Daily Mail

I was called monkey on the pitch

MICHAIL ANTONIO ON RACIST ABUSE... AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO STOP IT

- by SAMI MOKBEL

THE anguish is written all over Michail Antonio’s face as he recalls a moment he simply cannot forget. ‘I was 13 and one of the boys on the other team called me a monkey,’ explains the West Ham forward. ‘ When I was younger, that sort of thing got me angry. I was the one who got a red card that day.’

Fifteen years later, the pain of being racially abused remains.

Of course, his life and career have been on an upward curve since then. He’ll make his 100th Premier League appearance tomorrow night when West Ham host Fulham. It’s been quite a journey for the 28-year-old, who was a part-time lifeguard playing non-League football with Tooting and Mitcham a decade ago.

But there are some instances that time simply can’t erase. Antonio has suffered racial abuse during his relatively short period as profession­al, too. But he’s learned to control his emotions.

‘I feel like black players have come a long way,’ he said. ‘Every team in the league has a black player.

‘It’s just a few people out there being ignorant. I feel it’s more ignorance than anything else. They want to throw an insult out to try to hurt us. But we’ve come a long way, we’ve got a tougher skin and it’s not going to affect us.

‘People say things to annoy us. But that doesn’t annoy us, we’re past that. It doesn’t affect me in any way, shape or form.

‘When I was younger it affected me, it hit a nerve. But now I’m older, I’ve got my own kids (to set an example to).’

Perhaps the birth of Antonio’s children, Michail Jnr, Miles and Myla, has helped Antonio mellow.

Equally, he acknowledg­es the conditions for black players have improved since the incident that scarred him in 2002.

Anti- discrimina­tion organisati­ons like Kick It Out have done excellent work in combating racism. Yet high- profile incidents involving Raheem Sterling and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at Premier League games this season have shown that the fight is nowhere near over.

‘I loved the way Raheem dealt with it,’ Antonio said at a Kick It Out workshop held at the offices of player management agency Unique Sports Management.

‘The tweets and Instagram posts he put out there, it just opened people’s eyes, because no one naturally would notice it.

‘People always say as a Premier League player that you need to be at the forefront to drive this type of thing. But it’s the person themselves — they’re the only person that can make the changes to themselves.

‘ Unless that person believes in growing, then things just aren’t going to change.

‘ But zero- tolerance would be massive,’ Antonio added. ‘I feel players should be allowed to leave the field. As a team, walk off the field.

‘Then the next game should be behind closed doors. As soon as it gets shut down everywhere, then it will stop. As soon as you let it slide once, it’s going to keep sliding.’

Antonio, who has been in England squads without winning a cap, is a Premier League footballer who refuses to forget where he’s come from. He still goes back home to his mum Cislyn’s house in Wandsworth, south-west London, every Sunday for a roast. ‘My sisters, my nieces and nephews will be there on a Sunday, too,’ Antonio says with a broad smile. ‘So my mum will never let me change. She will always get me back to where I need to be.’ And that is a place where he is not thinking about Champions League winner’s medals, but just grateful not to be working at the local swimming pools of south London and watching the pennies. ‘ Being a lifeguard, not having much money — that is the thing that pushes me the most,’ Antonio said. ‘I don’t want to be in that situation again. ‘ I always want to make enough for my kids. So if they want to go to university, I can pay for them to go. ‘Maybe buy their first car, buy their first house for them so they can go out and work and not know the struggle I went through. ‘That is my mission. If I can do that by the time I have retired, then I have accomplish­ed everything I wanted to.’

 ?? STELLA PICS ?? Thick skin: Antonio’s past is spurring him on
STELLA PICS Thick skin: Antonio’s past is spurring him on

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