Anyone who thought that the prospect of an England win in the World Cup created an excitement in areas hitherto untouched by the game did not get to Brixton. The greatest public interest in rugby visible from the street was the sponsor’s name at the top of the Carling Brixton Academy. The general feeling in Brixton could have been: if England do well in the final, maybe we will watch the next game.
On the Thursday before the final I went to Brixton to find a pub where black people might watch the final. I might more easily have found United States President George Bush begging to be at the head of the line pulling down his effigy.
Two fiftysomething Caribbeans — one Afro, from Barbados, one Sino, from the Rock (Jamaica) — whom I took into my confidence shattered it at once.
‘Black man don’t watch that kind of thing,†said the Bajan. ‘Black man gat too much to do to watch a setta white man chasing a ball that can’t even bounce right.â€
The other muttered: ‘What ‘im name? Rigby?â€
They directed me to The Beehive, which prides itself as Brixton’s genuine local.
There was no shortage of black men at The Beehive, in truth, but neither was there a TV. They were not even opening until 11am on Saturday. And then I saw a door with two red diagonals proclaiming ‘Red Stripe†and a large-screen TV reflected in the bar mirror. There was even a red-and-white World Cup 2003 English Rose T-shirt on the wall.
Yes! The great black hope! Surely a pub selling World Cup T-shirts and Red Stripe would be packed with rigby-mad Caribbeans. Steff, the manager of The Backstage, grinned. Yeah, sure, they would be open early; and backing England.
The wettest morning in months might have made Jonny Wilkinson hesitate before getting out of bed on Saturday; it surely would not help my Caribbean headcount, I worried, as I sloshed towards The Backstage. At the bars with the big screens I passed, the crowds might have come from Twickenham; or Norway.
At The Backstage bartender Shagufta Biba was pulling pints for a crowd in which she was the darkest. There were more black people on television than in the crowd.
From the first whistle until Wilkinson’s drop goal won it, only three more black people entered the bar. One was a Backstage staffer.
Another black person in the pub was the Jamaican woman sweeping the floor.
‘Me ent know nothing ’bout this rugby shit,†she drawled when asked who she thought would win.
‘Not even football neither. I like cricket.â€
Backstage regular Ralph Fearon, originally from Jamaica, said that he did not follow rugby, but someone had just told him that England had won. Fearon said that there were lots of black people interested in the game, but they stayed home to watch it.
Puzzling. Red Stripe, English rose T-shirt, precious few black folk. I asked Biba how the sales of the shirts were going.
‘Oh, we’re not selling them,†she said. ‘That’s Steff’s. He went to Oz for the first round and brung that back.â€
On the platform at Brixton tube station, an old Jamaican man also confessed ignorance of rigby.
‘I’m glad England won,†I told him. ‘Until the end the people in the pub kind of expected them to lose. Can you imagine what they would have felt like if they had?â€
The old man smiled.
‘Me know what they woulda feel like. Black people. Hevery day.†—