This article is part of The Athletic’s series marking UK Black History Month. To view the whole collection, click here.
Identity is important. It can provide people a direction, purpose and a collective sense of belonging. It is part of what Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka is referring to when addressing a crowd of around 300 inside Emirates Stadium.
The co-editor of Black Arsenal, a book that explores the club’s place in Black British culture, is joking about how a familiar nod between two Black strangers in an unfamiliar setting is not needed at Arsenal because in many ways, the Emirates is home.
That knowing non-verbal interaction is something experienced by Arsenal fans far and wide, however. Whether it be at a tube station or in a shopping centre, Arsenal has become a unifier for people over generations. Nwonka has spent the last decade exploring why Arsenal has become that for Black people in particular over the past 50 years.
“When I started working at the London School of Economics, I was thinking about cultural history and myself as a British-Nigerian, who grew up in north-west London that finds himself working in institutions,” Nwonka tells The Athletic.
“One of my influences was John Barnes. I was a Liverpool fan for that reason. He wasn’t only one of the best players in the league, but one of the few Black players excelling. You see him on the TV screen and you make those connections, which was quite important for me.
“Then I realised, looking back, that there was a different Black masculinity emerging in the mid-’90s that was quite influential on kids around me, which came from Ian Wright. He had a different way of being; a different posture, vernacular and style, and looked like the older guys I’d see in the barbershop or at church.”
Tracing the source of that change and its impact brought a through line to Arsenal that remains today.
Nwonka credits Wright’s emergence as one of football’s first real Black poster boys after the commercialisation of the Premier League in 1992 and opened the door for Thierry Henry and Bukayo Saka to follow. For how momentous a character Wright was, Nwonka’s book is about recognising what made stories like his, Henry’s and Saka’s possible.
Before fully diving in, Nwonka makes an important point, saying: “People might think it’s what Arsenal as a club do for the Black population, but it’s the other way around.
“Rather than this being the exploration of a manufactured movement, it takes a look at a truly natural element of the club’s story. Wright, Henry and Saka are known as Arsenal players, but they are all Black people first and that is where so many black supporters find their point of identification.”
The opening chapter of Black Arsenal is written by Paul Gilroy, who attended his first Arsenal match in 1966. The chapter is accompanied by a picture of Brendon Batson, who became the first Black player to appear for the club in 1971 and went on to play with Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham at West Brom.
As an introduction to the theme of Black identity and Arsenal, it takes you from the anti-immigration National Front campaigns in 1960s and 70s Islington to the mix of fans outside and players inside Highbury in the 1990s.
Recognising a key figure of that evolution, Paul Davis, was key to Nwonka.
“I’m really pleased the book has allowed him to get his flowers because there would be no Bukayo Saka unless there was a Thierry Henry, an Ian Wright before him, and a Paul Davis before him,” says Nwonka, associate professor of film, culture and society at University College London.
“Davis was at the club for 17 years, endured all the racism of the early ’80s, but remained, excelled and paved the way for those that followed. He was someone I wanted in the book as a central chapter because he’s essentially Black Arsenal in three acts: the ’80s, the ’90s and the present day. His perspectives looking back are so instrumental.”
Davis’ chapter comes early in the book and within those 28 pages, the former Arsenal midfielder explains he did not realise the impact his presence at the club would go on to have. Wright, the cover star, has also written a 14-page chapter where he recalls the unique experience of racism at Millwall from the perspective of a local spectator who was deemed “alright”, and then an opposition player.
Wright’s chapter also includes one of his favourite photos from his time at Arsenal.
In 2021, he told The Athletic: “The first goal I scored against Leicester, there’s a great picture where the first four people that came around me were David (Rocastle), Michael (Thomas), Kevin (Campbell) and Paul Davis, so there are five black men just standing there. Five of us men from south London.
“People don’t make any reference to the fact that (I scored) my first goal for Arsenal with five black men, all from south London, playing for Arsenal. People don’t even make that connection.”
Identity matters and so does visibility. That core of Black players from south London in the ’80s and ’90s is a major reason for Arsenal’s Black supporter base in south London today. The impact of African players signed in the ’90s and 2000s, from Kanu to Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue to Emmanuel Adebayor, is just as integral to the Black Arsenal story, which comes to life in a chapter named “Kanu to Kelechi”.
Once again, the presence of Black supporters in the book is just as pivotal as that of Arsenal’s present and former players.
At the Emirates, Nwonka talks about going to Notting Hill Carnival from the age of four and being bombarded by Arsenal shirts every year since as one of the organic connections that are found in Arsenal. Adidas put their own spin on this experience with the release of their yellow, green and black Arsenal pre-match shirt, which mirrored the colours of the Jamaican flag, just before the 2022 edition of the carnival. It has an important chapter dedicated to it in the book.
“I’m a bit critical on how certain brands need a more ethical approach to merchandise,” Nwonka says. “We do need to be very careful that we’re engaging with Black people, not just Black culture. Black culture is the expression of identity, which is important, but Black people are the most important thing.
“If you connect to them, it allows for less ethical concerns around appropriation or exploitation.”
This chapter in particular does not serve as a criticism of Adidas, the manufacturers of that Arsenal warm-up top, but a chance to keep the brand honest, as their senior project manager, Andrew Dolan, talks about its design process. Adidas have since produced similar work, with this season’s away kit inspired by the club’s players and fans shaped by the African diaspora, in collaboration with London-based menswear brand Labrum.
Black Arsenal still acknowledges people of other races who identify similarly with the club. Tariq Jazeel, Samir Singh and Anamik Saha are British Asians who curate chapters in the book about the change from Highbury Stadium to Highbury Stadium Square, Arsenal in the Community, and Black Arsenal and British Asians respectively.
Nwonka is also vocal on the impact that the concept of a ‘Black Arsenal’ has had on white members of the club’s fanbase over the past 50 years, saying: “Someone on Twitter told me: ‘I’ve been going to Arsenal since 1972. I’m from Archway and I don’t see race’.
“I’m not here to tell you whether to see race or not, but do you not think the reason for that is because Arsenal normalised racial differences in ways other clubs didn’t — and that’s what you now enjoy as a privilege 40 to 50 years later?
“From the oral histories, I understand there have always been elements of self-policing in Arsenal and preventing the infiltration of the far-right into the terraces, which other clubs didn’t do until the ’90s.”
That sense of white allyship has been particularly prevalent in recent years.
The most high-profile example came after a barrage of racist abuse was sent to Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho after penalty shootout misses in the Euro 2020 final (which took place in 2021). Arsenal fans sent letters of support to Saka in their thousands, which the winger saw once back from holiday. Later that year, Nuno Tavares and Nicolas Pepe were subject to racist abuse during a 4-1 win away to Leeds United. Rob Holding reported the incident during the game and the culprit was arrested that evening.
“If anything, 2021 showed us those ‘superstars’ aren’t immune to the everyday lacerations of racism that Black people know very well,” Nwonka adds. “The way we think about racism towards those on the pitch must be the way we think about it towards the Black person that sits across from you in the North Bank, Clock End or even beyond that.
“I think it helped us recognise that as much as we want to celebrate Black players and culture, they are simply Black people. They will experience the same things other Black people do in terms of racism and injustice. We can be more humanising of them.”
This year’s theme for Black History Month is ‘reclaiming narratives’. While The Athletic’s Jay Harris has written about the importance of sharing celebratory stories this month, the realism that comes from Nwonka’s exploration of ‘Black Arsenal’, which could not purely be a celebration, is still essential.
That is particularly important when considering that Nwonka is not a supporter of Arsenal, but Liverpool, who Arsenal will coincidentally host to close UK Black History Month on October 27.
(Top photo: Stevie Morton/Allsport/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
