Football theatre is helping to overcome prejudice. Carole Woddis reports
Ever looked on the football pitch and wondered why there are no Asian faces? Twenty years ago, the same might have been said about British-born Afro-Caribbean players. With the World Cup now approaching, all eyes are beginning to turn to France. And with them, anxiety - not just, inevitably, about hooliganism but, not far
behind, racism.
In a Europe increasingly prone to racist attacks against any ethnic minorities, Britain's black football players may be forgiven for allowing themselves a moment of apprehension about their reception abroad. In Britain, racism in football, though still far from eradicated, has made rapid strides in recent years - perhaps not least thanks to the Let's Kick Racism Out of Football campaign launched five years ago and which two plays - one in London and one which will actually be staged during the World Cup in Paris and Marseilles - stand as prime examples of how sport and drama on occasion can combine.
Strangely enough, for two activities that at their best
share an ability to transform
the individual experience into a transcendental communal
one, they have not been the greatest bedfellows.
David Storey's This Sporting Life and John Godber's Up 'N Under, both about rugby league, were two notable exceptions in the 70s and 80s.
But it's only in the past five or so years that football has started to make its mark on stage with Arthur Smith and Chris England's An Evening with Gary Lineker, Paul Hodson's adaptation of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, and the soon to be seen in the West End, Elton John's Glasses by writer-director
David Farr.
Ooh Ah Showab Khan and Kicking Out, both written by football supporter and writer Clifford Oliver and presented by Arc Theatre come, however, into none of these categories. Both have come about not strictly for commercial reasons - though they are solidly backed by Midland Bank. No, their purpose is more to do with prevention, using drama to overcome prejudice at the earliest stage - in schools.
Four years ago, Oliver, fervent Leyton Orient supporter and playwright, suddenly found his two loves coinciding when Orient's Football in the Community organiser Neil Watson asked Oliver to write a play for local schools on the subject of football racism. The result, Kicking Out, proved phenomenally successful, touring throughout the UK including Scotland where, to Oliver's surprise, the Scottish
FA informed him, somewhat complacently, ''we have
no racism.''
For Oliver, over the months, the whole experience alerted him not just to the racism suffered by black players but the phenomenon of the non-existent Asian player in British football.
Oliver wrote a Pakistani character, Showab, into Kicking Out, showing him being turned down for the football team by his white coach on grounds of cultural difference.
But Oliver was clearly not the only one beginning to question such perceptions. Last year, the Let's Kick Racism out campaign also inspired an FA-backed report which confirmed Oliver's own findings of wide-ranging prejudice existing at both club and domestic level.
Enter Ooh Ah Showab Khan. In Oliver's second play Showab Khan is now centre-stage - fictionally, the first Asian player to make it into a premier-league team.
Oliver's Showab sequel certainly pulls few punches. In 80 fast-moving minutes, Arc Theatre - who toured Edinburgh schools in March - take us through the issues confronting Tiran Aakel's now cocky, young hopeful as he tries to balance ambition with identity, and professional with cultural assimilation pressures.
As one young Asian put it afterwards, ''you must never let it (racism) get you down.'' And, as Showab himself says, ''if you really believe in something, you'll find a way.''
n Ooh Ah Showab Khan is at at the Pleasance, London, from today until Friday, and the House of Commons, until June 16. Kicking Out plays in Paris and Marseilles, including at Eric Cantona's old secondary school, until Friday.
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