Players Views

Gavin Peacock

England

Can you tell us about your background?
I'm English, my father hails from Newcastle and my mother's parent from London. I think somewhere down the line we have some mediteranean blood in us because of our dark skin.

Have you ever experienced any racism when you were younger?
I actually did once when I was playing for Chelsea. Because of my dark looks and dark hair someone in the crowd thought it would be clever to call me a name and my wife was sitting close by and got very upset about it. Not so much she thought it my hurt me but the fact that, not only was he wrong, but someone could have that much hate in them to think like that. This is behaviour that's learned from children around them, it's like swearing at a footbal match. If a dad stands up swearing, what's his kid going to do? The same thing.

How did it affect you at the time?
Afterwards when I thought about it I thought, I'm not that particular race he was talking about, religion, nationality. But I was hurt. Can you imagine if I was and how I would feel? For some of the black players 've played with who've experienced it you can only imagine how they felt at different times. We saw the recent events in Spain with the England players. The thing about that is we have made such great strides in this country so that stands out as being abhorent. It's one of the lowest forms of abuse and abuse.

Did you confide in anyone about the abuse?
I didn't experience a lot like some people would. But I think the key is to tell someone about it; a teacher or someone in authority, to say to your friends, "This is not right, we need to be together on this". I think years ago when I was growing up if young people received racist abuse they would tend to ignore it and hope it would go away but that's not the way. You've got to take some action. We're not saying to go out there and fight the world physicaly, but fight the world in another way. I think the strides that have been made by Show Racism the Red Card is one unbelieveable way that we've seen it grow.I became a patron in the early nineties.

What made you decide to become a patron of Show Racism the Red Card?
I thought it was very important. I've always been aware of racism and how wrong it is. Ged came to me and I liked the ideas behind it. I thought it could work and it could be a very powerful tool. I think it's exceeded my expectation really.

What message would you give to young people about the importance of accepting different religions, races and cultures?
You need to respect everyone as an individual person. We all have talents and gifts, we also have differences and you have to respect that people have differences of opinion and differences in look. But the essence of a person is we're all still the same. You should stand tall and be proud of who you are, what you are and where you come from. No one can take that away from you or disempower you.

In what ways do you think people of different nationalities have contributed to British society?
A multicultural society is not without it's problems. But I think different nationalities coming to England has brought different ideas, different arts, different music, different foods. I think that travel is one of the best things to broaden the mind of people and young people. You can experience different worship, see different colours, races and the arts are superb. I think it just enriches your life, you're not so narrowminded. My little girl said to me the other day, it was the religious festival Eide, and I didn't know about this but now she's telling me. We go to the Church of England and she's telling me we need to respect this day. She's only nine and I think that's great. We need to learn from the past and the mistakes that we've made in the past. I watched a film the other day about Rosa Parks and was speaking to Garth Crooks about it. He said, ask my ten-year-old boy about Rosa Parks and he'll tell you everything because I've told him. To see what that woman went throught at that time, I was nearly in tears. I thought; wow, look what she did there, how brave was she? Look at those times she lived in and how far we've progressed. That kind of stuff is priceless, we've got to teach that. The Holocaust, we need to know to understand and learn.

Are there any other icons that have inspired you?
Rosa Parks has really made an impact on me. I look at Nelson Mandela and Ghandi, they're amazing. My instinct would be to get angry and you physicaly want to react at times. But it's not the way and these are the people that are role models and show us the way to deal with it.

What part do you think the World Cup will play in embracing different nationalities?
The World Cup is the biggest sporting event, it's a festival. They'll be 100,000 English supporters over there. Fans gathering from all over the world, mixing together, and see it go off without any hooliganism or racist intolerance would be a wondeful berometer for how we are and how we're doing. I look forward with interest and hope that it is a wonderful event on the field and off it.