Introduction

For me, 1986 was an important year. In that summer, the final of the English FA Cup (the Football Association Challenge Cup) was won by Liverpool, as the ‘Red’ half of the city triumphed against the ‘Blues’ (Everton) and led to the cup double (Liverpool also won the English Football League that year). Some readers might also remember that year for the infamous divinely inspired ‘hand of God’ goal that sent the English national team home from the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup at quarterfinal stage; their opponents, Argentina, went on to take victory in the tournament. During this era, post the Falklands War of 1982 and the Heysel Stadium disaster in Brussels in 1985, there was a renewed tribal, national and international dimension in football. A five-year banning order was in place for English clubs, preventing them from playing in European competitions, and rampant hooliganism had become part and parcel of football, and part of my early experiences of being an England-born boy of Pakistani heritage who had his own divided loyalties and issues around identity.

After the summer holidays of 1986, I had returned to the hallowed turf of Breckon Hill Primary School playing fields in Middlesbrough, where I recalled hearing the names of famous footballers like Diego Maradona and Jorge Burruchaga. They may have sounded strange and alien to us at the time, but they helped me as a youngster to identify with football and become the person I am today. I wanted to be like them and play the beautiful game.

I was only eight at the time, and my knowledge of football, racism, religion and other historical events was minimal. Unlike many of my friends’ experiences, my father had never taken me to watch ‘the Boro’ (Middlesborough) at their home ground, Ayresome Park, so I had no allegiances in the context of patriotism, loyalty and identity. My father was from a generation of Pakistanis that had been in the United Kingdom (UK) since the 1960s, and at that time, he and his friends and cousins were too busy working long shifts as taxi drivers, at British Steel, at ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) or at the docks to make any time for or care about a team or a sport they really didn’t know anything about.