By stopping players taking the knee, Millwall have handed racists a victory | Millwall

In researching my book about the history of racism in football, a question I asked every player I spoke to was, “where were the most hostile places for a black professional?” In almost all cases, Millwall’s ground was on the list. Spitting, monkey chants and banana throwing were part of the experience of black players 30 or 40 years ago: so, while booing the taking of a knee might to some represent progress, in other ways it seems little has changed.

The actions of those Millwall fans last weekend who jeered their own players as they expressed opposition to racial injustice seemingly represented a massive show of utter contempt and disrespect for the lives, experiences and sentiments of Millwall’s black footballers – and also for those within the club who have worked hard to improve their image since the 1970s and 80s.

Yet within three days the club had apparently capitulated to those modern-day bigots by calling a halt to taking the knee. They decided that instead, before the kick-off at the match with QPR on Tuesday night, players should link arm-in-arm with the opposing team while holding an equality banner. One can’t argue with the sentiment – indeed, QPR’s director of football, Les Ferdinand, said he thought the knee protest had lost its power. But in going it alone, and in response to such malicious jeering, Millwall seem to be accepting that taking the knee is now too controversial a protest to continue; and to be pandering to the toxic section of their fanbase, who will now undoubtedly feel they have won some kind of victory.

It’s ironic, because the club had seemingly anticipated opposition from the fans before Saturday’s match – the first time crowds had been allowed back in English football stadiums since the Black Lives Matter protests took off this year – by expressing their continued support for players taking the knee.

Saturday’s boo-ers were mainly season ticket holders with names, addresses and seat numbers, who presumably could easily be identified by CCTV, and upon whom, if the club were so minded, they could impose bans and suspensions. The club could have acted firmly in solidarity with their black players by recommitting their wholehearted support for the taking of the knee. Instead, Millwall have behaved not like the lions on their club crest, but like chickens; and in doing so have sent out a message that the views of racist fans are more important than the sentiments of their black players and black fans.

Just hours after last Saturday’s game, the veteran Millwall defender Mahlon Romeo, who played almost 200 games for the club, said it was the lowest he had felt in his time there. How too must the friends and families of those black players have felt as they heard the boos ring out?

For too long the club’s hierarchy have pointed to the sterling work done by their community arm in promoting anti-racism, while not seeming to do enough to address the more reactionary elements of their support. In January last year, the club were fined £10,000 by the FA as a result of racist chanting by fans who chanted, “I’d rather be a P– than a scouse” during a home FA cup tie against Everton.

On social media, some Millwall fans laughably claimed they were protesting against “Marxism”, claiming the knee was some kind of communist salute – as if racism had nothing to do with their actions.. So how would they explain last year’s chants?

Back in the 80s, what characterised Millwall – and the other clubs such as West Ham, Chelsea and Leeds United, whose stadiums were a hostile environment for black players – was the influence of the far right who often utilised football’s tribalism to organise and recruit. While most of those clubs’ fanbases moved with the times, helped by anti-racist campaigns and changing social attitudes, the racism problems within Millwall’s supporter base have remained deep-rooted.

And the interventions of some politicians this week has not helped. It was perhaps predictable that the Brexit champion Nigel Farage would pitch in, describing Black Lives Matter as a “Marxist mob” and demand the end to taking the knee. But when the cabinet minister George Eustice was asked to comment, he refused to condemn the booing, telling Sky News: “My personal view is that Black Lives Matter, capital B, L and M, is actually a political movement that is different to what most of us believe in.” In doing so, he showed complete ignorance of the fact this protest had nothing to do with any far-left agenda, but that it was just about ending racism. It’s something you’d have thought every mainstream political leader should agree with – yet his words demonstrate just how much this far-right narrative has permeated our politics.

Yes, taking the knee – much like refusing to give up a seat on a bus – is a political act. But it’s an act that any fair-minded individual should support and empathise with. And this week the acts of those in positions of power, from football club owners to government ministers, have set back the cause of race equality.

• Emy Onuora is the author of Pitch Black