Читать книгу No Win Race. A Story of Belonging, Britishness and Sport онлайн

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My first time occurred at Wembley Arena on 27 September 1980. I was seven. Wasn’t there in person. Observed it on TV. On screen, the Arena resembled a backstreet pub in the East End: smoky, uninviting, hostile and undeniably white and working class. You didn’t need to see the faces of the patrons in attendance to grasp their attitudes. Their fanatical moans painted a picture of flushed-faced, testosterone-charged, agitated men. The Arena may have been playing host to the world middleweight championship fight between Alan Minter and Marvin Hagler, but on this night, the world-famous venue had been transformed into a scowling theatre of hate.

I watched the fight with my father in our comfy living room in Second Avenue in Manor Park. We were one of maybe seven black families on the street, which was in the north side of Newham, one of the most racially mixed parts of the East End. My father was a painter and decorator while my mother had just started working for Laker Airways. I lived in the three-bedroom terrace with my two older sisters and my grandmother, who had her own bedroom and kitchen in the extension. I planted myself chest down on our rug in my usual posture, elbows grinding into the rug to support my head, which was perched on my hands. My father took his place behind me on our sofa, with its black synthetic armrests and orange seat covers, which sat in front of our lantern-patterned wallpaper, coloured three shades of brown.