News in 2006

07th October 2006

Bennett helped to win votes

Gary Bennett played through the bad old days of racism and has taken great pride in watching football take a stand against those who used to try to make his life a misery as a player.

But while Bennett, who visits schools in the region to talk about racism and its effects with Show Racism the Red Card has committed his post-playing days to helping to fight against this enduring scourge of society, he also admitted it is a fight that can never be won.

"If someone was to say to me that racism had been eradicated I would call them a liar," said Bennett, who made 296 appearances for Sunderland between 1984 and 1991 before a brief spell as a manager with Darlington.

"I don't think it will ever be stamped out completely, that's impossible. What we can do is educate young people to ensure it is not as prominent in society.

"Black players don't have to deal with anything like the same amount of abuse as we did, but if you talk to them, they have all experienced it at some stage in their lives."

He continued: "Our work is about asking a child why they think something. People hate something, but they don't often understand why.

"It's a lack of education, it comes from peers, or family members. We ask them why they think that and show them why it's wrong. It's very successful because football is such a powerful tool. We do football coaching, we watch the videos, we do workshops, it's a day of activities.

"It does make me angry when the BNP targets somewhere like Sunderland and we were delighted to be able to be a part of the forces which combined to ensure they didn't get a single seat in the region at the last elections. The North-East is my home and I'm very proud of it."

Having grown up in Manchester, Bennett was used to being part of a relatively multi-cultural society, but that all changed when he moved to the North-East and the predominantly white Sunderland.

And, wherever he went as a player, the former Sunderland captain knew he would have to contend with some sort of racist abuse, either from opposition fans, players or even managers. He said: "As a black footballer and a black person in the 1980s football was rife with racism because society was rife with it. But there were two clubs which had a really bad reputation, Millwall and Newcastle.

"As a black player you always knew you were going to get plenty of abuse when you went there. It happened at a lot of grounds, but it was always worse when you went there. When you're young maybe it was something that made you a little nervous, but you learned to put it to the back of your mind or you used it as your inspiration."

By his own admission, Bennett never saw himself becoming a campaigner against racism and, as a young man, he was not even aware of any other sorts of racism than that which directly affected him. But that has all changed as he has become embedded in the Show Racism The Red Card campaign and through his close friendship with founder Ged Grebby.

He explained: "When I was a young man I was only concerned about racism towards black people because that directly affected me.

"It's only as I've got involved with the SRRC campaign that I learned about how racism changes shape the whole time and targets different groups.

"The sentiments are the same but the racism we come across mainly now is antiMuslims, asylum-seekers and immigrant workers from Eastern Europe. They are the ones getting the backlash and these are all issues we look at with school children.

"It has got better for black people, you only have to look at the music we listen to, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, black culture has become a big part of British culture."

Source: The Journal