Black History Month in football: Taking the Knee splits the nation

In 1976 Black History month was first recognised by the United States government. During the month of October, it is an annual celebration of Black History Month in the UK demonstrating the excellence across the Black Community, highlighting the inspirational figures who have helped shape our culture.

Manchester City and England star Kyle Walker said Black History month is something that needs to be celebrated on a daily basis- and not for a single month during the year.

“Black History Month, it’s important, but do I think that it should be just one month of the year? No, I don’t.”

“I think it should be every single day of every single month. But that’s nit just for Black History Month or White history or Asian history. We should all just celebrate, you know, just living and enjoying life.”

Across the City Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba sees Black History Month as a chance to celebrate people from all backgrounds and come together and enjoy themselves.

Pogba said: “I think there shouldn’t be a Black History Month, I think every month should be a humanity month for everyone. That would be nice for everyone. You could invite everyone, your friends from different counties and we all eat together. That could be a nice idea.”

Whilst the continues fight against racial injustice not only in football but the wider society, Leeds United and England midfielder Kalvin Phillips points to the importance of learning during Black History Month about people who have paved the way for others to thrive.

“I think it is important because you get to look back on different stories, you get to remember people who have done different things,” Phillips said.

“It is a major thing for me, because I’ve been through some things in my life-I’m going through a thing in the world right now where there are not some very good things happening.”

“And it has been important for me to remember when you come from and know who it is that has helped us to get to where we are at now.”

Everton striker Dominic Calvert- Lewin believes Black History month is about learning about role models and becoming a better one in his own right.

The England star hopes his success on the pitch helps Black children hope and believe they can achieve and accomplish anything they want in life.

Calvert-Lewin said “For me as a kid, having role models of colour and then becoming a role model myself today- which is still strange for me- I think that Black History Month is massively important.

“It’s important because when you see someone that looks like you, that perhaps might come from somewhere that you’ve come from achieving great things- then there’s no question of, well, I can’t do that because I’m Black, you know, because he’s already done it.”

“I suppose that’s what I was brought up on in terms of thinking. Regardless of skin colour it was you know if he can do it, then you can do it. In terms of role models, it is massively important.

Black History month is incredibly important and has a huge impact on our culture adaptation and how we need to become more educated.

On the 12th of October 2021 England hosted Hungary at Wembley Stadium, after the racist abuse when England played Hungary away there is no Hungarian supporters allowed at stadiums in Hungary. However, England allowed Hungarian spectators, but this quickly backfired on them as a brawl began in the stands when a banner was raised with a drawing of someone taking the knee with a line through it, booing the players when they took the knee.

Fights broke out between the police and Hungarian fans with Police having to use batons to try and get the situation under control, but they were pushed back down the stairs because they didn’t have enough policing.

After the draw against Hungary David Seaman has spoken out about what needs to be done to continue to stamp out racism in football:

“After all year and the hard work that’s been going on with Kick it Out and Troy Townsend. I spoke to Troy a while ago on my Seaman says podcast and he was saying that there had been some fantastic work, but it just shows you that we still need to keep doing it, we still need to keep taking the knee because it reminds everybody of why we are doing it. As we saw last night not everybody is behind it and I think that it was just a small group of people just not agreeing with it. The police went in and obviously they didn’t have enough police. But they got the person who was responsible for throwing abuse at one of the stewards. Hopefully that will get sorted.”

This indicates why Black History Month is so important because education is needed to teach society about accepting different cultures and what individuality they can bring to the community.