BfB

Editor’s Note: Details with the game with Chesterfield – a 1-1 draw with almost little to write home about – can be found on City’s official website. Rather than dissect the game of what for the Bantams was something of a meaningless affair the report is given over this this piece by Dave Pendleton about events around the game.

I love this country. In particular I love the north.

As we sit here in the wake of St. George’s Day, with a General Election and World Cup looming, I’m feeling less at ease with the in your face ‘Englishness’ that has suddenly appeared. From car flags to official parades involving press ganged school children, ‘celebrating’ Englishness is everywhere. Flying a few flags and kids enjoying an unexpected day out of the classroom is harmless enough, but there is undoubtedly a dark underbelly to this newly discovered ‘Englishness’.

Ever since the Bradford riots – which would be better described as young angry Muslim men riots – City fans have regularly had chants of ‘En-Ger-Land’ aimed at them by opposition fans. The fact that the people being chanted at are 90% white working class, and frankly have more reason than anyone to be angry about the damage the riots had on their home city, seems lost on the chanters. The point the chanters seem to be trying to make is that Bradford is not England in their eyes. By implication it seems that even white Bradfordians are no longer English.

I wish the chanters could point this out to the car load of young Asian men who last year informed me I should “fuck off home” when I was walking down Hall Ings – I was bemused by the incident given that here was an Englishman being abused by men of Pakistani descent on a street with a Viking name. There was a piece of wonderful irony at play here, but I didn’t see the point in trying to explain that to a car load of young men with cropped hair cuts who probably couldn’t spell Subaru Impreza, let alone irony.

But, enough of angry young Asian men, let’s return to angry young white men.

At Rotherham we were treated to the chant of ‘you’re just a small town in Asia’. What a piece of cutting wit from the ethnically pure, even smaller town, near Meadowhall Shopping Centre. What was funny that day, very funny, was Ronnie Moore’s face when James Hanson scored deep into injury time. We should have celebrated by singing at the Millers’ fans “have you ever had a bath with your dad?” Instead, we jumped around like demented lunatics on the Don Valley running track.

Cut to Chesterfield and the penultimate away game of the season. The English Defence League were leafleting the home fans. I agree with the EDL that I don’t want our country to become an Islamic State. Where we differ is that I’m fairly confident that a country that once built the largest empire in the history of the world, and who managed to fight off Hitler when he was staring at us across the Channel, is unlikely to suddenly cave into to the radical demands of a minority of its Muslim population. However, a section of our popular press seems convinced that a few hundred angry young men with beards are enough to cause our entire nation to fall to its knees, both in supplication and prayer. This in turn causes a few hundred angry young men in designer sports wear to mobilise in defence of their country.

So, why did the EDL choose to leaflet our match at Chesterfield? I once remember seeing BNP supporters in Sunderland leafleting when City were in town, telling the Wearside shoppers ‘don’t let Sunderland become like Bradford’. The retort, which nearly caused a minor riot, was ‘don’t let Bradford become like Sunderland’. Well, I thought it was amusing, even though we had to leg it to avoid being beaten senseless.

At Saltergate a small number of home fans decided to regurgitate the usual chants about ‘En-Ger-Land’ and much worse. Has Bradford become the sum of all their fears? Our city representing some imagined multi-cultural hell hole where white people fear to tread? Though Bradford is far from perfect, and has major problems with attitudes of some of its youth, both Asian and white, but if it was as bad as the chanters at various grounds seem to think shouldn’t we – i.e. the white people who live in the city – be the ones chanting ‘En-Ger-Land’? The fact that we don’t either tells you that life in Bradford actually is fine 99% of the time, or that we don’t give a flying one anyway. I’m inclined towards the latter.

At Valley Parade, and away, I want to leave politics, home life and work behind. I’m there to immerse myself in the football, scream and shout like an idiot for ninety minutes, then laugh, shrug my shoulders and go for a pint. The only colour I’m bothered about is claret and amber.

Perhaps the next time the chanters start up we should drown them out with ‘And it’s Bradford City…’ Us, whoever ‘us’ is, united for the afternoon in support of our team and our city and to hell what anyone else thinks about it.