More than talent on the field

Madhu Singh, aged 29, sat on the grass of the village football pitch in Bihar, India and commented : ‘Football is more than a game.’ This was in 2010.

My friend Madhu is a professional footballer, former Vice Captain of the Indian women’s national team. She was the first woman from the state of Bihar to hold this position.
Her family are not well-off. They had been hoping that she would end up with a rather dull but permanent government admin job. But when, and only at the age of 16, she first took up football and immediately showed talent, her siblings and parents backed her all the way.
At times, Madhu struggled – Indian women athletes are not paid well and she found it difficult to survive in between tournaments. Regardless she kept going and travelled around India and the world playing the game she loved.  
Madhu was recruited to coach the girls’ team attached to one of Second Sight’s partner eye hospitals at the time. That’s how we met. On one of my many trips, I brought with me Permi Jhooti, Britian’s first female Asian professional who has played for Millwall, Fulham and Chelsea Football Clubs.
Watching the Bihar girls training, Permi had remarked : ‘This was me at their age. I was a small, insecure Asian kid growing up in Britain. It was only when we got onto the football pitch and I found myself flying down the wing, did I feel, this is me!’

These words came back to me when I read Gareth Southgate’s open letter to our nation prior to the UEFA Euro Championship. (For those who don’t follow football, Southgate is the manager of the England men’s team which lost the Final in a penalty shoot out last Sunday).
Southgate described his team as ‘humble, proud and liberated in being their true selves.’
Which is exactly what Permi was describing. And what Madhu meant by football being more than a game. Indeed, all their sentiments resonate with me and countless numbers of those who have discovered the endless possibilities and thrilling sense of freedom one can feel when participating in the Beautiful Game and which. can positively affect all aspects of your life.
When an entire team can feel this, it is a triumph.

On Sunday July 11, 2021, the England men’s team - brought together with much care, thought and absolute commitment to fairness by the quietly confident Southgate -  stepped out onto the pitch at Wembley embodying all that is best of 21st century England.
As journalist Hugh Muir wrote :  ‘The practical and moral argument that our diversity is our strength has long been made. This team proves it.’

It was painful to see them lose – especially as they played their hearts out. And the ghastly bigots (who already hated the idea of such a team having finally come together) made the most of this by targeting the penalty-takers who missed, who just happened to be black.
We should not even give them the time of day.
Because what led up to that team reaching the Final was a massive achievement.

Football has been plagued by racism for all too long. (Sexism too – but that’s another story for another time). In Britain, the attempts by officialdom to tackle this have involved, quite frankly, a lot of faffing around. Meanwhile Southgate and others, from around 2016, have been quietly and determinedly working to relegate hatred and racism from the game. Not with mission statements and diversity policies. With actions.
When the Black Lives Matter movement erupted on the world stage in 2020 it instilled an urgency and an even more committed spirit into all those who are serious about outlawing discrimination of any kind.

So let us remember that last Sunday, both teams, Italy and England, ‘took the knee’ – kneeling briefly on one knee being the physical act that publicly declares your support for the fight against Racism and is a reminder that the campaign is ongoing.
This togetherness was in marked contrast to the patronizing and vacillating  statements emanating from our own PM Boris Johnson and his infamous Home Secretary Priti Patel. The latter, of Ugandan - Indian origin, called this act of solidarity ‘gesture politics.’

Water off a duck’s back that kind of statement. It is sheer hard work and commitment over years and years that has led us to a place in which our national men’s football team reflects the country.  As well as being the most talented group of players we have had for a very long while, Southgate’s team are black and white players and players of mixed heritage, players from the north of England and from the south of England and more than a few who had to fight poverty and discrimination from a young age. What these mostly very young men share is a commitment to fairness – the majority are involved in charitable work close to their hearts. The players donated their match fees to our hard-pressed National Health Service.

The footballer most notable in this respect is Marcus Rashford who is a campaigner against child food poverty in the UK. He raised and donated money to feed hungry kids missing their free meals when schools were closed during lockdown. He shamed the British Government into making a U-turn on their decision to withhold this free food for poor children.

The solid support for these footballers comes from the fact that they are still grounded in the communities from which they came – visiting their old schools and clubs even now that they are big football icons. In addition, a wonderful bunch of mums and step-mums and dads and aunties and sisters and brothers offer sense and sensibility when the bigots vent their anguish and anger.
However, none of these modern footballers are naïve or gullible. They know that discrimination can rear its ugly head at any time. Unlike past generations – when I grew up in 1960s Britain, it was very much a case of ‘don’t make a fuss’ when faced with racism – they will not be unnerved.
Especially when they are doing so much that is of benefit to all of our country, and all of the world.

So, can we please take the spotlight off the thugs that are spewing out their racist messages wherever they are allowed a forum? They relish it. Let us treat their incoherent and bitter utterances for what they are – alienated commentaries.
Let us keep cheering a brilliant team and its manager and all those supporters who do not behave in a manner that shames us into owning up to being English.

The England men’s team are lucky to have a manager like Southgate.
Madhu was not so lucky. In spite of being the perfect role model, she lost her job training the village girls’ team in Bihar. Why? Because the project became a bit of a political football. Marketing men took over the team and now the once feisty girls are paraded before the cameras to tell how they were victims of discrimination rescued by a scheme dreamt up by men in order to ‘ empower’ them. Interestingly, this has become a bit of a competition in India – there are now at least three such schemes in rural Bihar alone all claiming to be ‘the only team ‘empowering rural girls to play football.

So, we all have different footballing battles to fight.

And Madhu? She is now studying for her official coaching qualifications and still plays regularly, continuing to be the best kind of role model for Indian girl footballers – ‘humble, proud and liberated’ , in Southgate’s memorable words.

Lucy Mathen

#humbleproudandliberatedintheirselves  #footballheroes    #redcardforracism