Sport, and Football in particular, seem to have a remarkable capacity to deliver redemption, fairytales, heartbreak and coincidences that would seem far-fetched if they were scripted as fiction. From players scoring against old clubs to great athletes finally fulfilling their potential at their once in a lifetime home Olympic Games, sport continues to have multiple storylines.
Very early last season, around September 2009, I said to a few people in all seriousness I could see Spurs winning the European Cup at Wembley in May 2011, 50 years on since we became the first team to the Double there in the twentieth century. That just wasn’t based on some blind romantic notion, or the superstition of the year ending in ‘1’; in my eyes we already had the making of a very good team who played progressive football with attacking intent, and which had an attitude to go on a good run, be comfortable on the European stage and was starting to show a winning mentality.
But of course I also felt it would be a fitting anniversary fifty years on from the all conquering ’61 team (which went on to be the first British team to win a European trophy), while also being a redemptive return after we were hard done by against Benfica in the semi-finals, the last time we were in the competition. As Jimmy Greaves, who played in that European Cup Semi-Final for Spurs, used to say: Football is a funny old game.
After criminally conceding an early goal and then going down to ten-men in the Bernabeu, the quarter-finals may now be as far as we get this season. But I immediately thought there was another story of footballing fate that non-Spurs fans may want to write.
In a bar in Madrid in the early hours of Wednesday morning, long enough after the game that the conversation moved back to the result, I said to five “football friends” I usually go to games with, what I thought in the stadium at the time – a neutral may see Adebayor’s goals as justice against a clubs who’s fans have given him racist abuse for three years. And unusually amongst an argumentative group, as everyone contemplated what I said, they all just nodded their head, and there was no dissent. Everyone agreed, because that is how football often works. And we all agree that the Adebayor song is wrong.
None of us sing that song. I never have. Some of them did the first time we all heard it together, a few days have we hammered Arsenal 5-1, and were walking towards the away end at Old Trafford for the FA Cup Fourth Round in 2008, fuelled by the prospect of at least one trip to Wembley and a lot of beer. I said then I thought it was racist, and despite what the CPS say (not exactly the first time they have called it wrong), and the ambiguity of ‘Kick It Out’s comments since the game in Madrid
It is not hard to figure out how the song started – it was adapted from the song Arsenal fans were singing about their then hero in that 2008 semi-final second leg (I don’t remember them singing at all at their own ground in the first leg, and it was about the only thing they sang in the second-leg - at half-time, when Adebayor was warming up). They were singing about giving him the ball to score, and someone adapted it to his dad washing an elephant, and his mother being a whore. (You’ve got to wonder how the mind of someone like that works).
But it is easy to see how the song then quickly took off – it scans well and basically tore apart the only song Arsenal fans used to sing at the time. The point about it scanning well is not flippant - after Adebayor scored for Man City against Arsenal last season, running the length of the field to celebrate in front of the gooners on the day he also retaliated against Van Persie - the words for a while afterwards by Spurs fans were changed to “He stood on a rapist/And then slid when he scored”. While still not the most pleasant song in the world, the main target of abuse remained Arsenal, rather than Adebayor because of his race.
It is hard to imagine the song would have been sung by so many if Adebayor wasn’t an Arsenal player to start with. It is revisionism to say Adebayor gets so much abuse because he has a dislikeable reputation, as his main misdemeanour when it started was whom he played for.
But the first adaptation has hung around and contrary to tweets I have read since Madrid
Racism isn’t a problem at Spurs – there are racist Spurs fans, just as there are racist fans at other clubs, but the majority of people that sing that song are not racist; because the song is not overtly racist, most of them probably don’t even recognise it as such. But ignorance, just as saying other clubs are far worse (which is true), doesn’t make it acceptable.
Which is why it is a good thing Adebayor himself has finally raised it. And the problem is not a Tottenham problem. It is a problem in a society in which non-racist personal abuse is acceptable. We live in a time where Chris Moyles, Jeremy Clarkson and Jimmy Carr are pillars of light-entertainment, and The Sun is being read by on average 7.7 million people (Media Week, March 2011). So it’s not surprising the varying boundaries between criticism, banter, bullying and personal abuse become blurred to some.
It is embarrassing for Spurs that Adebayor has the higher moral ground, but he has it comfortably in this case. Tottenham have a great record in attracting both English ethnic minority fans and players, and those from oversees, going back many, many decades.
The Adebayor song is an aberration that will now hopefully soon come to an end. Unfortunately considering some of our players like to take their nap when defending set-pieces, it was always tempting fate.
MG
MG
 |
| My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available on Amazon and Smashwords. |
