In Birmingham, a hockey club fights discrimination

LONDON: In the summer of 1966, a dozen or so students of Indian, Pakistani and Kenyan origins from the deprived areas of Birmingham faced a dilemma.

The teenaged hockey players had finished their schooling but wanted to continue playing the sport. So their teacher, an Englishman named Malcolm Challoner, reached out to the top clubs in the region. For days, there was no response. Challoner got the hint and he, the story goes, told his wards: “Nobody really wants you. If you want to play hockey, we would have to form a club.” Thus, in June that year, Barford Tigers was born, foreign media reported.

Last week, days before its 54th birthday, the club posted a stark black image on its social media handles with a message ‘Blackout Tuesday’, in solidarity with the ongoing protests against racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the United States. For Barford Tigers it was natural to be drawn to this cause.

Since 1966, this self-funded club – largely comprising players who have Indian, Pakistani and Kenyan heritage – has been fighting discrimination and pushing for higher representation of minorities in British hockey

“It’s a struggle, there’s no doubt about it,” says Barford vice-president Sukhdev Gill, who is also an advisory board member of Sporting Equals, an organisation that promotes participation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities in sport. “But it’s more than colour. It’s the hard-wired mentality with respect to British-Asians that has been festered for decades.”

Since the protests broke out, the issue of lack of diversity in the England and Great Britain hockey teams has been highlighted by several players.