom are seven years into their latest stay in English football’s top division and have never again touched the heights achieved by one of the best sides in the club’s 138-year history, featuring Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson.
It isn’t through trophies won that those stars in stripes are remembered so fondly in the industrial heartland a few miles north-west of Birmingham. There were no additions of silverware; just a refreshing overhaul of football’s set ways in the country that gave the game to the world.
Black players, and indeed those from all parts of the planet, are now common in squads. The story in the 1970s was very different, though, and deeply disturbing.
Purely because of their skin color, individuals were routinely booed, abused and ducked fruit thrown from the terraces.
“The noise and level of abuse was incredible,” says Batson in Paul Rees’ 2015 book, The Three Degrees. “You’d get off the coach at away matches and the National Front would be right there in your face. We’d have to run the gauntlet and there would be spit on my jacket or Cyrille’s shirt. It was a sign of the times.”
Flying in the face of this odious prejudice came one of the Football League’s founder clubs and their colorful manager Ron Atkinson. It was he who nicknamed them the Three Degrees after the female singers from Philadelphia.
Albion were unlikely trailblazers in fielding three black players as Cunningham had grown up on the streets of north London and Regis and Batson also spent many formative years in the capital despite being born in the Caribbean.
But the three became a defining part of a thrilling, attack-minded team after being signed by different managers (Johnny Giles, Ronnie Allen and Atkinson) in the space of a year.
Lifelong Albion fan Dean Walton has seen his beloved club play at around 150 different grounds and in 19 countries and says: “We had not seen black players in Albion shirts before and there was racial tension at The Hawthorns at that time. These three certainly broke down many barriers and the number of black players who cite Cyrille as their major influence is testament to the presence of the man.”
Cunningham’s grace, trickery and perfect balance were uncorked late in 1976/77 when he arrived from Leyton Orient for £110,000 ($140,000). Regis, all muscular power and barnstorming runs, was cut loose early the following season. Forwards both, they hit the ground running with goals; plenty of them. Former Arsenal man Batson initially struggled when recruited from Cambridge United, where he had worked with Atkinson, but became an accomplished, unflappable, right back of considerable style.
They made varying contributions to a 1977/78 campaign in which Albion lost an FA Cup semi-final and qualified for Europe by finishing sixth. Then they and others gelled quite beautifully the following season, starting with three successive victories. A 7-1 slaughter of Coventry headlined a run of five wins in seven League matches in autumn and December was positively dizzying, with maximum points from four fixtures, including a 2-1 triumph at Arsenal on Boxing Day and, four days later, a spectacular 5-3 ‘signature game’ success at Manchester United that is still frequently shown on British TV.
Atkinson’s team outclassed Bristol City on New Year’s Day and went top of the table in mid-January. In an era of Liverpool dominance, many saw the Midlands upstarts as title favorites, so exhilarating were their performances over a year and a half.
“I’ve seen us referred to as one of the best teams ever to remain empty-handed,” Regis says. “People still tell us we could have won the League. It was the perfect storm – pure chemistry between excellent senior players and exciting younger ones.”
Hand-in-hand with their bid for a first championship in nearly 60 years, Albion were lighting up the UEFA Cup, discarding the notion that away first legs should be cagey assignments by comprehensively defeating Galatasaray in Turkey and Sporting Braga in Portugal.
Away to favorites Valencia in the next round, Cunningham was magnificent and his goal did more than earn the draw on which Albion fully capitalized back at The Hawthorns. It also alerted scouts from Real Madrid.
It was said Cunningham, his socks down round his ankles, could glide with such poise he barely left footprints in snow. Alas, there was ample opportunity to test that theory as his club was dealt an unkind hand by the weather.
That winter was particularly harsh and Albion twice endured three-week spells without League games. Their rhythm deserted them and two matches were subsequently lost. Liverpool kept playing and kept winning. A fixture backlog that was already punishing thanks to Cup replays and the journey to Europe’s last eight now had other additions.
Albion came strong again with runs of six and four consecutive League wins, but the electrifying spark had gone. The batteries were close to flat. It became perspiration rather than inspiration.
“We cut Liverpool’s lead back but they were used to that sort of congested programme through all their success,” adds Regis. “This was new for us. We had a small squad and, unlike Anfield, The Hawthorns didn’t have undersoil heating. A lot of grounds didn’t then.”
“We all wonder what would have happened if that had been a normal winter without so many disruptions.”
Recognition nevertheless came, only some of it welcome. After Albion even missed out to Nottingham Forest on the consolation prize of runners-up spot, Cunningham made his full England debut. Although a withdrawn individual, he left a big hole when a £950,000 fee made him the first Briton to join Real Madrid. He died in a car crash in Spain, in 1989, aged 33.
His good friend Regis was also well into the teens in goals scored that season. Many of his were spectacular, the result of devastating pace and power. He, too, became an England international – not bad considering the club paid only £5,000 to non-League Hayes for him. He was honored as the 1979 PFA Young Player of the Year.
Political correctness was in short supply then and Albion took on an all-black side, assembled by Regis, for a testimonial game for their midfielder, Len Cantello, in May. A teenage Garth Crooks, who was to win the FA Cup with Tottenham Hotspur and become a trustee of the Kick It Out anti-racism campaign, was in the side.
A program about the radical fixture was made and shown on free-to-view British TV this year.
“The idea was Ron Atkinson’s,” says Batson. “There had been a series of testimonials at the club and this was seen as something different that would appeal to the fans. We all thought it was a great idea and a bit of fun. It reflected the growing number of black players in the game.”
Batson, thrilled that his side won, went on to play 220 matches for the club and enjoy a fine post-playing career in the game. Like Regis, who collected an FA Cup winners’ medal with Coventry City in 1987, he has been awarded an MBE.
Furthermore, the Three Degrees are to be immortalized with a statue on a street near the Hawthorns. West Bromwich Albion supporters, and those with the game’s greater good close to their hearts, continue to hold them close. &#8211; Written by David Instone

How The Three Degrees Ran Racism Ragged

Friendships are sometimes forged in the most unlikely of circumstances. Against the backdrop of legalized racism, apartheid South Africa was one such circumstance. During its darkest years one could be forgiven when reading a “white” newspaper for thinking black people did not exist. And yet it was in this environment that Nelson Mandela and a young, promising, white journalist forged a friendship that would last a lifetime.
Benjamin Pogrund, 82, sits in his Jerusalem apartment, smiling. The veteran journalist and a pioneer of black reporting at the then all-white daily newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, joined the press as a missionary which, he’s quick to admit, is a very bad thing for a journalist.
At the time, black South Africans were not featured in the mainstream press. There were some stories about court cases, riots or mine accidents where black people were mentioned but it was “crazy” how they were ignored, remembers Pogrund. He took it upon himself to change things.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4922" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_2316-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" />
“Benjy Boy”, as Mandela called him, describes his success as being in the right place at the right time. He says the Rand Daily Mail was an awful paper when he joined, with a new editor, Laurence Gandar, who luckily had the same political views as Pogrund.
“He liked what I wanted to do, because I started covering black politics, which hadn’t been done before,” says Pogrund and a friendship between the junior reporter and senior editor soon flourished.
But covering black South African life meant being ostracized at work and in the Jewish community to which Pogrund belonged.
“I was dealing with an all-white paper,” he explains. “So I was like a cat being dragged in from the night, they hated me.”
At the time the Jewish community was split, between businessmen who surrendered to apartheid so their businesses would succeed, and liberals.
Soon Pogrund began covering everything from housing, education and jobs, to pass laws. And through the years he became a confidant for the leaders of black resistance, among them Mandela.
The two had countless secret meetings. While most of the police force would be out hunting for Mandela, he’d show up on a dark street corner disguised with worker’s overalls to meet Pogrund.
“His followers probably wanted to cut my throat, they probably thought I’d trapped him and I’d hand him over&#8230; but we got away with it,” he chuckles.
For Pogrund, it was Mandela’s generosity of spirit that always stood out. He sums it up with one specific story – Mandela called for a major strike against the government. The day came and the government issued a statement saying it had failed. The Rand Daily Mail ran with the headline “Strike Has Failed, Says Government,” without consulting Pogrund. The strike itself didn’t go as planned but it wasn’t the failure the government claimed it was. Hundreds of thousands of workers did stay home, but when they read the newspaper, a paper which they respected, they were scared of being dismissed, and went to work.
Pogrund remembers sitting in his office, feeling miserable, when his phone rang.
“And there’s Mandela’s warm, cheery voice, and I started stuttering an excuse, ‘Nelson, I’m sorry we screwed up’&#8230; He said to me, ‘It’s okay Benjy boy, I know it wasn’t your fault.’ I loved that man ever since.”
Pogrund and Mandela’s relationship extended beyond the clandestine meetings. While still in prison, Mandela insisted that Benjy Boy bring his second wife, Anne, for a visit. He even sent a card to their son Gideon for his bar mitzvah – a coming-of-age ceremony in Jewish tradition.
As for the Mandelas, Pogrund jokes that he was their Jewish uncle, telling how he helped Mandela’s daughter, Makaziwe, get into an American university.
“Over the years, now and again I’d go and visit her regularly, and she’d say to me, ‘please get my father off my back, he’s driving me crazy. He wants me to go to Harvard, I don’t want to go Harvard, I’m happy here at UMass Amherst!’’
Pogrund eventually found sanctuary in Britain where he worked on Fleet Street. From there he went to America and onwards to Israel to help build the Yakar Center for Social Concern. He’s been here almost two decades.
But ties with South Africa run deep and although he believes a lot has been accomplished, he is sad and angry by what hasn’t been.
“The country now has clean water and more access to healthcare, jobs, everything like that. Everything is better… but on the other hand, the failure is colossal.”
The reasons include government corruption, the heritage of apartheid and the currency. But most importantly &#8211; education.
“The majority of schools are described as dysfunctional, lacking ordinary toilets, electricity, blackboards, desks, books.”
Pogrund looks at how countries like Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan used education to come out of poverty, but says South Africa just isn’t getting there.
“There are a lot of people doing well. But the bottom people have it bad, and this carries over into people going to universities who shouldn’t be there&#8230; they haven’t achieved enough.”
And his beloved profession has become a disappointment.
“Under apartheid, we had some very committed, very good journalists. People didn’t sit around discussing press freedom, they just did it. They had a commitment, they got on with it. But whereas we were unable to exercise our full rights, now the opposite is true – and there isn’t the competence to do it.”
For a man of many words, there’s one thing he can’t get himself to talk about: Mandela’s last days. The laughter stops and sadness takes over; at times it’s even difficult to hear him.
“He had a miserable last couple of years. Miserable. It’s too personal.”
In the just over two years since Mandela passed away, Pogrund is more convinced than ever that the world desperately needs another Mandela.
“Israel is in a need of another Nelson Mandela, England is in need, every damn country is in need of a Nelson Mandela.”
Sadly, he is gone.

The White Knight Who Wrote Black

There’s something solid about Lucas Radebe. Something calm and sturdy—a kind of steadfastness that gives you the idea you are safe with him. He is late for this interview because he was picking up his children.
“Being a single father has taught me a lot. Mostly, it has taught me how to be at two places at once, as well to be two people in one,” he says.
There are two sides to the Lucas Radebe story—glory and pain. He hit professional heights by playing at Leeds United and scoring at a World Cup. The painful side of his life was the tragic death of his young wife, who succumbed to bowel cancer in 2008, when their youngest was just two years old.
“My wife’s death has been the one event in my life that humbled me beyond words. It was the sort of thing that I never thought would happen to me at that point in my life, but I believe that everything happens for a reason,” he says of the tragedy that led his family home.
“Even after I had retired from active football, it never seemed likely that we would return to South Africa to live here permanently again.  Leeds United—which I had captained for more than 12 years—had offered me a job and named a stand in their home stadium after me—I was deeply entrenched in the community and had many projects and initiatives that I had set up there,” he explains.
Radebe looks sad for a moment. Then the trademark toothpaste smile returns gently as he talks of the old days and the game he loves.
“In 1987, my parents decided to take me out of Soweto because of all the racial violence that was happening there due to political unrest. I found myself in Bophuthatswana—in a rural area called Lehurutse. Having been a boy from a fast-paced township, I found that the only thing that was there to keep me occupied was soccer.
“Sooner than anyone knew it, I was starting to excel at the game—to the point where I was now playing for the Bopson League and even for the Bophuthatswana national team,” he says.
Radebe returned home when Bophuthatswana played the South African national team. He was a goalkeeper in those early days, before a kick in the face persuaded him to give up the gloves to become a central defender.
“Even though my parents were not really keen on it, it was pretty obvious that I was going professional when after that match, Kaizer Chiefs offered me a contract which I signed during the first week of trials,” recalls Radebe.
After two years at Kaizer Chiefs, Radebe shifted his focus towards Europe when Leeds United called him for a trial.
“At that point, I was convinced that it wasn’t going to happen for me. I was 25 years old, which is considered ‘late’ in the football world, and most of my teammates—Phil Masinga, Sean Bartlett and many others—had already gone and had been properly settled,” he relates.
Soon after arriving in Leeds, Radebe regretted it.
“The weather was bad, the homesickness was awful and worst of all, I was the only other black person in the town of Leeds, and the community were not sparing in the way they treated me like an alien,” says Radebe.
“The racism came as a serious shock to me. It was almost like jumping from the frying pan into the fire—except in my home country, things were beginning to settle down with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.”
Radebe recalls that the racial hatred became so bad that one time when he was sent off for a foul, the crowds struck up a sickening racial chant.
“I remember I was being escorted off the field. When I heard what they were saying, I stopped and asked the officials on either side of me if they were hearing what I was hearing. They carried on straight-faced. I guess they just didn’t know what to say,” Radebe says.
The officials may have been tongue-tied, but Radebe wasn’t going to be.
“I decided to start two programs—one was called ‘Kick Racism out of Football’, and the other was called ‘Learning with Lucas’. The latter was designed to teach kids in the community about the different races and the different cultures that exist in the world, while the former was an initiative that was designed to be implemented in actual soccer teams where racial intolerance was rife,” he explains.
As Radebe’s community work helped him find his space, Leeds United management also discovered that Radebe could be a rock for the team as well. In one famous Premier League game against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 1996, Radebe had to take up the goalkeeping gloves once again. The Leeds goalkeeper, Mark Beeney, had been sent off and the team didn’t have a substitute goalkeeper on the bench. Apparently the manager, George Graham, could never see the point.
“As I walked towards the goal I looked across to my South African teammate Phil Masinga and he just put his head in his hands,” recalled Radebe in a radio interview years later.
Radebe distinguished himself in front of 48,000 people, saving blinding shots from Brian McClair and Ryan Giggs, before Eric Cantona put one past him to win the game 1-0.
“My game was really starting to flourish. I had also been in the Bafana Bafana team that won the Africa Cup of Nations, and Manchester United came knocking looking for my signature. After much deliberation, I turned them down because I viewed Leeds United as a club where I could really make a lasting impact. I was now very loyal to them,” he says.
His loyalty was repaid. Leeds United matched Manchester United’s offer, and made Radebe captain. Radebe’s star rose even higher when Nelson Mandela visited Leeds for the official opening of a park named after him. He requested that Radebe introduce him to the crowd and said the footballer was one of his heroes.
“How the nation rated me got a definite boost from that point on. It even became hard to leave the team even when they had been relegated to the second division,” says Radebe.
Then there was the glory of scoring for his country against the mighty Spain in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea. Many South Africans remember where they were when Radebe’s powerful header hit the net. It was an equalizer that could have sent South Africa through to the knock out stages, but Raul scored three minutes later to deny them on goal difference.
When Radebe retired from Leeds in 2005, 37,886 fans turned up at Elland Road for his testimonial. Most of the Leeds fans have taken him into their hearts and called him “Rhoo” or “the Chief” out of respect for his former club in South Africa. When a Leeds brewery asked for suggestions for the name of a new beer, the most popular suggestion was “Radebeer”.
It was then that he returned home to recast himself as an entrepreneur and nurture the family that had lost its mother. He didn’t want to end up broke like many of his fellow players.
“I started preparing for my retirement from soccer four years before it actually happened. I set up trusts and my own management company that would look after all my interests. Right now, I have an endorsement deal with toothpaste brand Aquafresh and FNB,” he says.
Even though Radebe is gearing up to become an entrepreneur, he still cannot—and does not—want to rule out football.
“Retiring was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Soccer is still very close to my heart, and if I am not given the opportunity to coach the national team, I will look into starting a development program where we get to train footballers from a young age, because I believe that is where we are getting it wrong in terms of soccer at our national level,” he concludes.
Maybe one day Radebe will rise through the ranks of South African football to do something about it.

Tag: Racism

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