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

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Malcolm would later say in his autobiography You Guys Are History!, ‘My kids had all been born in England, for heaven’s sake. They went to integrated schools and had white godparents. We all considered England our home, and colour wasn’t an issue in our choice of friends at school.’

Phil DeFrietas, who also had his Englishness questioned by journalists throughout his career, continued to play for the national team despite threats from the National Front to kill him and his family if he played for England. DeFreitas turned down the opportunity of going on a ‘rebel’ tour of South Africa during apartheid when white national team members sacrificed their England careers temporarily to cash in on the riches offered by the racially corrupt regime. DeFreitas, in his autobiography Daffy, said that he never had the ‘desire to play for West Indies’ and given that he had learnt the game here, he felt he had a debt to pay to England. Not all black folks the same. Just like white English folks, there will be some who will die for England, and others who will not. The problem had less to do with black players and their motivations and much more to do with England and its own fragile state. That appeared to be the barrier, or at least a rarely questioned barrier, to true cohesion.