‘I feared movement would be tokenistic’
England’s Layla Guscoth, Eboni Usoro-brown and Sasha Corbin discuss why change is needed in netball and society
‘You have anxieties about what kind of world, as a black person, you are bringing your child into’
Such is the unifying force to have erupted from the Black Lives Matter movement that England netballer Layla Guscoth has no qualms about staying up late to join a Zoom call with her England team-mates Eboni Usoro-brown and Sasha Corbin from the other side of the world.
Having returned to her club netball city of Adelaide last week, Guscoth says she is not yet over her jet lag. There is, sadly, a more sombre reason for a rare interview with three English, black netballers.
Before returning to Australia, the 28-year-old doctor attended a Black Lives Matter protest in her home city of Birmingham, having spent lockdown working on Covid-19 wards fighting the pandemic at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. She was later subjected to racist abuse after speaking in a television interview about why she joined the protests.
“I spoke to my dad, and he said he would have been surprised if I hadn’t [received any abuse],” Guscoth says. “That’s the reality. While this message is reaching a number of people, there will always be some who are racist and don’t see what we’re trying to convey.”
For Corbin, the movement has presented an opportunity for reflection. Last year, she secured the backing of Nike to support her Solo Sessions Inspire Programme, which provides netball opportunities for girls aged 11-14 from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds across London.
“I feel more of a responsibility to continue to reach out and give these girls opportunities,” says Corbin, who grew up in Tottenham with her sister and England international, Kadeen. “The movement has made me want to connect with even more young people.”
Black women, however, have not been lacking at the top of the sport, especially in positions of leadership on a scale incomparable to football, hockey, rugby and cricket. They include Sonia Mkoloma, Pamela Cookey and, more recently, Ama Agbeze, who led the Roses to their Commonwealth title in 2018, which sent participation levels soaring.
“The success England has experienced is because we have such a blended squad,” says Usoro-brown. “Many of us were lucky. We had parents able to take us to training. Paying fees to join clubs wasn’t necessarily a challenge for us.
“But for those who are coming from disadvantaged backgrounds within the black community and wider ethnic communities, having that level of commitment at grass-roots level can be a barrier.”
Central to overcoming that obstacle is greater ethnic representation at board level, and England Netball is no exception from most sports governance.
Greater diversity, Usoro-brown insists, means providing “valuable experiences as to how we can establish more programmes, integration and participation for those from BAME communities and trickle it all the way down”.
Corbin talks up a visit by former British 400 metres runner Christine Ohuruogu to one of her netball masterclasses, pre-pandemic, and the importance of the athlete’s visibility for BAME pupils. “They all just lit up,” she says, “because Christine talked to those young girls about where they can go.”
Guscoth, meanwhile, remembers being inspired by a host of black netballers, including Geva Mentor and Usoro-brown herself.
To that end, the trio all voice one similar frustration: being mistaken for other black team-mates by the media. “We could all have stories about that,” sighs Guscoth, who is wary about the message an abundance of elite black players inadvertently portrays. “We don’t want to be included just because we’re black,” Usoro-brown chips in. “We should still be good enough to put on the red dress and represent England – you need to earn that right.”
Usoro-brown wolfs down a yogurt, unapologetically reminding us she is eating for two. The Commonwealth gold medallist is due to give birth in August, when she will find out her baby’s sex, although Dr Guscoth, having been shown the scans, teases the mumto-be that the gender is obvious.
Once the laughter dies down, Usoro-brown explains how she feels about bringing a black child into the world given the current racial, social and political climate.
“You have those sorts of anxieties about what kind of world, as a black person, you’re bringing your child into,” she says. “Those conversations we’ve been having, I may still need to have them with my child if we don’t see change over this next period.”
Beyond sport, this is where Guscoth’s preoccupation lies. “I was worried this movement would be quite tokenistic,” she says. “I was cynical that people would jump on the black squares and brown fists, but wouldn’t be prepared to have all the conversations about how we can enforce change.
“If individuals can enforce that change in their friendship groups or workplaces, that’s progress for me.”