Post by QPR Report on Feb 8, 2009 7:40:29 GMT
Not a tabloid piece!
Observer/Amy Lawrence
Barnes ready to step into the managerial breach again
Jamaica manager John Barnes reflects on his playing career, his stint at Celtic, racial abuse, and why he always managed to turn the other cheek
David James in goal. Glen Johnson, Rio Ferdinand, Joleon Lescott and Ashley Cole in defence. Theo Walcott, Jermaine Jenas, Nigel Reo-Coker and Ashley Young across midfield. Emile Heskey and Gabriel Agbonlahor up front.
It could happen.
And, a quarter of a century on, if it did, would the world stop spinning? Would the Football Association crumble into its foundations? Would England fans put a boot through the Wembley seats and refuse to watch? Would the players pull on their white shirts knowing that the ordinary folk who ally themselves to their team would think nothing of calling them sickening names, of tossing bananas at them, of raining spit on them as they prepare to take a throw-in?
For today's generation of England players, abuse is usually a matter of whether or not people like your PR persona, respect your contribution, or accept that you deserve to earn the millions you make. But Frank Lampard is as likely to get an earful as Ashley Cole. Theo Walcott, for that matter, is as likely to be cherished for his goals as Wayne Rooney. Modern fans, in general, tend to judge their footballers by criteria other than their colour.
John Barnes was the most high-profile of the group of groundbreaking professionals who prompted Robson to make that resonant quote. Today's players – and to an extent today's public – would find it unfathomable that an explanation, a defence if you like, was a necessary consequence of selecting black players to represent England.
Barnes was always dignified about what he was forced to confront on a daily basis in his job. It happened outside of public earshot as well. Inside the dressing room. On the training pitch. At the players' canteen. Anywhere.
"In training, you would get abuse from your own team-mates," he recalls with a half smile at the idiocy of what passed for banter. "They would call you racial names. 'Eh, N-Word.' I would think, 'Oh, whatever.' It's incomprehensible to people, but this was a part of society."
If anything, it's the hypocrisy that rankles more than anything else with Barnes. He recalls a notorious trip to South America, where his goal, a work of art to illuminate a 2-0 victory in the Maracanã and one that Rio Ferdinand calls "the best England goal ever", was ignored by the National Front element of England's support. They chose to acknowledge the contributions only of white players and claimed, absurdly, that the game finished 1-0.
"We were on the plane with three members of the National Front. They had a National Front flag," Barnes remembers. "It didn't upset me, but what gets my goat is that the very same reporters who now jump on the bandwagon about incidents in Macedonia or Spain didn't report it then.
"Why is it wrong now when it wasn't then? This was going on and nobody said a word."
Barnes, whose father was a Colonel and military attaché in the Jamaica Defence Force, and whose mother was a lecturer on science of the mind, was brought up with a blend of discipline and positive thinking. That, he says, is what gave him his perspective on life.
It must have been hugely challenging to turn the other cheek, though. "Not at all," Barnes says. "It depends on the individual. I grew up in a middle-class family in Jamaica, I had no self-worth issues whatsoever. For someone to call me a N-Word and call me worthless doesn't register with me. I consider them to be ignorant so why should they affect me? For kids growing up in England it was quite different because they would have been put down their whole lives.
"That's why I can't give anyone advice about what to do in that situation because you have to be true to your own character. To look yourself in the eye every morning you have to do whatever it takes, and if you have to kick some guy in the chest like Eric Cantona did, that's what you have to do."
Barnes has that impressive blend of intellect and empathy (a word he uses often) that makes him try to look at the opposite point of view to better understand it. He references the controversies that have shown up Ron Atkinson, Luis Aragonés, and even Carol Thatcher recently, and tries to be empathetic in his judgment of whether someone intends offence or uses the antiquated vernacular they grew up with.
"Alf Garnett grew up in an era where it was acceptable and it takes a special person not to go along with it," explains Barnes. "When you have grown up with it you don't know any better. History shows that black people have been second-class citizens, less than human. That's what had to happen with slavery. You had to dehumanise a person, to say, 'He is not like us. He is used to hard work in the sun. He can handle being whipped because he doesn't feel any pain. He doesn't need to be educated.' Hundreds of years later the legacy of that is black people are deemed to be inferior. Life shows us that, unfortunately.
"I used to go to the school plays my kids were in, and who were the angels at Christmas time? The blonde, blue-eyed girls. Who was Mary? And the shepherds were all the black and Indian kids in the background."These days Barnes is a little rounder than the mercurial athlete who became Footballer of the Year in 1988 when he was part of arguably Liverpool's most enthralling team. His passion for football is not diminished. His motivation to make the next giant step in the game is strong.
"I want to be an inspiration now as a manager," he says. "That's what we now have to overcome. The old stereotypes about whether black ex-players can be managers linger. I'd like to do something that helps people to get given the opportunity in future. Which is wrong anyway, because if I am a good manager that doesn't mean another black manager is going to be good!'
He grins.
Barnes is now the manager of the country of his birth, Jamaica. It is something he always wanted to do and he is faring well so far. When he took over last autumn, three games into World Cup qualification, it was all but a lost cause. Barnes helped Jamaica to win their remaining matches. They went out on goal difference, pipped by Sven-Goran Eriksson's Mexico.
He takes his team to the New Den in midweek to take on Nigeria in a friendly and is very excited. It feels good to be back in the game. Since his last attempt at management, a troubled few months at Celtic in 2000, Barnes has been a pundit with the main aim of keeping his face in. "People forget about you," he says. "It's difficult to get back in."
He learned a salient lesson about management from his time at Celtic Park.
"What it told me is this: my whole philosophy about football was to worry about what happens on the pitch with the players. But increasingly these days you have to know more about the men you are working for. Your bosses impact on you far more than what is going on on the field.
"If they don't support you, you are in trouble. At Celtic they were not with me. They wanted Kenny Dalglish, they didn't want me."
Barnes had already been subjected to criticism when Celtic lost Henrik Larsson and Paul Lambert to injury. The problems escalated swiftly. "Player power took over because they started talking to the board of directors about things," he laments. "There is definitely too much player power. Only Alex Ferguson is immune to it. Players aren't accountable for their performances. When you are in a comfort zone where you know that if you lose the manager is going to get it, there is not the same pressure to give everything."
Barnes's regard for Manchester United and their manager might not sit easily with those who idolised him on the Kop. But he sees in the current champions, and the fine balance of qualities they embody, an echo of the outstanding Liverpool team he graced.
When Liverpool last topped the English game, Barnes could not have imagined they would go almost 20 years without the title at Anfield. In 1990 they had been a slither away from winning the coveted double for three successive seasons.
"But I can guarantee I felt, and most of the Liverpool players felt, it was not a real problem because we would be doing the double in years to come. All of a sudden there was a complete capitulation as the team broke up. By the late 90s, I still wouldn't believe it would be another 10 years until we had a chance of winning it."
What of the current team's chances? "We have to get away from the Steven Gerrard-Fernando Torres factor whereby we feel we can't compete without them. We beat Manchester United without both of them. We have to have a belief in the squad."Oddly, his first-hand knowledge of how a brilliant team functions has had less influence on Barnes's managerial career than his time at Watford. "A group of average players can come up to the top division and finish second to Liverpool ahead of Manchester United. How does that work? Because of the spirit, the empowerment, the organisation the manager instils in those players. So Graham Taylor has had the biggest effect on my ideas. If you can work with Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi and Ronaldo, fine. If not, what do you do?
"This is where African and Caribbean players can improve. When I go to Africa on coaching conferences I always say, can you ever see an African or Caribbean team being 3-0 down against superior opposition, as Liverpool were against AC Milan, and come back to win? If we can embrace those elements of togetherness and belief, of tactical discipline, allied with our physical and technical strengths, that is when we can really move on.
"I am having a bit of a hard time in Jamaica trying to transmit that to the public. They want to see the skill and the flair. They say, 'Why have we got two central midfield players who don't want to get forward? No-one's dribbling!' The team are very receptive to it, but the public are still very into the Brazilian ideal. We'll get there."
The shifting and blurring of cultural stereotypes is, with Barnes, an intriguing topic. Back in the sphere of England, the manager about to take his Caribbean team for a friendly at Millwall – once one of the "scariest" places he ever played at – considers the role of football as a force for good.
"You don't hear [racist] chanting in the stadium any more. But if you threaten someone who loves their team that they will be kicked out of the ground if they chant anything racist, does that mean he is not a racist any more?" he ponders. "Or does he just keep his mouth shut for 90 minutes, but come Monday to Friday he can look at people in the street and say whatever he thinks?
"The racism I am really interested in stamping out is in everyday life. Joe Bloggs, who nobody knows, walks down the street and gets racially abused. He goes into a shop and people think he is going to steal something. He cannot get a job.
"Only through education and integration will things change profoundly. And the future looks very bright because when you look at young kids now they dress the same, they sound the same, and they listen to the same music. The new British culture that is coming through supersedes colour and race."
When he flew into London from Kingston last week, coming into land at Heathrow reminded him of the journey he first made at the age of 12. Barnes could not believe the number of football pitches he could see from the sky, of kids playing on a Sunday morning.
"As soon as I saw that I thought: 'I'm home'. I could not wait."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/08/john-barnes-jamaica-amy-lawrence
Observer/Amy Lawrence
Barnes ready to step into the managerial breach again
Jamaica manager John Barnes reflects on his playing career, his stint at Celtic, racial abuse, and why he always managed to turn the other cheek
David James in goal. Glen Johnson, Rio Ferdinand, Joleon Lescott and Ashley Cole in defence. Theo Walcott, Jermaine Jenas, Nigel Reo-Coker and Ashley Young across midfield. Emile Heskey and Gabriel Agbonlahor up front.
It could happen.
And, a quarter of a century on, if it did, would the world stop spinning? Would the Football Association crumble into its foundations? Would England fans put a boot through the Wembley seats and refuse to watch? Would the players pull on their white shirts knowing that the ordinary folk who ally themselves to their team would think nothing of calling them sickening names, of tossing bananas at them, of raining spit on them as they prepare to take a throw-in?
For today's generation of England players, abuse is usually a matter of whether or not people like your PR persona, respect your contribution, or accept that you deserve to earn the millions you make. But Frank Lampard is as likely to get an earful as Ashley Cole. Theo Walcott, for that matter, is as likely to be cherished for his goals as Wayne Rooney. Modern fans, in general, tend to judge their footballers by criteria other than their colour.
John Barnes was the most high-profile of the group of groundbreaking professionals who prompted Robson to make that resonant quote. Today's players – and to an extent today's public – would find it unfathomable that an explanation, a defence if you like, was a necessary consequence of selecting black players to represent England.
Barnes was always dignified about what he was forced to confront on a daily basis in his job. It happened outside of public earshot as well. Inside the dressing room. On the training pitch. At the players' canteen. Anywhere.
"In training, you would get abuse from your own team-mates," he recalls with a half smile at the idiocy of what passed for banter. "They would call you racial names. 'Eh, N-Word.' I would think, 'Oh, whatever.' It's incomprehensible to people, but this was a part of society."
If anything, it's the hypocrisy that rankles more than anything else with Barnes. He recalls a notorious trip to South America, where his goal, a work of art to illuminate a 2-0 victory in the Maracanã and one that Rio Ferdinand calls "the best England goal ever", was ignored by the National Front element of England's support. They chose to acknowledge the contributions only of white players and claimed, absurdly, that the game finished 1-0.
"We were on the plane with three members of the National Front. They had a National Front flag," Barnes remembers. "It didn't upset me, but what gets my goat is that the very same reporters who now jump on the bandwagon about incidents in Macedonia or Spain didn't report it then.
"Why is it wrong now when it wasn't then? This was going on and nobody said a word."
Barnes, whose father was a Colonel and military attaché in the Jamaica Defence Force, and whose mother was a lecturer on science of the mind, was brought up with a blend of discipline and positive thinking. That, he says, is what gave him his perspective on life.
It must have been hugely challenging to turn the other cheek, though. "Not at all," Barnes says. "It depends on the individual. I grew up in a middle-class family in Jamaica, I had no self-worth issues whatsoever. For someone to call me a N-Word and call me worthless doesn't register with me. I consider them to be ignorant so why should they affect me? For kids growing up in England it was quite different because they would have been put down their whole lives.
"That's why I can't give anyone advice about what to do in that situation because you have to be true to your own character. To look yourself in the eye every morning you have to do whatever it takes, and if you have to kick some guy in the chest like Eric Cantona did, that's what you have to do."
Barnes has that impressive blend of intellect and empathy (a word he uses often) that makes him try to look at the opposite point of view to better understand it. He references the controversies that have shown up Ron Atkinson, Luis Aragonés, and even Carol Thatcher recently, and tries to be empathetic in his judgment of whether someone intends offence or uses the antiquated vernacular they grew up with.
"Alf Garnett grew up in an era where it was acceptable and it takes a special person not to go along with it," explains Barnes. "When you have grown up with it you don't know any better. History shows that black people have been second-class citizens, less than human. That's what had to happen with slavery. You had to dehumanise a person, to say, 'He is not like us. He is used to hard work in the sun. He can handle being whipped because he doesn't feel any pain. He doesn't need to be educated.' Hundreds of years later the legacy of that is black people are deemed to be inferior. Life shows us that, unfortunately.
"I used to go to the school plays my kids were in, and who were the angels at Christmas time? The blonde, blue-eyed girls. Who was Mary? And the shepherds were all the black and Indian kids in the background."These days Barnes is a little rounder than the mercurial athlete who became Footballer of the Year in 1988 when he was part of arguably Liverpool's most enthralling team. His passion for football is not diminished. His motivation to make the next giant step in the game is strong.
"I want to be an inspiration now as a manager," he says. "That's what we now have to overcome. The old stereotypes about whether black ex-players can be managers linger. I'd like to do something that helps people to get given the opportunity in future. Which is wrong anyway, because if I am a good manager that doesn't mean another black manager is going to be good!'
He grins.
Barnes is now the manager of the country of his birth, Jamaica. It is something he always wanted to do and he is faring well so far. When he took over last autumn, three games into World Cup qualification, it was all but a lost cause. Barnes helped Jamaica to win their remaining matches. They went out on goal difference, pipped by Sven-Goran Eriksson's Mexico.
He takes his team to the New Den in midweek to take on Nigeria in a friendly and is very excited. It feels good to be back in the game. Since his last attempt at management, a troubled few months at Celtic in 2000, Barnes has been a pundit with the main aim of keeping his face in. "People forget about you," he says. "It's difficult to get back in."
He learned a salient lesson about management from his time at Celtic Park.
"What it told me is this: my whole philosophy about football was to worry about what happens on the pitch with the players. But increasingly these days you have to know more about the men you are working for. Your bosses impact on you far more than what is going on on the field.
"If they don't support you, you are in trouble. At Celtic they were not with me. They wanted Kenny Dalglish, they didn't want me."
Barnes had already been subjected to criticism when Celtic lost Henrik Larsson and Paul Lambert to injury. The problems escalated swiftly. "Player power took over because they started talking to the board of directors about things," he laments. "There is definitely too much player power. Only Alex Ferguson is immune to it. Players aren't accountable for their performances. When you are in a comfort zone where you know that if you lose the manager is going to get it, there is not the same pressure to give everything."
Barnes's regard for Manchester United and their manager might not sit easily with those who idolised him on the Kop. But he sees in the current champions, and the fine balance of qualities they embody, an echo of the outstanding Liverpool team he graced.
When Liverpool last topped the English game, Barnes could not have imagined they would go almost 20 years without the title at Anfield. In 1990 they had been a slither away from winning the coveted double for three successive seasons.
"But I can guarantee I felt, and most of the Liverpool players felt, it was not a real problem because we would be doing the double in years to come. All of a sudden there was a complete capitulation as the team broke up. By the late 90s, I still wouldn't believe it would be another 10 years until we had a chance of winning it."
What of the current team's chances? "We have to get away from the Steven Gerrard-Fernando Torres factor whereby we feel we can't compete without them. We beat Manchester United without both of them. We have to have a belief in the squad."Oddly, his first-hand knowledge of how a brilliant team functions has had less influence on Barnes's managerial career than his time at Watford. "A group of average players can come up to the top division and finish second to Liverpool ahead of Manchester United. How does that work? Because of the spirit, the empowerment, the organisation the manager instils in those players. So Graham Taylor has had the biggest effect on my ideas. If you can work with Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi and Ronaldo, fine. If not, what do you do?
"This is where African and Caribbean players can improve. When I go to Africa on coaching conferences I always say, can you ever see an African or Caribbean team being 3-0 down against superior opposition, as Liverpool were against AC Milan, and come back to win? If we can embrace those elements of togetherness and belief, of tactical discipline, allied with our physical and technical strengths, that is when we can really move on.
"I am having a bit of a hard time in Jamaica trying to transmit that to the public. They want to see the skill and the flair. They say, 'Why have we got two central midfield players who don't want to get forward? No-one's dribbling!' The team are very receptive to it, but the public are still very into the Brazilian ideal. We'll get there."
The shifting and blurring of cultural stereotypes is, with Barnes, an intriguing topic. Back in the sphere of England, the manager about to take his Caribbean team for a friendly at Millwall – once one of the "scariest" places he ever played at – considers the role of football as a force for good.
"You don't hear [racist] chanting in the stadium any more. But if you threaten someone who loves their team that they will be kicked out of the ground if they chant anything racist, does that mean he is not a racist any more?" he ponders. "Or does he just keep his mouth shut for 90 minutes, but come Monday to Friday he can look at people in the street and say whatever he thinks?
"The racism I am really interested in stamping out is in everyday life. Joe Bloggs, who nobody knows, walks down the street and gets racially abused. He goes into a shop and people think he is going to steal something. He cannot get a job.
"Only through education and integration will things change profoundly. And the future looks very bright because when you look at young kids now they dress the same, they sound the same, and they listen to the same music. The new British culture that is coming through supersedes colour and race."
When he flew into London from Kingston last week, coming into land at Heathrow reminded him of the journey he first made at the age of 12. Barnes could not believe the number of football pitches he could see from the sky, of kids playing on a Sunday morning.
"As soon as I saw that I thought: 'I'm home'. I could not wait."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/feb/08/john-barnes-jamaica-amy-lawrence