What a privilege to see Manchester in sunshine! A really beautiful day - great washes of sun across a bright blue sky as we headed up to the Oldham Athletic stadium at Boundary Park early this morning.
We were met by dozens of kids from a local primary school who are taking part in a special Football in the Community project and took a stadium tour with them.
Oldham's problems with racial tensions have been well covered and don't need re-hashing here, but these were a group of children from all different ethnic backgrounds, and the guy running the project, James Mwale, explained that football was a brilliant way to get different messages across.
If kids play together in teams they tend to stop noticing each others' skin colour, and once they get to know young people from other backgrounds they realise what they have in common. It challenges their ideas (or more importantly their parents' ideas). Their school is in an area where substantial numbers of votes go to the BNP in local elections which is why this work is so important. A couple of the kids said they had experienced racist bullying, but said the project was helping them to integrate with the other kids.
Anyway, the kids loved the stadium tour, and even the Man City and United supporters enjoyed meeting Oldham Athletic Centreback Neil Trottman - an FA cup goalscorer no less...!
It was fascinating to see what a football club looks like behind the scenes, the kitchens and TV rooms and a faint whiff of Eighties' aftershave lingering in the air.
After Oldham I wanted to go to Bernard Manning's Embassy Club with the loudhailer, but we were short of time and had to get right across Manchester to Salford by 11.45 to meet champion boxer and Olympic silver medallist Amir Khan at the gym he trains at. It was a much bigger gym than yesterday's and the air was thick with fresh sweat, deep heat and adrenaline. There's something good about boxing gyms though, and I think it's the contrast to posey sort of London healthclubs, which are all lycra bodysuits, blonde wood and hairdryers. These were men and women in ordinary unfancy kit sweating their guts out on battered equipment.
Amir's workout was phenomenal: the skipping alone deserved an Olympic medal. His concentration was absolute and his feet seemed to bounce in perfect time like a metronome. He has an amazing manner about him, a very direct honesty. He leapt up into the driver's cab of the bus and signed our Hope not Hate flag and spoke brilliantly to our film crew about why racism made no sense. Even racists must have cheered when he won that silver medal. He's a one-man pint-sized retort to bigotry.
After Amir, we screeched off (well crawled) to Granada Studios, home of Coronation Street, where the bus was honoured to receive such luminaries as Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh), Kelly Crabtree (Tupele Dorgu) and Jerrry Morton (Michael Starke, or, frankly, Sinbad), household favourites one and all.
Each person spoke movingly and articulately about racism, about standing up for what you believe is right. As Tony the driver said: "Who needs a script if you can talk like that?"
Brilliant end to a top day out - thank you Manchester!
Hero of the day: Amir Khan. Beautiful boy, beautiful soul, astonishing ambassador for Britain.
Observation of the day: Among anti-racists it seems the rule is that every third man must have a beard.
Beard of the day: We're not sure if it was a beard or a cat.
Revelation of the day: The Corrie stars.... soapstars should get on their soapbox more often instead of those endless bloody clipshows of the world's 7,000 worst cop shows....
Smell of the day: Deep heat at Amir Khan's gym in Salford. It was as if the walls were drenched in it.
Tune of the day: Theme from Corrie... altogether now... "duuuh, duh, duh, duh-duh, duuuuur..."
Mirror
March 30, 2007
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