‘So yeah, I wrote this piece …’ Jonathan Liew meets Jonathan Agnew
Late one Sunday evening in April 2019, I was on a train from Manchester to London when I received a series of Twitter messages from the BBC cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew. As would soon become clear, this was no friendly social call. Agnew was incensed with an article I had written on the media reaction to the selection of Jofra Archer for England. His response, robust and laced with personal insults, would be widely reported in the press and almost cost Agnew his job.
Last month I sent Agnew a text and asked if he wanted to talk things over. We met at his local in Lincolnshire to discuss everything: cricket, broadcasting, race and diversity, that article, those messages. But before all that, we discussed a young Guyanese cricketer who Agnew briefly met as a teenager in the Surrey second XI.
Jonathan Liew Tell me about Lonsdale Skinner.
JonathanAgnew So I was 17. The previous summer – this was 1976 – I’d been playing for Surrey under-19s. The next year, Surrey had signed Fred Titmus as a coach. Middlesex cricketer, extraordinary player. And our first match is at Guildford against Hampshire. I remember that we came off at an interval, and Titmus was just berating Lonsdale, who seemed like a nice bloke to me. And this tirade from Titmus … I’d never heard anything like it before. I’d never heard racist language before. And some fast bowler’s anger started rising in me. So I just stood up and told Titmus what I thought of him. And there was a silence. The consequences hadn’t really dawned on me. But clearly it was a career-ender.
JL So that could have been it for you?
JA Could have been.
JL Were things different when you went to Leicestershire?
JA It was a totally different atmosphere. Ray Illingworth was captain, [David] Gower was in the side, we had all sorts of gentle characters. There was much more fresh air about the place. And the big break for me was Andy Roberts coming, which was the making of me. I bowled the other end to Andy, I roomed with him, I was his navigator in the car – he drove like an absolute maniac. I remember him in 1984 saying I would play for England. And that was the year I played.
JL You wrote a book while you were still playing for Leicestershire, right? Did you always enjoy using words?
JA In those days, there were no 12month contracts. You got your P60 in September, and you were left to fend for yourself. There was no security at all. So one day John Rawling, the sports guy at Radio Leicester, asked me to come and have a go. And that’s where I started. Radio Leicester, the book, and then Today newspaper. But I’ve always been intrigued, and you can answer this. Why are broadcasters a story? Why am I considered a story? Because what I thought about our altercation was that you were sensitive that I’d had a go back at you. But actually, what I was giving you was a bit of what you gave me.
JL I think there’s two answers to that. The first is that the BBC is a worldfamous brand. And people like reading about broadcasters. Television and radio still has this kind of glamour.
JA It’s odd, isn’t it? I’ve always felt we’re just the same people doing the same job.
JL But the other reason is that – whether it’s Sky or Test Match Special – it’s such an important gateway into the game. It’s a lot of people’s only experience of cricket. So what’s said on TMS, who its presenters are, its editorial priorities – that matters.
JA I do understand that. What did happen around then is: if I say IR35 to you, does that mean anything? Probably not. But essentially, we’re all employed as freelancers. I’ve never been BBC staff. But HMRC set off this investigation into whether we were de facto staff, and should be paying PAYE. So at the same time that this all kicked off, I was getting estimated tax bills from HMRC of £100,000. What was settled in the end was nothing like that. But I thought I was losing everything. That’s not an excuse. I’m totally and utterly appalled by sending you that message. It’s not a word that I use, even in my wildest moments. And I deeply regret it. I don’t think people thought I was capable of language like that, and were surprised and offended by it. But there was a lot of shit going on at the same time. We’d been through a lot. And my comment about Jofra Archer was meant purely in terms of disrupting a team that had gone from bottom to top with a World Cup around the corner.
JL So yeah, I wrote this piece. It was actually my friend Jack who noticed the way that a lot of people were talking about Jofra was … just a bit off. And I did genuinely think there was a difference between the way people talked about Jofra and say, Boyd Rankin or Gary Ballance. But as a columnist, you can’t just say you’ve got an impression. You have to back it up with evidence. And people do take these things personally. There was a phrase I used …
JA “There’s an incendiary word that you could use, but I’m not going to use it.”
JL Which, reading it back, looks like a dog whistle. And yet I think it would have been wrong not to at least acknowledge the fact that Jofra is a black guy going into a pretty white sport. But the reason I didn’t use that word was that it’s really not as simple as saying something is racist or not. That is how some people interpreted it. And given the fact that I’d written about you in the past, the natural reaction would be to feel that you’re being gunned down.
JA But essentially, to associate a white middle-aged person with racism is a massive hit. And that’s what really upset me, because I know I’m not. Actually, we went on holiday shortly afterwards. And that’s when you put the messages out. And it all blew up then. I thought I was going to get sacked. I thought the whole thing was unravelling.
JL I suppose what I was trying to get across is if you’re a black kid at school, the word “disruptive” is a word you end up hearing quite a lot. Or “unsettling”. And whether you call it racism or not, these are just subtle little ways of treating people slightly differently. These days, obviously it’s not OK to say the N-word or the P-word any more. But it’s the little things, disprovable things, that are most pernicious. Because people don’t always notice. And it’s almost always unconscious.
JA The unconscious bias is interesting, isn’t it? But can you be biased as well? Does unconscious bias only work one way? Can a non-white person feel that way about a white person?
JL I’m sure they can. But I guess it comes down to power imbalances. If you’re a black man walking down the street, or applying for a job, that unconscious bias has the potential to really hurt your life, in a way that is less prevalent for white people.
JA I guess I just sort of lashed out. As soon as I sent it, I regretted it. It didn’t make me feel any better. Ever since then, I’ve been so ultra-cautious. You’ve been on my mind for a long time. This whole business has.
JL I fear it took the enjoyment out of broadcasting for you for a while.
JA I was on tranquillisers. Just to work. That summer, I was on antidepressants. And funnily enough, produced some of my best work on them. I was a happy person again. The World Cup final, then Headingley: and it’s proof to anyone who’s ever worried about taking those things, you can still produce your best stuff. But it was in my head. If I saw a tall, dark-haired bloke with glasses coming towards me, I would think: ‘Christ, it’s Liew.’
JL Jesus. That’s not what you want. JA One of the best things for me was coming off social media. I met some nice people on there, but the other side of it felt so much better to shake off. Because it’s a spiral. You do get sucked into it.
JL Oh, yeah. Pretty quickly I wanted the whole thing to be over. It’s a lesson in how things can just spiral very quickly.
JA I’ve always worked hard to try and keep some sort of reputation. And we’ve all made mistakes along the way. I really don’t mind what people think of me. But I don’t want anyone to think that I’m a racist. That was what burnt me. You go back to that 17-year-old burning his career down at Guildford. What have you taken from all this?
JL I like to think I’m slightly more mature. But the issues, I still get angry about. I do genuinely care about inequality. About discrimination. About economic opportunity.
JA Does that sit easily with sport?
JL I think it does. Not only is sport a window into society, but it’s also a kind of magnifier. Because of the emotions it generates. So when something like the Azeem Rafiq scandal comes along, it’s one guy’s story, but it’s also a window into … how many Azeem Rafiqs were there?
JA It’s just very split, isn’t it? These emotional stories do split people.
JL TMS has changed a huge amount since you first started. How do you pitch it as a broadcaster? Because you’re obviously trying to diversify. But there’s also a traditional audience. And Isa [Guha] and Ebony [Rainford-Brent] came along – even when Ali Mitchell came along – there was a huge amount of criticism.
JA You have to drag them along. People don’t like change. But it makes it more interesting when you’re sitting next to people with different stories to tell.
JL Are you happy now?
JA It was clearly a pretty painful time for both of us. But we both emerged. I’m now totally all right. And this will help.*