https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/is-it-in-the-blood-and-the-hypocrisy-of-the-media/

Is it in the blood? and the hypocrisy of the media
Posted on February 15, 2011 by Robert Henderson
The death of the great England all-rounder Trevor Bailey prompts me to take down and dust off a classic example of the discrepancy between what mainstream mediafolk privately believe and their public obeisance to political correctness.

In 1991 I wrote to a group of sports journalists who specialised in cricket.. Some such as E M Wellings and E W Swanton were at the time amongst the best known of the breed. All wrote or broadcast for the national media. My subject was the influx of foreign players into county cricket and the employment of foreigners in the England cricket team, both of which I deplored. On the grounds that foreigners in county cricket denied opportunities for English players and the use of foreigners in the England side made a mockery of the idea of national sides.

The letter I sent to the sports journalists was published as an article in Wisden Cricket Monthly in 1991. I have posted the article at https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/a-fundamental-malaise/

Bailey was one of those I wrote to. He replied in March 1991 with this:

Dear Mr Henderson,

Thank you for your letter and interesting comments on the effect of having so many overseas mercenaries representing England, and playing in county teams.

You certainly have a point and I may well do an article about if the Essex middle order is Malik, Hussain and Shahid. It would have such a county ring about it!

Yours sincerely,

Trevor Bailey.

Most of the journalists replied. All were in at least partial agreement with me and many were wholeheartedly with me. There is a selection of their letters in the appendix below.

The support was still there three years later. Here is the then editor of the Cricketer magazine, Richard Hutton, writing to me on August 17, 1994:

Dear Mr Henderson,

Thank you for your letter of August 14 and the accompanying article about overseas players in the English game, which I read with interest.

I feel what you have submitted is too lengthy for use at it stands and also contains too much restatement of existing laws and regulations. However, I will promise you immediate publication – in October’s issue – if you rework the piece without any loss of argument or point into a 200-300 word letter. Otherwise, if it is to be considered as a feature article we will still require a substantial reduction, because we would not be able to allot more than one page to it in view of the demands on our space. Even then I cannot say when the space will materialise and by the time it does topicality may be lost.

You will probably gather that I very much favour the former option, and I await a revised submission.

Sincerely,

RICHARD HUTTON Editorial Director

And here is the editor of the Wisden Cricket Monthly, David Frith, writing to me on 30/3/94:

“Let me just assure you that I was one of the earliest to feel a sense of unease at the number of foreign players piling into the England XI. It’s hard to separate oneself from the personal side of it all I know all of them – even the reclusive Caddick – and like them almost without exception. But the principle seems wrong, and I think that there has been some sort of dislocation in the national psyche. How can a true Englishman ever see this as his representative side despite all the chat about the commitment of the immigrant?”

The following year Wisden Cricket Monthly (WCM) published an article by me in the July issue entitled Is it in the blood? (The title was chosen by the editor – I submitted the article under the title ‘Racism and national identity’).

The article again questioned the appropriateness of foreigners playing for England. In this I also questioned whether ethnic minority players raised wholly or substantially in England would be moved by feelings of English patriotism when playing for England both because of the way in which ethnic minorities tend to live lives segregated lives and the victimhood industry which eggs ethnic minorities to view themselves as being persecuted and used by ol’whitey. Sometimes the evidence comes from the mouths of top sportsmen who have played for England. Here is the footballer John Barnes making his anti-English feelings very clear in his autobiography:

I am fortunate my England career is now complete so I don’t have to sound patriotic any more.(P69 – John Barnes: the autobiography)

I feel more Jamaican than English because I’m black. A lot of black people born in England feel more Jamaican than English because they are not accepted in the land of their birth on account of their colour, (P 71)

Was I more patriotic for England than I would have been for Scotland? No. To keep everyone happy throughout my international career, I always said that my only choice was England because England is where I settled, but that wasn’t true. (p72)

When I played for England, I could never declare that nationalism is loathsome and illogical. I couldn’t say that if I played for France, I would try just as hard, which I would. I tried hard for England out of professional pride not patriotism – because I never felt any. (P72)

Is it in the blood? produced the most tremendous furore which ended with David Frith telling a direct lie by denying that he shared my views, viz:

“I tried all along to make it clear that I did not support the majority of the sentiments expressed by Mr Henderson (and a paragraph on page 1 of each issue of the magazine supports this). But I also believed that it was an editor’s responsibility to tackle difficult issues, to bring them into the open so that solutions might be found. My particular hope in respect of this article was that the plight of foreign-born cricketers in this country and those with immigrant parents — whether from West Indies, Australasia, southern Africa or Asia — might be better understood when their difficulties were considered. Publication of this particular article was, I now realise, not the best way to have gone about it. The national-identity element was drowned out.” WCM August 1995

What parts exactly of my article did not agree with Mr Frith? As for the national identity side of the debate being overwhelmed by race, how could it be that the man who declares himself wanting to investigate the question of national identity changed my title from the national identity focused “Racism and national identity” to the racially suggestive “Is it in the blood?”? It is also worth noting that in the edition of WCM in which the article was published Frith put this on the contents page: “Is it in the blood? Robert Henderson studies the foreign-born England players. No mention of concern for “those with immigrant parents”.

As the row evolved and Devon Malcolm, Philip DeFreitas and Chris Lewis issued libel writs against WCM, despite the Professional Cricketers Association taking counsel’s advice on their behalf and his opinion being that no libel existed. (Extraordinarily no writs were issued against me as the author, most probably because I made it clear from the outset that I would take any libel claim to the floor of a court). After the issue of the writs Frith distanced himself ever further from the article until this statement was read in court following an out of court settlement with Malcolm (none of the cases was never brought to trial)

‘Mr Rupert Elliott, counsel for Wisden Cricket Magazines Ltd and for the magazine’s editor [David Frith], said they disassociated themselves entirely from the allegations made by an independent contributor’ Guardian report 17/10/95 . Bearing in mind Frith’s true feelings, that strikes me as a deliberate attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Frith humiliated himself in this fashion because the management of WCM put the wind up him. Here he is writing to me on July 14 1995

Dear Mr Henderson,

In reply to your letter of the 7th, I have to say that in view of the furore (an understatement) which has followed publication of your article in our July edition, I have been told by the management of Wisden that I should not accept anything further from you. I hardly needed telling, for the past fortnight has been probably the most difficult of my life.

I hope you are successful in persuading the Daily Telegraph to run your latest offering.

Yours sincerely,

DAVID FRITH Editor

So much for editorial independence and the first rule of being an editor: stand by your contributors and what you have published.

Frith added insult to injury by publishing 4 pages of criticism of me in the issue of WCM which followed then publication of Is it in the blood? whilst refusing me any opportunity to reply.

Firth found that his Maoist confession of guilt was not enough to save him and was forced out of WCM within the year.

What did those in the media who had privately agreed with my ideas from 1991 onwards do? They all refused to support me or even help me to get a hearing in any mainstream media outlet. One, Matthew Engel, then editor of Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack, was ion such a panic that he even went as far as to publish in the Guardian that he had never heard of me, despite having written to me a couple of months before the publication of Is it in the blood? congratulating me on continuing to push the question of foreigners playing for England.

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Appendix

1. Tony Lewis 6 2 1991

Dear Mr Henderson,

Thank you so much for writing. I really enjoyed your letter which contained so many good points.