The last black man in non-league football
For Machel St Patrick Hewitt, non-league football is a place where he has been part of a beautiful and unique community for many years. Yet, with its apparently generous embrace, there has always been the sense of being an outsider. Here, in a guest essay, he examines why.
There was nothing special about my first non-league game: it was all very innocent. In October 1996, one of my closest friends at school suggested I come along one Saturday and watch my local club, and so I did.
In truth, like most people in my area, I didn’t even know the club existed. What’s more, like any teen in the greater London suburbs, I had my pick of London-based Premier League or Championship clubs to choose from. The travails of Bromley Football Club in the Ryman Premier League were as far removed from my consciousness as the political turbulence in Mogadishu.
Non-League football was my first love. You could just see the game so up close, so personal. From the windswept terraces to the 50p cup of tea from the rickety tea-hut; from the dilapidated toilet portacabin to the smell of the ground itself. Non-league football felt like the home of the forgotten, like football’s version of the Undateables: a place where all of us could come, untroubled by others, in search of a common cause. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I belonged somewhere more in my life.
There must have been no more than 200 fans in attendance at my first game. Long before the concept of social distancing went mainstream, non-league football had it down to an art form. One game turned into two, and before I knew it I was supporting my team home and away from the age of 15. That has been the case for the best part of 23 years with only one aspect I have left untold: which is that I’m a black non-league football fan, and you will not find a rarer species in this sport.
At a very conservative estimate I’ve seen 700+ games of non-league football in the last 23 years but don’t think I’ve seen more than 30-40 regular minority faces in that time. This seems odd to me, because while London’s population has an ethnic minority percentage of 36.8% very few non-league football clubs can even come close to attracting a fanbase that is maybe 2% non-white.
“While London’s population has an ethnic minority percentage of 36.8% very few non-league football clubs can even come close to attracting a fanbase that is maybe 2% non-white.”
Racism has seemingly occupied the football discourse more in the last two years than at any time in the last 20. I’m not sure those of us from a non-white background ever believed it had gone away: more that it was lying dormant. As the dominant political discourse shifted sharply to the right, it became easier to say the quiet part out loud once more.
Football is responding - albeit slowly. The game has never been more diverse on and off the pitch, and the intense media microscope means things will always be exposed and subsequently challenged. Whether that will force change remains a moot point. Yet life down the football pyramid, away from this scrutiny, presents a very different tale.
I’m not sure when it first hit me that, as a football supporter, I was ‘different’. When I was 15 a fellow supporter mimicked being a monkey in my direction and I didn’t register it for what it was. Football has a funny way of fostering a false sense of security: you give your loyalty to your club, and in return you believe that you are all equal irrespective of race, class and gender. But that doesn’t explain why I’ve been called a coon, a darkie, and why, no less than two years ago, I was faced by an interrogation from card-carrying BNP members: young men who questioned my validity to be in the country, much less support the same club.
Why is this still happening? These racist incidents - intermittent, but severe - aren’t unique to non-league football, but what makes them a harsher reality is the lack of diversity on the terraces. There’ll be no social media campaign or outraged talking heads to fight my corner: just my repeated attempts to keep my head down and fit in.
When I enter a non-league ground in the far reaches of the country as the only black face in the stands, what do others see? Am I the oddity I feel I am? Am I right to be wary of my every step and word? Does my presence make people uneasy? Then there’s the expectation that I must explain the actions of every non-white person. There may well be no malice in these requests, but I feel pressure to do it to protect my well-being.
In this regard it's perhaps not surprising I have built up closer relations with black players. There has often been an unspoken sense of solidarity: the “nod”. Many players tell me of the need to tone down their character in order to get a fair crack of the whip, or else they will be frozen out without explanation.
What’s more, they too hear the increasing freedom on the terraces to re-invoke race as an insult. It was only in November just gone that a FA Cup tie between Haringey Borough and Yeovil Town was abandoned due to racist abuse. We share these stories between us but never out loud; and why would we? Who would care?
It wears away at you after a while. It often makes me wonder - if I am constantly biting my tongue in order to be accepted - just how authentic my experience of being a non-league football supporter really is.
What is it about non-league football - which is truly at the heart of the community - that sees such meagre attendance from ethnic minorities? What is the hidden barrier that stops a young black or Asian child from feeling that sense of belonging? I’ve battled with confronting this issue for fear of losing the acceptance of my community. Football has provided me with lifelong friends across the gender, colour and class lines: but this problem remains, and my truth is my truth. I wonder how many others like me are questioning the game we love.