This wasn’t a conversation overheard in a working men’s club in the Seventies. This was a current football club owner talking to The Guardian newspaper. Feel free to run that “older and wiser” line past me again?
We all know attitudes have changed; language has evolved with it and not everyone has kept pace.
Let’s not be hypocritical, either. There are many of us who can think of an elderly neighbour or relative that we wouldn’t necessarily want to plonk in front of the national media to discuss questions of race and ethnicity.
They don’t own a football club, though. If it were just the ramblings of a deluded old boy in the pub, you’d sigh, pick up your pint, mutter something about Alf Garnett and find yourself another bar stool.
But Whelan has an important position in the community, one that carries responsibilities beyond shovelling cash into his pet project without wider scrutiny. His public statements matter.
For heaven’s sake, even Cardiff City’s Vincent Tan was able to seize some moral high ground here, a sentence that proves the world is truly a confusing place.
“This is a racist chairman, hiring a racist manager. I think he insulted the dignity of all Jewish people. I think he insulted the dignity of the Chinese,” said Tan.
What’s the answer? It’s too late to send Whelan on one of those “racial awareness” courses. He’ll get a metaphorical slap from the FA — for all the good it will do — and the world will move on with or without him.
But those who shrug and excuse his remarks miss the central point. Whelan’s views help illustrate why there are so few black managers in the professional game, even now. Lazy, outdated assumptions are made in boardrooms across the land. The difference is, for once, we heard them.
Lewis is now a man who can enjoy his day in sun
As Lewis Hamilton took his World Championship title, I thought back to October 2007 during his first season in Formula One.
The young British tyro was fighting for the title in Brazil. He had a four-point lead over Fernando Alonso, seven points on Kimi Raikkonen, but was wilting under the pressure.
Before the race in Sao Paulo, I waved the appropriate pass and slipped onto the grid to try and find him amid the fumes and rubber of the Interlagos circuit.
Hamilton was there, hunched against the pitlane wall, his father Anthony (with his son, left yesterday) standing over him, holding an umbrella and trying to shield his boy from the glare of the South American sun.
It was a perfect image of Hamilton’s place in the world back then. He needed protection.
The title slipped from his grasp that day. By the third corner, his rivals Raikkonen and Alonso had passed him and the chance was lost.
The bruising experience stood him in good stead, however, as he snatched the crown on the last corner at the same venue just 12 months later.
Having been thrown onto the world stage as a boy because of his sublime talent as a racer, Hamilton had to do a lot of growing up in the spotlight.
He fought with Alonso, blocked his father from managing his career, split with his girlfriend, employed a showbiz agent, left the McLaren team that nurtured his career and more.
But now he is close to his father again, back with his girlfriend, out of the showbiz sideshow — and a world champion for the second time.
He is no longer a boy. He is a man who has written himself into the history of his sport history. He doesn’t need to hide under umbrellas any more.
Van Persie takes back seat to the ball boys
Getty
There was an extraordinary statistic from the weekend. Robin van Persie had just 12 touches of the ball against his old club in Manchester United’s 2-1 win at Arsenal — and three of those were when he took corners. On those numbers, the ball boys at the Emirates were more involved in the game.
In the end, Arsenal had 23 attempts on goal and still contrived to lose. The temptation is to suggest the Gunners couldn’t even shoot themselves in the foot right now, but they’ve actually proved to be rather good at that. On the plus side, it seems they do have a better class of yob at the Emirates. One Arsenal fan reportedly threw his red wine towards the United bench. But, as you might expect, the wine was not a vintage, vastly overpriced and it had very little body.
