The former Wolves boss and Ipswich Town assistant shares his personal experiences of suffering racist abuse during his playing and coaching career and discusses the lack of diversity in English football's management roles.
By Rob Dorsett, Sky Sports News reporter
Republic of Ireland
assistant manager Terry Connor has spoken out for the first time in his 25-year
coaching career about his struggles with racism in football.
The date is June 22,
2008. Paul Ince has just been named manager of Blackburn Rovers, becoming the
first black manager in the Premier League.
Many thought and many
more hoped that it was a turning point. But in the 28 years of the Premier
League, only nine black men have managed in England's top division.
One of those is Connor.
He had 13 games in charge of Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2012.
"Maybe Paul getting
that job will still change things," he said.
"I worked with Paul
for a few years at Wolves, and he deserved that job. It did feel like a big
step forward, but it's a process, and it might take generations for us to get
true equality."
As a teenager, Connor was on the
books at his home town club, Leeds United, in the late 1970s.
He's
told me - and his children - how he had to run away from white youths when he
was a schoolboy player there, catching the bus to Elland Road from his home in
the Chapeltown area.
Connor
still remembers how he would always sit near to the driver on the bus, so that
he didn't have to run the gauntlet of the young white men towards the back
seats. They would bully and beat him. Because he was black.
He's
experienced racism throughout his career, as a player and a coach.
The
57-year-old talks about the "overt" abuse he's suffered from the
stands, and from others in football, but he has much greater concerns about the
hidden racism, that he feels points to a much deeper problem.
And for this, you can't separate
football from wider society.
He
told Sky
Sports News: "I remember when my wife went into labour
unexpectedly, I rushed to the hospital in some scruffy clothes. The
receptionist kept me waiting.
"I
kept saying 'excuse me', but she kept on doing other things. Eventually, I said
I was here to see my wife who was about to give birth, and she said: 'Oh! I'm
sorry. I thought you were a taxi driver.'
"I
don't think she had any idea about her prejudice."
Terry
Connor's coaching career has largely run in parallel with Mick McCarthy's -
whenever the Irishman got a job, he wanted Connor alongside him.
He's
currently McCarthy's assistant for the Republic of Ireland national team until
both their contracts expire next month.
It's
a role he's performed at Bristol City, Bristol Rovers, Swindon, Wolves and
Ipswich. But only under McCarthy, who he calls "inspirational", has
he been given the title of "assistant".
He
is sure that his skin colour meant he has been undervalued at times in the
past, and not given a proper title.
When he was Reserve Team manager
for Wolves from 1999, he says it was so rare to see a black man in a position
of authority, he often wasn't recognised.
"We
used to go to away games and have a pre-match meal," he recalls, "the
players would eat separately from the staff.
"As
the hotel would want us to sign for the meal, of the six around the table I was
the only black guy.
"And
the hotel staff would present the bill to the goalkeeping coach, or the physio,
or the kit man. And they'd present the cheque to everyone, bar me.
"All
the staff would say, 'I'm not authorised to sign for that' and it would go
around the table, until finally it got to me.
"It
would be wrong to call it a standing joke, but it happened on so many
occasions. It was clear they thought 'he must be the boss - it can't be
him!'"
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