How I set up a refugee football team in Barnsley

Jaber Abdullah, a Sudanese asylum seeker, says he will never forget the day when Barnsley Football Club gave him tickets to go and watch the team play at their stadium. “It was the first activity any of us had done since we arrived in the UK because we could not afford to go anywhere,” says Abdullah, 40, who set up the Refugee Tigers football team shortly after arriving in the UK and claiming asylum almost two years ago.

Having been sent to live in the south Yorkshire town, he saved £3 from his £30-odd a week benefits, bought a football and started kicking it about in a local park. It wasn’t long before he was joined by another Sudanese asylum seeker. Within a few months, the Tigers’ roster had swelled to more than 50 asylum seekers and refugees from Syria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq and Iran, aged between 18 and 40.

The Tigers boast some unquestionably talented players, with the most eye-catching an Eritrean goalkeeper nicknamed “Tesco” (on account of his obsession with the variety of goods on offer at his local supermarket) and a Syrian midfielder monikered “Figo”, who shares the sorcerous skills of the Portuguese great, according to his teammates. “In Calais where most of the boys came to England from, there was a lot of violence, a lot of fighting between the different nationalities. They were arguing over things like territory close to the lorries and it was very tribal there, but now we are one family. Nobody cares where someone is from or what religion they are. We have many different types of Muslims and also Christians,” says Abdullah, who manages the team.

[...]

He says none of his players have ever been racially abused by the teams they play. But, as we speak, a car drives past and a young man cranes out of the window and shouts “Oi, blackie, ******* go home.” Anti-immigrant sentiment is not unfamiliar to Barnsley.

[...]

After losing his asylum card four months ago he was evicted from his home and his benefits were stopped, but he was saved from homelessness by a local man. “He came and asked me how much I was getting a week from the government and said that I would continue to get that money from him. He drives to my home every week to give it to me. Last week he came with £100 to pay for my English classes. I tell him I will repay his kindness when I can but he says, ‘Jaber, when you have money to spare give to someone else who needs it’. I will never forget what this man has done for me.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ullah-refugee-football-asylum-seeker-barnsley

 

http://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/barnsley-fc-and-refugees-in-todays-guardian.255746/

 

Shame on the ****** shouting abuse, massive credit to the guy putting his hand in his own pocket.

 

Ahh apologies, bin as appropriate!

 

Had no idea about that. Nice to see.

 

Absolutely. I've no time for racist thugs. It's genuinely pleasing to see this guy doing something positive.

 

It really does spice the story up doesn't it when a bell end happens to shout a racist comment right at the very moment a guardian reporter makes their first ever visit to Barnsley reporting on an immigration tale.

 

Remarkable coincidence even though the last time I saw something like that was in the early 80s even though I've been in Barnsley 1000s of times.

 

I heard 4 people making racist comments in less than an hour in town on Saturday.


Sent from my iPad using Barnsley FC BBS Fans Forum

 

"Life is hard enough when they belong here".

 

None of us belong here. We are all immigrants.


Sent from my iPad using Barnsley FC BBS Fan Forum mobile app

 

No we're not.

This is not the USA or Australia.

And I take it you've not heard "Bengali in Platforms"?

What about "the Chinese are a sub-species"?

 

So you are descended from celts. Can trace your history back to Britannia? Unlikely. Like the rest of us your ancestors were probably Scandinavian or Western Europe. It just happened here long before we made it happen in other players.

I have indeed heard Bengali in Platforms. As average as the rest of the post Smiths Morrissey though clumsy not a call to racism.


Sent from my iPad using Barnsley FC BBS Fan Forum mobile app

 

The Vikings left behind very few genetic traces actually.

If you go back far enough then everyone is an immigrant yes but that's not the point.

This is the point:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...lfnotification#lf-content=193876760:684088774

 

So we agree everyone in the U.K. Is an immigrant. Now we are getting somewhere.


Sent from my iPad using Barnsley FC BBS Fan Forum mobile app

 

I suppose there must have been SOME people who were actually born on this island, even if that means going back to a time when man got up off all fours and started walking upright. But then the European hordes started invading, probably seeing this as a nicer place to live than where they originated from.

I've been following The Last Kingdom on BBC2 since it started and it's interesting to see King Alfred's Anglo Saxons being portrayed as the victims of the savage Vikings (all tattoos and weird hair cuts - not a blonde God amongst them!) Funnily enough the Vikings in this case are Danes, but I always thought of Vikings coming mostly from Norway. But those early Britons came from somewhere else didn't they - Saxony for example?

I'm as disturbed by current events as many others are (immigration-wise) but there is nothing new in it, is there? They have always come in, and that will just continue. The difference now though is that the floodgates have been open for too long and we poor "Anglo Saxons" are being overrun again, although this time the majority of the invading hordes are not coming with spears and clubs but asylum papers and social security claim forms.

 

Yes, if you go back 1000s of years, that hardly justifies importing millions of people from the third world into Europe does it? And it's only ever white western countries who have to take them as well, Africa for Africans, Asia for Asians, Europe for Everyone.

 

They were always Danes, hence "Danelaw" and "Danegeld" (although some came from what is today Southern Sweden).

 

I know you don't want to hear it but most refugees go to neighbouring countries

 

Perhaps they're coming to claim what is rightfully theirs.Afterall, The Great British Empire was built upon the wealth and exploitation of many of these peoples ancestors.