Friday 11 July 2008

I have a choice.

I either write about endless transfer sagas (lampard will he stay or will he go, ronaldo ditto)- or I diversify.

since I don't want to bore my tiny but loyal readership I am not about to start writing about contemporary poetry, marxism, or welsh history. So that leaves my other great love- cricket.

#I don't like cricket, I love it#.

I shall not wax lyrical about Kevin Pieterson here. Nor shall I quibble about Andrew Strauss' dismissal yesterday. Rather I am going to pickup on some comment made by Darren Gough concerning the illegal player saga.

I have always liked Gough. His inswinging yorkers were handy for England and Wales team at a difficult time- when the phrase middle order collapse was common (e.g "England suffered another middle order batting collapse yesterday at the hands of [insert any team name here] despite a good 70 from Graham Thorpe and a gritty 47 from Alec Stewart/Michael Atherton the team were all out for 193]. Gough also impressed in Strictly Come Dancing. His comments yesterday made me like him even more. He picked up on the inconsistency/laten racism of UK immigration.

Speaking of Azeem Rafiq he said "him and his brother have been going to school here since they were kids" I wanted him to call kids 'nippers' at this point. "they have boradoer yorkshire accents than I do." That is saying something. "you meet all these South Africans and Australians who have British passports but they've only been here about 5 mins. I don't know what the problem is."

Well said. On a day when a naturalised South African became a hero for England a kid who has lived in Yorkshire nearly all his life gets outed as being a foreigner, "who comes form Pakistan'. I hope the Home Office don't now do anything rash. If Rafiq had white skin, or came from down under, I doubt if anyone would have noticed, let alone cared.

1 comment:

Jason said...

Yup, Chris. I heartily agree with the sentiment.

It is painful to watch people's "Britishness" being tested in this way.

That in no way diminishes the validity of Pietersen's presence in England colours and his achievements, but rather, it homes in on the central fact, we should welcome all those who wish to be here, and to represent the nation.

It used to be one of the strengths of the UK that while there is racism, there is not the outright segregation of the US (been there, seen it, got the T-shirt) and a middle way (born of being a little island with cramped spaces) always seemed to be found. My family went through all this media-stoked crap in the wake of the IRA pub bombings in Birmingham, with the regular encounters with institutionalised racism when entering/leaving the UK and so forth.

Now, with all this anti-Muslim feeling, condoned by literary giants (yes, they are that, for all I might dispute their right to that status), there is an open season going on with regard to assaulting, through the media, the Britishness of Muslims here, and of spreading dark notions of an enemy working against us, blah de blah.

So, props to Gough, I never liked him too much as a player (but he was outstanding in his commitment to playing, not worrying if being unfit/unprepared/injured would mean being battered in the press for underperforming and put the team in front of himself on every occasion).