From: vigneswa@ecs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Asians in Sports in England....
Date: 23 Jan 93 18:33:07 GMT

Asians still to give themselves a sporting chance

John Goodbody on the cultural restraints preventing one ethnic
group in  Britain from making an impact: in The Times (January
21, 1993, Thursday)


	Afro-Caribbean blacks  have made a huge contribution to
British sport. From Daley Thompson to John Barnes, Tessa Sander-
son to  Frank Bruno, they  have secured  fame  and  money  in a
variety of high-profile activities.

	Of Britain's  392-strong Olympic team in Barcelona last
summer, 37  were black.  Three of  England's  16-strong cricket
party for the tour of India and Sri Lanka  this winter, and bet-
ween 20 and 25 per cent  of the membership of the  Professional
Footballers'  Association (PFA), also have  Afro-Caribbean back-
grounds.
 
	However, Britons  of Indian  and  Pakistani  extraction
have been far less  prominent, with no professional footballers
of repute  and only  two members of  the Olympic team.  Even in
cricket and  hockey, the  sports for which  the  countries  are
renowned, there have rarely been outstanding players.  From the
southern  Asian community, only ten cricketers who are eligible
to represent England are  now on the staff  of county clubs and,
over the last 20 years, only five players have  been picked for
Britain in the Olympics at hockey.  Why?
 
	It is not that there are more blacks in Britain. Recent
population surveys estimate that there are about 528,000 people
of West Indian origin, about 727,000 Indians  and 284,000 Pakis-
tanis.

	A study on  the ethnic minorities  and sport by a group
at Manchester University led by  Professor Gajendra  Verma, pub-
lished in July  1991, stated that  females were ''significantly
less likely to participate if they were Hindus and Muslims than
if they were Christians or of no belief'', but pointed out that
''males seem  unaffected  by their  religious beliefs, whatever
they were''.

	But, in reviewing much of the evidence, the report rein-
forced one widespread belief by suggesting  that Afro-Caribbean
youngsters are ''channelled into sport at the  expense of their
subjects and the Asian community  does not value physical educa-
tion and sport as much as other groups''.
 
	Researchers in the Active Lifestyle project in Coventry
have also reported that, although  Asian youngsters had similar
physical  aspirations to their  counterparts from  other ethnic
groups, they had less knowledge of sporting  opportunities  and
received less encouragement from parents to participate.

	Imran Sherwani, whose goals helped Britain win the 1988
Olympic hockey gold medal, agreed  that there is an emphasis in
the Asian community on  studying and  work. ''Parents  are some-
times not  prepared to take  youngsters to  sports events,'' he
said.
 
	Last year, Jeoff Thompson, the black  world karate cham-
pion, chaired the  first ethnic minorities conference for sport
and recreation.  He concluded:  ''The focus of the  Indians and
Pakistanis is economic strength first and fun afterwards, where-
as, with the Afro-Caribbeans, it is the other way round.''
 
	Thompson also  pointed out  that indigenous sports like
kabbadi, a type  of British ''bulldog'', and  beeni, a form  of
arm wrestling, have remained popular with  some of the southern
Asian  community, which has  prided itself on  cultural indepen-
dence and  used  its wealth  to  maintain  its  own  activities.
''Blacks have not had  this financial background, nor their own
sports, and have had to join in the mainstream of British sport,''
Thompson said.

	Many Indian and  Pakistani youngsters have become enthu-
siastic footballers, despite the lack of tradition in the sport
and the  absence of any  inspirational figures.  Brendan Batson,
the black deputy chief  executive of the  PFA, compares this to
his own experiences as a youngster in the 1960s, when many Afro-
Caribbeans felt  as alienated  from the  game as the Asians are
now.
 
	He said:  ''We then had a lack of role models.  Parents
also did  not understand  that you  could earn a living in foot-
ball. They sometimes deterred their sons from entering the game.''
Andrew Lyons, of the Midlands region of the Sports Council, who
has made a study of the subject, said: ''Perhaps few Asians are
trying  to break  into the professional  ranks because sport is
simply not seen as a route to social mobility.''
 
	However, although so many blacks have  succeeded as pro-
fessional footballers,  no Premier or  Football League club now
has a black director, whereas the Kumar brothers  at Birmingham
City are among the Asians who have reached boardrooms.

	Hockey is different. For many years, India and Pakistan
dominated the sport.  However, the  lack of  money in the  game
caused Sherwani to retire after Britain's victory in 1988, aged
26 and probably at his peak.  He was aided in preparing for the
Olympics by  his parents, who were ''really fabulous'' in  help-
ing him run his newsagency shop in Stoke-on-Trent. This allowed
him to train three hours a day before Seoul.
 
	''Some Asians do not  understand the  European attitude
towards sport:  the  getting up  at six o'clock  to run  up the
hills, so hard that you are physically sick,'' he said.''I know
of two or three  very talented  Asian players who  did not like
that approach. They were not prepared to train hard enough.''

	Sherwani was lucky that  his father, a  Pakistani inter-
national, encouraged him, and he got  his break when he was put
forward to an under-16 representative side. ''If I had not been
seen, then maybe I would have slipped through the net,'' he said.
 
	Bernie  Cotton, the  Great Britain  team manager at the
1992 Olympics, emphasised that as far  as the national team was
concerned, there was no bias  against the Asian community.  The
British teams at the  last three Olympic  Games had contained a
total of only one Scot, and no Welsh or Irishmen, he said.

	However, he  added that at county  and divisional under-
18 level, selection can be about personal contact. ''The Asians,
with the best  will in the  world, sometimes are not told about
trials taking place,'' he said.  ''It is at  that level that we
are not able to tap the full resource of the sport.''

	If hockey remains  essentially  amateur, cricket enjoys
the advantage for Asians of being both professional and a sport
in which they have excelled. Pakistan are the World Cup holders
and India have produced a series of attractive sides.
 
	Taj Butt, a  development  officer in  Bradford's recrea-
tion department, said  that more  youngsters from  the southern
Asian communities are likely to take up cricket than the native
whites. ''However, the  problem is  not getting  people to play
cricket, it is the level  at which they are playing,'' he  said.
Coaching is too often  poor or  non-existent, and because Asian
clubs  have only been  formed  more  recently, they  often  get
offered  the worst  facilities.  Whereas  blacks sometimes form
their own teams, they usually do not have their own leagues and
regularly meet white teams. They also seem more integrated with
whites, because much of the  black immigration  occurred before
that of the Asians.

	Butt is  treasurer  of the  Quaid-e-Azam Sunday cricket
league in Bradford, which next year will have 31 teams.  Asians
often prefer their own leagues, partly  because  of the  social
aspects.  Many players  are teetotal and find it awkward to mix
after games with whites.
  
	Yorkshire  County  Cricket  Club  has  frequently  been
accused of either ignoring or, at least, not encouraging ethnic
minority talent.  However, Butt  said that officialdom is chang-
ing lower down the scale. ''One of the most  positive steps has
been the decision of the Yorkshire Cricket Association to have
one Asian and one Afro-Caribbean on its committee,'' he said.
 
	Keith  Andrew, the  chief  executive  of  the  National
Cricket  Association, the  governing body  for the amateur game,
said  that he  foresaw  the time  when counties  like Yorkshire,
Warwickshire and  Nottinghamshire  would have large  numbers of
Asian players.
 
	''So many  of them are playing  the game in schools and
clubs,'' he said. ''It is all a matter of evolution.''


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Thanks: The Times and John Goodbody

Vicky:
UMass, Jan 23