My experience at Brighton and Hove Albion

I was a season ticket holder at Brighton and Hove Albion for three seasons and I must say before I explain any negativity that for the majority of my time at the club, I enjoyed a welcoming environment and even felt comfortable enough to take family members to matches. Although football fans represent the football club that they support, I do not feel that these certain individuals represent Brighton and Hove Albion whatsoever and instead let down a fantastic fan base and family friendly club. The club itself does a lot of work tackling discrimination and takes pride in its fight for equality; largely down to the fact the city of Brighton has a large gay community.

Brighton fans are often victims of homophobic chants from away supporters which Kick It Out says should be taken just as seriously as racism. The club itself released a statement on Sunday stressing it has a “zero tolerance approach on all forms of discrimination” with Chief Executive Paul Barber also saying “we simply will not tolerate any form of xenophobic behaviour”. The FA have finally stepped up their game and begun to make arrests for homophobic chanting which is a good sign as it seemed like every other game I could hear away fans attempting to use sexuality as an insult. Last year, they released four anti-discrimination films in an attempt to increase the percentage of cases reported, a statistic which thankfully rises year after year.

The club was in the news recently due to racist chanting by a man in the concourse during their loss to Arsenal in the FA Cup. Sussex Police said “The club contacted us straight away about it” which differs completely to the incidents I witnessed first-hand. Hopefully the club has learnt from their previous mistakes and now involve the police for the crimes committed as a football stadium shouldn’t be a safe haven for crime, on or off the pitch.

In my final season supporting the club, I endured two encounters of outrageous racial abuse and I think the ages of the offenders are what make my case so intriguing. Both offenders were under the age of 18 and each incident occurred within a couple of weeks of eachother. The boys had no affiliation to eachother other than the team they supported and the fact they sat a couple of rows apart from one another. Also, although I was not sitting in the family stand and was instead sitting in the stand notorious for chanting, there were many minors present which makes these attacks all the more atrocious.

 The first incident was a young teenager shouting “you f**king n****r” at a black opposition player after he missed a shot on goal. Thankfully I don’t think the player heard over the crowd noise but many people in close vicinity, myself included, were appalled. It wasn’t long before a steward walked up and pulled him out of the crowd. I am ashamed to say that I knew this person and had spoken to him regularly at the football matches I attended. He carried on attending matches while the disciplinary procedure was ongoing and he later told me that the club had managed to pick him out on CCTV at the exact moment he was reported to have racially abused the player. The club swiftly gave him a five year ban from attending any home or away Brighton and Hove Albion matches but I felt this sentence was insufficient. He could still go to any other sporting events across the country and the police were uninformed of his actions. The ironic thing about this case is his stepdad actually worked at the AMEX stadium as one of the head stewards.

I don’t know as much about the second case but I find it very interesting that the offender witnessed the first incident occur a few games prior as he was merely sat a couple of rows behind. This offender was also a minor and used the same derogatory term “n****r” to abuse a black player. I’m unsure about the severity of his ban but what really shocked me was that after the stewards took him away and presumably gave the boy a primary school-esque telling off, he was allowed back up to his seat to which he was congratulated by his dad and friends. Absolutely disgusting.

For me this shows that racism is learnt from a young age. No one is born filled with hatred; the hatred is often put upon them at a young, impressionable age. Both offenders were under the age of 18, they still hadn’t reached adulthood yet their minds were so horrifically brainwashed into thinking wrong was right. The reaction of the father in the second case proves this, being praised and supported for his victory against equality when quite clearly what he did was an inexcusable act of hate. Football gets a lot of publicity for acts of racism but it’s not a racist sport, at the end of the day the fans go back home after 90 minutes and live there day to day lives. If we are to rid football of racism we need to rid the world of racism and that will only come about with education of equality from an early age.

http://centreforjournalism.co.uk/content/equality-football