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Racism at Yorkshire CCC
- Thread starter Silly Point
- Start date
mackembhoy
Striker
Nah very much doubt. Scaly got banned on cricketweb so had to come elsewhere to talk cricket.
SAFC2403
Striker
Watch the sky cricket documentary called “you guys are history”. It’ll give you some answers. It’s been going on for years, it’s just been largely ignored.
THELORDRODWELL
Striker
The backwards fuckwits that they all are over there, iirc
rentaghost
Striker
Bresnan is side by side with Gale who seems to be the worst offender. Many who know Bresnan think he is a bit dim and a follower. As professional cricketers probably all of the offenders will have still done great things for charity. I’ve met Hoggy a few times and always thought of him as a great fella but clearly he’s said a lot of stuff he shouldn’t have. Only Rafiq really knows as he lived it every day. It will be hard for someone like Bresnan to look back and really know the extent of what he said imo. I guess it’s just how much you believe Rafiq.
sonson
Striker
You can say racist things and still be nice to kids. You can say racist things and be nice to people of colour and black people in fact, that's very common. Very few people have every aspect of their behaviour defined by one thing.
That's one of the biggest reasons racism still flourishes, people see it as this thing that is an egregious moral failing that only terrible people are capable of.
When if you listen to anyone not white on the subject, it's apparent that literally anybody can be racist, and that they often are. Often through ignorance and without intent, or because they've been told its acceptable in certain circles so its just part of their culture . British society is based upon notions of racial superiority from the days of the empire. Its in the make up of our society. Most white people have been brought up with an outlook that reflects that, however benign. That's the whole point of recognising institutional racism- it's not about people's intent or outlook. The Indtiutions themselves encourage it.
Attitudes like "so and so is nice to kids, they can't be racist" is just a green light for it. Because when someone is calling out their racism, that sort of response denies that irs a problem, and the weight of culture and institution is already behind accepting it, which is why it continues.
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I am Boss
Winger
15 million more than the two World Cup finalists combined
sonson
Striker
My mate from uni Jonathan Liew does cricket at the Guardian. He called Aggers out for problematic language over discussion of Archer and suggested he needed to educate himself and Aggers went ballistic and called him a c*nt several times.
It's highly likely that anyone Agnews age has an outlook on race which needs a lot of work and correction because they've been brought up in a culture where the same applies. But in my experience they're the most defensive and fragile when it comes to accepting the requisite humility necessary.
Silence from anyone on this matter is complicity.
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North Yorks Mackem
Winger
I wonder if Agnew will be getting pissed up calling liew a (unt again?
The likes of agnew are exactly part of the problem with cricket in England. Old Boys network which looks after their own. Anyone who challenges them like he perceived liew to do is met with hostility. Not a nice bloke despite the image he likes to portray.
I’m not a big cricket fan but have become aware of this depressing story. I was gutted when I read about this poor blokes experience at such a prestigious club.
After reading the statement the lad made I wanted to get the lay of the land on the RTG cricket forum as I knew it was pretty well established.
I’ve read about 10+ pages of reaction on here about this and if this is indicative of cricket fans in general I must say that I feel cricket will grow and better itself after this. The next generation of black/asian cricket younguns will hopefully never experience this and the sport will much better for it.
Good on ya lads
After reading the statement the lad made I wanted to get the lay of the land on the RTG cricket forum as I knew it was pretty well established.
I’ve read about 10+ pages of reaction on here about this and if this is indicative of cricket fans in general I must say that I feel cricket will grow and better itself after this. The next generation of black/asian cricket younguns will hopefully never experience this and the sport will much better for it.
Good on ya lads
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IpswichFanInPeace
Goalkeeper
Don’t think I’ve posted in the RTG Cricket section before but have watched and played the sport all my life (am 23 now) albeit, at a lower level. Have been reading this thread in recent days and agree with the post above about hopefully the nation following the same reaction as the responses above.
Also, I just wanted to say that surely there has never been a braver, more heroic bloke in cricket than Azeem Rafiq? to stand up today and give such a powerful testimony to tell his story to the world must have taken so much. He perhaps from today will have began the change of the landscape of cricket in not only Yorkshire but the country as a whole, at all levels. Good on him.
Also, I just wanted to say that surely there has never been a braver, more heroic bloke in cricket than Azeem Rafiq? to stand up today and give such a powerful testimony to tell his story to the world must have taken so much. He perhaps from today will have began the change of the landscape of cricket in not only Yorkshire but the country as a whole, at all levels. Good on him.
The Hesford Diet
Striker
It makes it all the more sickening when you know that at grass roots level, the club game wouldn't even have dreamed to behave remotely in this way.
Where I lived when I played club cricket there was (and to my knowledge still is) a healthy number of black and Asian players. There was certainly sledging, but it would be about a player's ability. Occasionally I'd get the 'fat bastard' insult and that was as far as personal abuse went.
The banter in the changing room would be about the usual lad stuff, who couldn't hold their drink last night, who tried and failed to chat someone up, etc. It sometimes stretched to how pisspoor England were, or how annoying good the Aussies were.
It never occurred to anyone to make fun of someone's skin colour, or make a sweeping statement about a ethnic minority's culture. It just wasn't like that. We were players, teammates, and all looked out for each other on and off the pitch.
All these years later, and after all the work gone into the grassroots game, we find out that the rotten core is at the very top. It feels almost sordid, playing and promoting a sport which at the upper echelons had been taking the piss out of all of us, by allowing racism to not only survive but prosper.
Watching Harrison refusing to give a straight answer to a yes or no question on institutional racism, I wanted to punch his face into a pulp. That's what he and his colleagues have done to our game. Unforgivable.
If they had a shred of decency, the ECB would stand down, the counties would put life bans in place for any person proven guilty of any allegation, and the game could reflect, rebuild, and take the game back into comprehensive schools in every town and village, regardless of any levels of urban social deprivation - that's where the beating heart of cricket is, not with the privileged few who until now could get away with treating the game with such disdain.
Where I lived when I played club cricket there was (and to my knowledge still is) a healthy number of black and Asian players. There was certainly sledging, but it would be about a player's ability. Occasionally I'd get the 'fat bastard' insult and that was as far as personal abuse went.
The banter in the changing room would be about the usual lad stuff, who couldn't hold their drink last night, who tried and failed to chat someone up, etc. It sometimes stretched to how pisspoor England were, or how annoying good the Aussies were.
It never occurred to anyone to make fun of someone's skin colour, or make a sweeping statement about a ethnic minority's culture. It just wasn't like that. We were players, teammates, and all looked out for each other on and off the pitch.
All these years later, and after all the work gone into the grassroots game, we find out that the rotten core is at the very top. It feels almost sordid, playing and promoting a sport which at the upper echelons had been taking the piss out of all of us, by allowing racism to not only survive but prosper.
Watching Harrison refusing to give a straight answer to a yes or no question on institutional racism, I wanted to punch his face into a pulp. That's what he and his colleagues have done to our game. Unforgivable.
If they had a shred of decency, the ECB would stand down, the counties would put life bans in place for any person proven guilty of any allegation, and the game could reflect, rebuild, and take the game back into comprehensive schools in every town and village, regardless of any levels of urban social deprivation - that's where the beating heart of cricket is, not with the privileged few who until now could get away with treating the game with such disdain.
Mackem DJ
Striker
Indeed some of the worst racism I see on social media comes from black people, I can only speak as I find, not so much asians but some of the comments from the black community are staggering yet attract virtually no ire. It’s just accepted as a by product of many years of oppression and discrimination.
Still think the whole thing is bezerk.
David Byas was one of my fav players growing up!!! I’m shocked tbh. Crackers.
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rentaghost
Striker
The moment in the Hales household yesterday when Mrs Hales found out why their dog was called Kevin 
Cee Jay
Striker
It's after the comedian Kevin Bridges according to Hales...busy on the Hales computer searching for famous KevinsThe moment in the Hales household yesterday when Mrs Hales found out why their dog was called Kevin
Fletch73
Midfield
The absolute state of this from this morning's Times:
Below are the accusations from
MATTHEW HOGGARD
“It was Hoggy who started calling me ‘Raffa the Kaffir’. It was only later I realised what ‘Kaffir’ meant, how it was used, and that it was a racist term. Comments from Hoggy towards myself and the other Asian players — Adil [Rashid], Ajmal [Shahzad] and Rana [Naved-ul-Hasan] — were constant.
“He might have thought it was just dressing-room banter, but we would come in in the morning and he would say things like, ‘You lot sit over there,’ and make us all sit together. He would also call us things like ‘elephant washers’ and ‘P***’. After I made my disclosure to the media, without naming any names, Hoggy called me to apologise for what he had said to me. I thanked him and I respect him for that.”
MICHAEL VAUGHAN
“In 2009, when I was 18, I remember being so excited to finally be in the same dressing room as him [at Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire, June 22, 2009]. But the first thing he said to us, as the Asian players on the team — myself,
“The four of us never played another match together again after that. I felt so disappointed that I felt sick. And then I felt angry. But I was so determined to play for England that I just tried to let it go. But I never forgot it.
“He used this platform at The Daily Telegraph to tell everyone that he hadn’t said these things, but then to go on and put a snippet of my statement out and then talk about other things I thought was completely wrong. He probably doesn’t remember it because it doesn’t mean anything to him.”
GARY BALLANCE
“He would constantly talk down to me and make racist jokes, designed to undermine me and make me feel small, like coming up and interrupting when I was talking to girls in a club, saying, ‘Don’t talk to him, he’s a P***.’ I remember crying outside a nightclub after his constant racist taunting.
“On those bus trips, he would look out for corner shops and make comments like, ‘Does your dad own these?’ Gary would often make comments like this on YCCC [Yorkshire County Cricket Club] bus trips, in the dressing room, or at events — and in front of YCCC coaches, staff and management, including our coach, Andrew Gale, [the coach] Richard Pyrah, director of cricket Martyn Moxon, and club president Dickie Bird. But nothing was said or done to stop it. Instead, they often laughed along.
“The word ‘Kevin’ was something Gary used to describe anyone of colour, it was an open secret in the England dressing room. It was used in a derogatory manner all the time.
“My understanding is [the player] Alex Hales went on to name his dog Kevin as it was black. It’s disgusting how much of a joke it was.”
ANDREW GALE
“Andrew joined in with Gary and others in the racist banter. Throughout my time at YCCC, Andrew called me ‘Raffa the Kaffir’, ‘P***’ and so on. But it was the discriminatory treatment and bullying I felt from him that was harder for me that the name calling.
“Andrew [started] in the second team with me pushing into the first team around the same time. David Byas was the coach at that time, who had a brutal manner and was very old-school Yorkshire.
“Byas was also known for using phrases like ‘n*****’, ‘P***’ and ‘c**n’. But he was Andrew’s hero.
“Everyone saw Andrew as the second David Byas, so they gave him the same nickname, ‘Gadge’.”
TIM BRESNAN
“Tim is Andrew [Gale’s] brother-in-law. They always supported each other. Tim would tag along and join in with Andrew’s racist comments and they bounced off each other in terms of the bullying.
“As with Andrew, Tim frequently made racist comments and was unduly harsh towards me compared to white British players, which became so unbearable that I made a formal complaint against him in 2017.”
MARTYN MOXON
“I faced racist and discriminatory treatment within the club. All of the incidents that I have described above involving other players making racist comments towards me and treating me unfairly happened on his watch.
“Many of the incidents even happened in front of him. He did nothing to stop it or take action on it — even after I raised complaints. My first day back after losing my son, Martyn Moxon literally got me in a room and let rip, ripped the shreds off me. I couldn’t believe it.”
DAVID LLOYD
“There were denial, briefings, cover-ups, smearing, high-profile media people messaging other members of the media who supported me saying stuff like ‘The clubhouse is the lifeblood of a club and Asian players don’t go in there,’ and ‘Getting subs out of Asian players is like getting blood out of a stone.’
“And then personally, this guy doesn’t even know me, has never spent any time with me, talking about my personal drinking, going out and socialising. That was David Lloyd, he’s been an England coach, commentator and I found it disturbing. Within a week of me speaking out that’s what I got sent to me, and I thought, ‘God, there’s some closet racists and we need to do something about it.’ ”
JOE ROOT
“Rooty is a good man. He’s never engaged in racist language. I found it hurtful, because Rooty was not only Gary’s housemate but he was involved before he started playing for England in a lot of the nights out where I had been called P***.
“And he might not remember it, but it just shows how normal it was in that environment, in that institution, that even a good man like him doesn’t see it for what it is. It’s not going to affect Joe but it is something I remember, every day.”
MARK ARTHUR
“In 2018, I spoke to Mark Arthur about Andrew Gale’s behaviour — shouting, swearing at me in public, keeping me from training, sending me away alone, racist comments — the underlying bullying and how I was being treated unfairly, which was causing me immense emotional harm. Mark did nothing to investigate my allegations. I was not offered any support and the problem continued.”
PCA
“I found the PCA’s stance incredibly inept. It was, ‘We’ve got members on both sides,’ so I say you’re protecting the perpetrators. They wanted to wash their hands of me.
“My personal development manager at the time, Matthew Wood, who I thought was in my corner, was actually working with Yorkshire and in communication with them. He’d been a Yorkshire player in the past as well. So I think it was all cosy there, and that only became evident from the subject access request.”
ECB
“The recreational game has over 30 per cent representation from British Asians and that drops to a mere 4 per cent at professional level. Now, you can do all the PR initiatives at the ECB or you can actually look into the problem.
“Within our community, the problem is not at recreational level, because we love the game. We want to play the game. But when we get to that between 16, 17, 18 and we have to go from academy to professional game, everything that I’ve spoken about is a challenge.
“It seems to me that whenever there’s an initiative, whenever there’s anything, it goes right to the grassroots, because that box is already ticked and they can tell everyone how great they have been. Initiatives like that are box-ticking, a lot of tokenism which is setting us back and it doesn’t really deal with the issue which is in the dressing room, on the ground.
“[In September 2020] I spoke to Tom Harrison [the ECB chief executive] and I subsequently had a Zoom call with him. I felt like he was listening. But then they took the stance that they’re going to trust Yorkshire to do the right thing and then as regulators come in, to sort of hold Yorkshire to account.
“I’m telling the ECB and PCA, look, they’re not doing the right thing. They’re changing processes. This is going to end up in a car crash for everyone. Please step in, please step in. At no point did any of the two organisations do that.”
You must be logged on to see external links
Below are the accusations from
You must be logged on to see external links
on the digital, culture, media and sport select committee.MATTHEW HOGGARD
“It was Hoggy who started calling me ‘Raffa the Kaffir’. It was only later I realised what ‘Kaffir’ meant, how it was used, and that it was a racist term. Comments from Hoggy towards myself and the other Asian players — Adil [Rashid], Ajmal [Shahzad] and Rana [Naved-ul-Hasan] — were constant.
“He might have thought it was just dressing-room banter, but we would come in in the morning and he would say things like, ‘You lot sit over there,’ and make us all sit together. He would also call us things like ‘elephant washers’ and ‘P***’. After I made my disclosure to the media, without naming any names, Hoggy called me to apologise for what he had said to me. I thanked him and I respect him for that.”
MICHAEL VAUGHAN
“In 2009, when I was 18, I remember being so excited to finally be in the same dressing room as him [at Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire, June 22, 2009]. But the first thing he said to us, as the Asian players on the team — myself,
You must be logged on to see external links
, Ajmal and Rana — after the huddle and as we were walking on to the field, was: ‘There’s too many of you lot. We need to have a word about that.’“The four of us never played another match together again after that. I felt so disappointed that I felt sick. And then I felt angry. But I was so determined to play for England that I just tried to let it go. But I never forgot it.
“He used this platform at The Daily Telegraph to tell everyone that he hadn’t said these things, but then to go on and put a snippet of my statement out and then talk about other things I thought was completely wrong. He probably doesn’t remember it because it doesn’t mean anything to him.”
GARY BALLANCE
“He would constantly talk down to me and make racist jokes, designed to undermine me and make me feel small, like coming up and interrupting when I was talking to girls in a club, saying, ‘Don’t talk to him, he’s a P***.’ I remember crying outside a nightclub after his constant racist taunting.
“On those bus trips, he would look out for corner shops and make comments like, ‘Does your dad own these?’ Gary would often make comments like this on YCCC [Yorkshire County Cricket Club] bus trips, in the dressing room, or at events — and in front of YCCC coaches, staff and management, including our coach, Andrew Gale, [the coach] Richard Pyrah, director of cricket Martyn Moxon, and club president Dickie Bird. But nothing was said or done to stop it. Instead, they often laughed along.
“The word ‘Kevin’ was something Gary used to describe anyone of colour, it was an open secret in the England dressing room. It was used in a derogatory manner all the time.
“My understanding is [the player] Alex Hales went on to name his dog Kevin as it was black. It’s disgusting how much of a joke it was.”
ANDREW GALE
“Andrew joined in with Gary and others in the racist banter. Throughout my time at YCCC, Andrew called me ‘Raffa the Kaffir’, ‘P***’ and so on. But it was the discriminatory treatment and bullying I felt from him that was harder for me that the name calling.
“Andrew [started] in the second team with me pushing into the first team around the same time. David Byas was the coach at that time, who had a brutal manner and was very old-school Yorkshire.
“Byas was also known for using phrases like ‘n*****’, ‘P***’ and ‘c**n’. But he was Andrew’s hero.
“Everyone saw Andrew as the second David Byas, so they gave him the same nickname, ‘Gadge’.”
TIM BRESNAN
“Tim is Andrew [Gale’s] brother-in-law. They always supported each other. Tim would tag along and join in with Andrew’s racist comments and they bounced off each other in terms of the bullying.
“As with Andrew, Tim frequently made racist comments and was unduly harsh towards me compared to white British players, which became so unbearable that I made a formal complaint against him in 2017.”
MARTYN MOXON
“I faced racist and discriminatory treatment within the club. All of the incidents that I have described above involving other players making racist comments towards me and treating me unfairly happened on his watch.
“Many of the incidents even happened in front of him. He did nothing to stop it or take action on it — even after I raised complaints. My first day back after losing my son, Martyn Moxon literally got me in a room and let rip, ripped the shreds off me. I couldn’t believe it.”
DAVID LLOYD
“There were denial, briefings, cover-ups, smearing, high-profile media people messaging other members of the media who supported me saying stuff like ‘The clubhouse is the lifeblood of a club and Asian players don’t go in there,’ and ‘Getting subs out of Asian players is like getting blood out of a stone.’
“And then personally, this guy doesn’t even know me, has never spent any time with me, talking about my personal drinking, going out and socialising. That was David Lloyd, he’s been an England coach, commentator and I found it disturbing. Within a week of me speaking out that’s what I got sent to me, and I thought, ‘God, there’s some closet racists and we need to do something about it.’ ”
JOE ROOT
“Rooty is a good man. He’s never engaged in racist language. I found it hurtful, because Rooty was not only Gary’s housemate but he was involved before he started playing for England in a lot of the nights out where I had been called P***.
“And he might not remember it, but it just shows how normal it was in that environment, in that institution, that even a good man like him doesn’t see it for what it is. It’s not going to affect Joe but it is something I remember, every day.”
MARK ARTHUR
“In 2018, I spoke to Mark Arthur about Andrew Gale’s behaviour — shouting, swearing at me in public, keeping me from training, sending me away alone, racist comments — the underlying bullying and how I was being treated unfairly, which was causing me immense emotional harm. Mark did nothing to investigate my allegations. I was not offered any support and the problem continued.”
PCA
“I found the PCA’s stance incredibly inept. It was, ‘We’ve got members on both sides,’ so I say you’re protecting the perpetrators. They wanted to wash their hands of me.
“My personal development manager at the time, Matthew Wood, who I thought was in my corner, was actually working with Yorkshire and in communication with them. He’d been a Yorkshire player in the past as well. So I think it was all cosy there, and that only became evident from the subject access request.”
ECB
“The recreational game has over 30 per cent representation from British Asians and that drops to a mere 4 per cent at professional level. Now, you can do all the PR initiatives at the ECB or you can actually look into the problem.
“Within our community, the problem is not at recreational level, because we love the game. We want to play the game. But when we get to that between 16, 17, 18 and we have to go from academy to professional game, everything that I’ve spoken about is a challenge.
“It seems to me that whenever there’s an initiative, whenever there’s anything, it goes right to the grassroots, because that box is already ticked and they can tell everyone how great they have been. Initiatives like that are box-ticking, a lot of tokenism which is setting us back and it doesn’t really deal with the issue which is in the dressing room, on the ground.
“[In September 2020] I spoke to Tom Harrison [the ECB chief executive] and I subsequently had a Zoom call with him. I felt like he was listening. But then they took the stance that they’re going to trust Yorkshire to do the right thing and then as regulators come in, to sort of hold Yorkshire to account.
“I’m telling the ECB and PCA, look, they’re not doing the right thing. They’re changing processes. This is going to end up in a car crash for everyone. Please step in, please step in. At no point did any of the two organisations do that.”
GordonMuchallNo1Fan
Striker
Maybe Hales was a fan of Home Alone?
SAFC 83
Midfield
Very difficult situation for Root though. Some of his close mates have been implicated here and he's very unlikely to throw them under the bus and I can understand that totally.
If he has the captaincy removed I'm not sure how he could remain in the England squad either. He would still be the best player and one of the leaders and I'm not sure how that's any different from actually being the captain.
