‘Action is needed – impact of taking a knee has dwindled’
Stein is relishing the meeting of former clubs Luton and Chelsea but wants a new fight against discrimination
‘My dad always said, if you think something is wrong then you do what you think is right’
It is a regret of Mark Stein that his father hardly spoke about his extraordinary life fighting against apartheid in South Africa. Yet Isaiah’s commitment to trying to force change left an indelible mark on his children.
It is that instinct to seek action – embodied so boldly by Isaiah – that means Stein will feel conflicted when he watches the players of two of his former clubs, Chelsea and Luton Town, take the knee ahead of their FA Cup fourth-round tie at Stamford Bridge tomorrow.
“Originally, I thought it was a good thing,” Stein says. “Do I think it is a good thing now? I’m not so sure. Initially, I think it had an impact, but, as it goes along, I think that impact dwindles. Maybe something else needs to be done now. Action needs to be taken. Taking a knee, OK, but what comes out of it? Is this a platform that will prompt action?”
Isaiah was all about action. A chief organiser of the Coloured People’s Congress in South Africa, an organisation allied to the African National Congress, he was the first figure in the struggle against apartheid to be placed under house arrest and was frequently tortured by police for facilitating meetings, protests and marches across the Western Cape, as well as safe passage for banned persons and liaising with leaders such as Nelson Mandela.
Once, Isaiah and his wife Lillian, Mark’s mother, were dragged naked from their home in the middle of the night and severely tortured before Isaiah ensured his wife’s release by undertaking a hunger strike that lasted for more than two weeks.
With Mandela imprisoned and his future looking ominous, Isaiah brought his wife and eight of his children to England in 1968, when Mark was aged two, and set up home in Paddington and then in Willesden, north-west London.
“My dad was a very proud man and never really spoke about his life in South Africa,” says Stein, whose family name Isaiah took from a Jewish couple who adopted him in Cape Town after both of his parents had died during his teens. “I wish he did, so we could piece it all together.
“Later in life, my mum would tell us bits and my older brothers knew a bit more. I look back and I think to myself, ‘What he did, could I do it?’ The answer would be no. I look at it and think, ‘What a man.’”
Isaiah’s activism did not end after moving to England. He joined the South African Nonracial Olympic Committee and took part in demonstrations against South
Africa touring teams in England. One of Mark’s older brothers, Edwin, recalls being taken to Twickenham ahead of rugby internationals to help dig up the pitch.
“I’ve never been to Twickenham!” says 54-yearold Stein, laughing. “Edwin and some of my other brothers are a lot older than me, so I’d have been left at home, I expect. I wasn’t taken to any of the protests or anything. My dad would always have meetings in the family house and we knew it was all about tackling apartheid, but we didn’t really understand, being young, the importance of it. It was only when you got older you realised what it all entailed.”
The Stein family plan to return to South Africa to embark on a project to piece together the life of Isaiah, who died aged 79 in 2011, and the legacy of his fight for equality is visible in the football careers of Mark, Brian and Edwin.
All three brothers started their careers at Luton, where Brian and Mark were part of the famous 1988 team who beat Arsenal in the final of the League Cup at Wembley. Brian became a club legend and was also the first African-born black player to win a senior England cap in 1984. “Luton is a small town and we were playing Arsenal with everyone expecting us to get beat, and I think it was one of the best finals ever,” Mark says. “The fact myself and my brother Brian played made it all that much more special. Playing for England, players like Brian, Ricky Hill and Cyrille Regis helped blaze a trail for black footballers.” Edwin went on to make more than 500 appearances for Barnet and was one of just two black managers in the country, alongside Keith Alexander, when he retired from playing and was appointed by the Bees in 1992. Mark is still referred to as the “Golden One” for his incredible two-year spell at Stoke City, where he scored 68 goals in 123 games and attracted the attention of Chelsea, who paid £1.5million for him in 1993.
During his first season, Stein set a Premier League record that lasted until 2002 by scoring in seven successive games and played in the FA Cup final, which Chelsea lost to Manchester United.
Despite boasting a highly respectable record of 25 goals in 63 games, Stein was part of a group of players sidelined by Chelsea’s move towards