ABSTRACT
In this chapter we argue that racism is both deeply rooted and pervasive in recreational cricket in England. Our aim is to illustrate the different dimensions and manifestations of this racism. The empirical material used here draws on two separate pieces of research conducted into racism in men’s local league cricket: Crossing the Boundary: A study of the nature and extent of racism in local league cricket (from here on CB), which was carried out during the 1996 season,1
with the core of the field-work encompassing Leeds, neighbouring Bradford, and East Yorkshire; and Anyone for Cricket? Equal Opportunities and changing cricket cultures in Essex and East London (from here on AFC), which concentrated on clubs from the Ilford region of east London and north and east Essex during the 1997 season.2 By drawing on these, and a number of secondary reports, we will outline how a discourse of racism resides in the ‘narrative structural positions, rhetorical tropes and habits of perception’ (Dyer 1997: 12) of the dominant cultural group within cricket. As with the recreational level of sports in general, scant attention has been
paid to the existence and analysis of racism in recreational cricket. Most previous work on the politics of ‘race’ in cricket has focussed on the elite end of the game. For example, the role of cricket in buttressing British cultural and political imperial authority over colonized people throughout the empire has been extensively documented, (for example see Birley 1979; Holt 1989; Searle 1990; Bradley 1992; and James 1994), while analyses of racism in elite post-war English cricket have recently appeared (Marqusee 1998; Searle 1993). It is perhaps unsurprising that most scholarly work on ‘race’ and racism has been historical and on the game at the national and international level, for as the cricket journalist Rob Steen remarked, ‘No sport relies so heavily on
international rivalry as cricket, nor pits white so consistently against black, former master against uppity ex-servant’ (1996: 4). Yet, however crucial these analyses have been, our understanding of the nature of ‘race’ and racism in cricket will remain deficient in the absence of a similar level of critical enquiry at the ‘grass roots’ of the sport. This is not just a point about comprehensiveness. It is also to do with a coherent analysis of the social configurations of racism in English cricket. The contention made here is that of the three identifiable levels of the game – the international, national (first-class county game) and recreational – it is the first and last levels listed that together constitute the key sites for the articulation of racism. The first-class county game is by no means irrelevant when considering racism, but it is both the international and the recreational spheres that provide the boundaries within which a discourse of racism circulates throughout cricket. For the purposes of analysis and clarity, we would like to posit three dimen-
sions or levels of racism in cricket. First there are the crude explicit forms of racial abuse. Whilst explicit forms of racist abuse are not commonplace in local leagues, there is a still a significant and unacceptable level of abuse experienced by black and Asian players. Second, there are the more subtle forms of racism that derive from an imperial and colonialist heritage where a discourse replete with cultural essentialisms abounds. (By this we mean the ways in which ‘culture’ is understood to be an expression of an innate (biological) self – whether identified with an individual or a group – that is often counterpoised to other cultures which are assumed to be mutually incompatible formations.) We examine the ways in which this discourse unfairly discriminates against a large number of black and Asian people. Third, a consequence of this heritage is that it has created a particular culture of ‘Englishness’ that has produced a form of institutionalized racism in recreational cricket. We show how this culture, in practice, disproportionately disadvantages black and Asian clubs when it comes to accessing opportunities and participating within the same competitive structures as their white counterparts. Our argument is that it is the second and third forms that are the most pervasive and the most difficult to combat. In a sense, then, many of the debates around cricket centre on the way the
game is ‘imagined’ and its role in people’s cultural identities. It could be argued that who ‘owns’ cricket is the subtext to understanding racism in cricket. This is not simply in terms of who makes decisions about the game’s rules, structures and developmental future – though this too is crucial – but of how the game is defined both within the cricketing media, and informally, within cricket leagues up and down the country. What cricket means, how it should be played, and its place within wider society are the crucial questions. The notion that cricket is essentially a white English, middle-class and rural game is being challenged by the very same formerly colonized peoples over whom the game was supposed to act as a form of educative civilizing process. This very act of what we might term cultural resistance means that white, middle-class Englishness is also being redefined. Mirroring the wider discourse of multi-culturalism and the challenge to the hegemonic centre of white English nationalism, many people, groups and
communities can now lay claim to cricket as being their game too, thus challenging and fragmenting any official notion of there being only one legitimate and authoritative way of playing, watching and consuming cricket. We begin our discussion by addressing what we perceive to be the biggest problem in tackling racism in the game – that is the defensive attitude of the cricket establishment.
