Racist Ron caps bad week for England

This will go down as one of the worst weeks in Europe that we sad Britons have suffered since William the Conqueror brought his disciplined FC Norman over to Hastings and massacred King Harold’s XI during the legendary 1066 season.

That was one in the eye for England. This week was more of a foot in the mouth for the nation that created the universal game.

Let’s start with Big Ron Atkinson. Lets start on him. Renowned as one of the nation’s great but verbally dodgy on-screen pundits after reasonably successful coaching spells at Sheffield Wednesday, Aston Villa and even, circa 1066, Manchester United, he was as unhappy as the rest of us when Chelsea went down 3-1 to Monaco in the Champions League semifinal first leg on Tuesday.

And this is what he said after the match, believing he was off-camera, to fellow-commentator Clyde Tildesley. Referring to French World Cup winner and Chelsea stalwart Marcel Dessailly, he said: ‘He’s a fucking lazy, thick nigger.”

Now, unfortunately for Big Ron, Egypt and Dubai, plus several other European countries, were still taking the live feed from ITV.

His comments were immediately the subject of huge protests and this awful racist slur left Atkinson with no choice but to resign.

The debate now rages. Was it a one-off moment of fury from the man who discovered Dwight Yorke on a field in Tobago and transformed his life into a millionaire’s paradise?

Or was it just another racist outburst from a man who harbours huge grudges about the way his all-white game of the 1960s and 1970s has become dominated by huge, athletic men of Afro-Caribbean decent?

Viv Anderson, England’s first black player, who emerged with Laurie Cunningham, John Barnes and Luher Blissett during the 1980s, was signed by Atkinson at Sheffield Wednesday.

He said: ‘Ron was always great with me, a fine coach. But he would never have said anything like that in front of me. I can’t condone comments like that.”

Of course, the insult ‘nigger”, unlike the religiously defamatory Arabic term ‘kafir”, is simply a shortening of the word ‘Negro” or in German ‘neger”.

In recent years, hip-hop lyricists have attempted to win back the word as exclusively black. An insult which has become a tough-guy badge for black gangsta rappas. At least that’s how it sounds to me, when Kriss, my 16-year-old son, cranks up the volume on his Tupac and 50-cent albums.

Doubtless a lot will be made of this by middle England’s lily-white ‘experts”, who will emerge to defend Big Ron. They’ll say nigger is no longer offensive, that it was a one-off outburst, that he has worked with many black youngsters and is now the victim of political correctness gone wrong.

Bollocks. Big Ron, like so many football ‘experts” of his age, has lived as a racist in the non-racial world of football for years, using the phrases he came out with on Tuesday night. I can name 10 others, current and past Premier bosses, who will be watching their language very carefully over the next few months.

I have sat at dinners with these guys being openly racist, suggesting black players are in some way thicker, less punctual and slower on the uptake simply because of their skin colour. I don’t think they analyse their bigotry, or that they see the irony of signing an African player for millions after insisting black players are generally unbalanced unless they have a chip on both shoulders.

Big Ron argues: ‘Look at my track record, I was one of the first managers to give black players a chance.”

Indeed, when he was coaching Spain’s Real Sociedad he signed Dalian Atkinson and the Spanish press thought it was his son. Dalian was as black as the proverbial ace of spades. Ron is orange, bright orange, after years of foreign holidays, sunbeds and make-up people at the ITV studios in Greys Inn Road.

Ron says: ‘I made a stupid mistake which I regret. I am left with no option but to resign. It was just a moment of stupidity, I was frustrated because I thought Chelsea should have won.”

Fair enough, but no matter how we feel about life or football, how many of us feel the need to single out a player and blast him for the colour of his skin. Not many I hope.

On the field, it’s Claudio Ranieri who is taking flak. The Chelsea boss admitted after the 3-1 defeat that he had made a huge mistake. But unlike Atkinson’s grudging admission, Ranieri’s sounded typically heart-felt.

With Monaco down to 10 men after Claude Makalele’s theatrics, and Chelsea back to 1-1 thanks to Hernan Crespo’s fortunate goal, all Ranieri had to do was sit back and take a vital away goal back to Stamford Bridge for the second leg.

But no, sensing this was the chance to attack the French champions, Claudio threw on Seba Veron — who admitted afterwards he wasn’t fit — for Jesper Gronkjaer, then took off fullback Mario Mechiot for a third striker, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink.

Chelsea promptly got caught out pushing forward and the French club, renowned for their counter-attacking, scored two late goals to leave Chelsea teering on the brink of a disatrous exit which may well have rubber-stamped Ranieri’s long-expected exit from the hot seat.

On Wednesday a Chelsea source was quoted as saying: ‘Some of Ranieri’s decisions were obviously bad while others were just baffling.”

Ranieri? He just smiles that wonderful Italian smile and says: ‘Yes, is my fault, I wanted to attack their 10 men.”

With Porto’s in-fashion manager Jose Mourinho now seen as the front-runner for his job next season, Ranieri admitted: ‘Without doubt it was my worst 45 minutes in charge of Chelsea.

‘We tried to do something good but the last 15 minutes we lost the plot, everyone wants to do something more. Running with the ball, trying to win the game. It was like we had 10 against 11 not them. We didn’t give the ball to the strikers.”

And with Manchester United beating Charlton 2-0 to move within a point of the Blues in second position — which means automatic Champions League qualification without the need for pre-qualifying — it was generally a difficult night for billionaire Roman Abramovich’s men.

Still, he might be relieved. After the shock quarterfinal triumph over Arsenal at Highbury a fortnight ago, Abramovich sauntered in to the dressing room and doubled the win bonus to £100 000 a man.

He’s been less generous to Ranieri. Apparently the Italian will be culled if the Blues don’t conquer Europe. And even Ranieri admits: ‘We have only a 20% chance of reaching the final now.”

All that can rescue this bleak week is Big Ron going for counselling and admitting he is what he is … and Chelsea going out and crushing Monaco 3-0 in the return.

Sadly, that won’t happen. The players are joining in the critisism now. One walked into the dressing room afterwards and said: ‘What the fuck was all that about?”

A delighted Monaco coach Didier Deschamps said: ‘The Chelsea changes benefited us more than them.” Ouch.

After the other semifinal, a drab goalless affair against Deportivo la Coruna in Opporto, Mourinho denied he was talking to Chelsea, despite pictorial evidence. He said: ‘Are Chelsea interested? Maybe you know more than me about this.”

His team’s boring first leg performance was hardly a persuasive argument against Ranieri. But I go for a Monaco vs Deportivo final on May 15. Barring a Hasselbaink miracle hat-trick.