Imagine you are at Gillette Stadium, watching the New England Patriots play the New York Jets. Curtis Martin, the Jets star running back, takes a handoff and suddenly a person sitting near you stands up, screams, "Get that black bastard!," and the fans around him start making monkey noises.

The offensive gent would most likely find himself up to his neck in stadium's concrete floor. But in Europe, this type of behavior in the stands is actually increasing, with vicious racist taunts, including both of the instances cited above, being leveled at some of the best black players in Britain and on the continent.

Shameless remarks from opposing fans in America have largely gone past taunts that include race. This is due to a growing sense of decency, and the fact that calling someone a black bastard or the like is apt to get you a beating, at the least, with full approval of the surrounding sports fans. The very worst thing I've seen in recent years was some moron in New Jersey holding up a sign reading, "Stab Pierce Again" -- alluding to the knifing attack on Celts' star forward Paul Pierce in a Boston pool hall -- during the National Basketball League's Eastern Division finals last year between the New Jersey Nets and Boston Celtics. But even this bozo couldn't hold a candle to Scottish soccer fans.

The two Glasgow teams, Celtic and Rangers, known as the Old Firm, which are the elite clubs in Scotland, have engaged in sectarian chants and violence for ages. Celtic is the traditional Catholic side, while Rangers take pride in the team's Protestant roots. Until three decades ago, neither squad had even fielded a member of the other's predominant religion, and one of Rangers' oft-repeated taunting songs has lyrics that boast of being, "Up to our knees in Fenian blood." There's a charming lyric.

This religious affiliation even spans the Irish Sea, in the worst way. Celtic are beloved by Irish and Northern Irish Catholic supporters. And it goes both ways. Within the last month, Neil Lennon, the captain of Northern Ireland national team, who plays his club soccer in Scotland for Celtic, received a very plausible -- and frightening -- death threat from a sectarian Protestant group prior to an international match in Belfast. Fearing for his life, he promptly declared this the last time he would play for his country.

The vile antagonism extended even to America. After the attacks on September 11 Claudio Reyna, captain of the US national team and then playing for Rangers, went to take a corner kick, hard by the Celtic fans' end of the field. In what became a notorious video and photo, a Celtic fan stood up behind Reyna with his arms outstretched, imitating an airplane in flight -- a blatant reference to the Twin Towers horror. He probably didn't even realize that Reyna is from Kearny, New Jersey, a suburb of metropolitan New York.

Pretty brutal behavior by any standards, but not unknown to either Rangers or Celtic fans. When the Rangers signed Mark Walters in 1987, he was not only their first black player, but the first in the Scottish Premier League. How did Celtic respond? During Walters's first game at Ibrox Park, Rangers' home ground, Celtic fans wore gorilla suits, threw bananas at him, and made monkey noises every time he touched the ball. There's class and intelligence for you.

This racism abated a bit as more and more black players took the stage in Europe. The Netherlands, France, and England have all started fielding a number of back stars, and even Germany and Poland now have black players, albeit naturalized Africans, which makes it a bit hypocritical for their fans to abuse those players wearing their country's shirt.

But in the last months, supporters of teams like Valencia (Spain), PSV Eindhoven (Holland), and Hadjuk Split (Yugoslavia), have verbally abused black players from English club teams when they played in Europe, and black players on England's national team have been jeered by racist taunts in Slovakia and Bulgaria. These are the new hooligans, with a much more visceral hatred surrounding their actions.

The European Football Federation (UEFA) has been quick to clamp down on this abhorrent practice, fining teams for the behavior of their "fans." But it is case of the horses being out of the barn, and it doesn't look to be abating, especially, as in many places, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. But when the situation extends to elite teams like PSV Eindhoven and Valencia, who have long supported and employed black players, the situation is obviously quite serious. UEFA recently tagged Eindhoven for a huge fine because of the racist taunts directed by supporters at the black players of Arsenal, the reigning English champions, which include those of French, English, and Nigerian descent, during a European Cup match.

America may have its oafs in the stands with their replica jerseys and too much alcohol fueling their fire, but we have been blessedly free of such mutated thinking. We have also struggled through extremely difficult confrontations sparked by race and will doubtless do so. If nothing else, the US remains a racist society; it is just that those who promote this virulent behavior know they are in the minority, and that they have a good chance of ending up with missing dental work if they publicly air their views.

There is no place for race issues in sports, which has been the great equalizer for centuries. Let us hope that the ethnically Balkanized Europeans address these issues, or that the world's governing football bodies, which have penalized those teams with hooligan supporters, will perhaps take a stand on this subject, and if need be, banish future World Cups, the biggest sporting event in the world, from the stadiums of racists. There is no place, for them, in this world or that of sports.

Post-mortem. In an effort to give proper due to some fans, who if not color blind, at least are accepting of our racial differences, there is the delightful story of the Irish national team center back Paul McGrath (pronounced "Ma-GRAH"), a rarity as a black competing for Ireland, who was beloved for his wild lifestyle, which included much wine, many women, and a few songs. The chant in his honor by Irish fans during national team matches was "Ooh-ahh, Paul McGrath." When Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa, he was given the highest honor in Ireland, the "walk of the city" in Dublin, in which he paraded throughout the city's streets with the mayor to be cheered by the Irish. But after the first few blocks, the Irish fans gave Mandela their own special tribute, with their legendary wit on display, chanting, "Ooh-ahh, Paul McGrath's Da!" for the length of his honorary stroll.

Issue Date: November 1 - 7, 2002