Current and former Arsenal players (from left) Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Magalhaes, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry.
If my father found out I supported Arsenal, he would have turned in his grave. We were from the north of England, you see, and Arsenal is in the south.
Not only that – when he took me to town on Saturday evenings to buy the football papers, he would often say with a sneer, ‘One-nil to Arsenal again’.
It was not as positive as it is now, but another proof that, back in the 1950s, under the management of Tom Whittaker, Arsenal played a boring defensive game and rarely won by more than one goal.
No, my father never had the chance to see the flair of Ian Wright, the artistry of Thierry Henry, the skill of Bukayo Saka – never mind the solid defensive play of Patrick Viera or William Saliba and Gabriel Dos Santos Magalhães.
My two sons were born in Kenya and they are half Belgian, so the north/south cultural divide in England means nothing to them.
And when they both grew up as supporters of Arsenal, it was something I well understood and came to share – because I have been lucky enough to have watched on TV in Nairobi all six of the players I have mentioned.
All of them are not only superb footballers, they are black. And because, from the early 1990s, Arsenal has fielded so many black players in teams that were so successful, I suppose that is why more Kenyans support them rather than any other team in the Premier League.
On September 28, 2002, in a game against Leeds United, Arsenal became the first Premier League side to have nine black players in their starting line-up. Otherwise, Seaman, the goalkeeper, was English; Pascal Cygan, a defender, was French. It was a landmark moment for Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal, and there couldn’t have been a more positive example of diversity.
Around the Emirates Stadium there are eight artworks; one of them is called Found a Place Where We Belong.
It is huge and it shows loads of people. If you look closely, you will see Ian Wright; you will see Mo Farah; you will see people of different generations and different colours.
It represents Arsenal’s fandom. It celebrates its diversity. The making of this mural is the theme of one of the chapters of a new book called “Black Arsenal: Club, Culture and Identity”.
This is a splendid and superbly illustrated book co-edited by the academic Clive Chijioke Nwonka and the writer Matthew Harle.
It has 24 contributors, including Ian Wright, Baroness Lola Young, actress, author and one of the first Black women members of the House of Lords, and Paul Gilroy, author of “Black Britain: A Photographic History”.
Some of the sociological analyses are as impenetrable as Arsenal’s current defence, but when you manage a breakthrough, you will have a deeper and richer understanding of the club’s relationship to contemporary black culture as expressed through music, street fashion and social media.
However, the majority of the chapters are insightful and entertaining stories of how the contributors found a place where they belonged.
However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that when Bukayo Saka was one of the three black players who missed the penalty spot in the Euro 2020 final loss to Italy at Wembley in July 2021, the heavy racial abuse that he and the two others received was a reminder that there were many football fans across the country that still believed that black players were ‘bottlers’ who lacked a bulldog spirit.
It is of great credit to Arsenal, to Arteta, as well as to himself, that Saka was able to regain confidence and become the club’s first pick as penalty taker.
Arsenal's Declan Rice and manager Mikel Arteta react after their match against Everton.
In the early chapters of the book, there are reminders of the ‘Keep Britain White’ movement against black settlement that emerged after the 1939-1945 World War II and became sharpened by the National Front in the 1970s.
So at a time when black players were subjected to racial abuse on many grounds around the country – monkey chants and bananas thrown at them – Arsenal was able to live up to its motto ‘Victory Through Harmony’.
But it was not quite so harmonious for Ian Wright when he first joined Arsenal from Crystal Palace in September 1991.
The manager, George Graham, told Wright that he should wear a suit for the press conference that followed the signing. Instead, he turned up in his usual casual clothes. Graham was angry, but Wright was confident enough to respond: “Wearing a leather jacket and a baseball cap – that’s me.”
He went on to say: “I was always true to myself and real. I was never a tick-boxer, and I wasn’t going to dance.”
On the theme of Black Arsenal, he says: “I understand what it means now. We have the players, the fanbase; we have the history of black players from all over the world.”
Clive Palmer – the voice of the ‘Arsenal Supporting Supporters’ campaign and a contributor to the ‘Arsenal Vision’ podcast – writes: “I was too English to be a Jamaican but too Black to be English.” He says that he needed to belong and to feel that he belonged. He found that as a spectator at Arsenal.
“There was never any racial tension. It always felt so inclusive. Elsewhere, racial tension had entered every part of my life: when I was at work, driving, walking through a town centre, trying to buy a drink, trying to get a cab, trying to get into a nightclub. But, at Arsenal, there was always this protective state. All that mattered was that you were Arsenal.”
Palmer sees Arsène Wenger as a pivotal figure in the creation of the Black Arsenal identity.
“Arsène changed Arsenal from a London-centre club to a global organisation that was revered across the world… Arsenal was international: Wenger didn’t care what you looked like or where you came from.”
Arsène Wenger.
As well as fielding the first team with nine black players in 2002, Wenger fielded the first starting eleven of foreign players in 2005.
“The game should belong to all of us,” Palmer says.
Sean Jacobs is an Associate Professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York City.
He is the founder and editor of “Africa is a Country”, a website for criticism, analysis and new writing. In Black Arsenal, he writes that, on retirement, Thierry Henry claimed that by being one of the first clubs to have black players at the heart of its team, Arsenal became the club of the people and of the streets.
It also cemented Arsenal’s place in African football lore and made it the most supported football club in the African continent.
