Paul Davis enjoyed a glorious career with Arsenal, winning trophies and being part of one of the club’s most talented generations.
The former Gunners midfielder starred alongside the likes of David Rocastle, Michael Thomas, Kevin Campbell and latterly Ian Wright.
But when he started out at Arsenal as a schoolboy, he was the only black player at the club. And English football and society was a very different place in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In his book, Paul Davis: Arsenal And After, he details the shocking story of how an appearance for the reserves ended up with him being arrested, thrown in the cells and going to court.
Once I started training at Arsenal, it took me away from home in Stockwell, away from familiar faces and the places I knew. I was the only black player at the club.
As a youth teamer, I made some good friends, but there’d be moments when I kind of disconnected from the lads around me: tastes in food or music, or humour I didn’t share. Jokes which had a racial edge and almost everybody else laughed at, but I didn’t find too funny.
A little later, Chris Whyte and Raphael Meade joined me at Arsenal and, naturally I suppose, I found myself gravitating towards those guys and our common culture as young, black Londoners.
Thing is: you can stay away from trouble all you like, but what do you do when trouble comes and finds you? I was a first-year apprentice at Arsenal, around ’78 or ’79, when I was still only 17. We’d had a reserve team game on the Saturday afternoon, and I’d gone to a party with Chris Whyte. Chrissy and I were walking back. Minding our own business.
All of a sudden, we were in a scene from an episode of TV show The Sweeney: tyres squealing and blue lights flashing. Three, four police cars, maybe. Police piling out of them, running towards us.
One of them, shouting: “Stop there, you f*****g black b*****ds!” We’re up against a wall: this was how stop and search worked. And they’re saying: “We saw you trying to break into that car.” Which, obviously, we hadn’t been.
But they weren’t letting it go, and we were locked up in the cells overnight. They didn’t charge Chris. But they went ahead and charged me. I ended up being summonsed to appear at Highbury Magistrates Court.
That was the scariest thing: actually, being there in the courtroom. Even at the time, I knew what was at stake. This could have been my career over before it had even begun. If I was found guilty, I would be finished at Arsenal.
I told the club the police were mistaken, told them how we’d been treated that night. And they believed me, trusted me. That meant I had a good solicitor speaking for me in front of the magistrates. He stood up and started to unpick the police’s story.
In no time, the judge threw the case out of court. Four months worrying. And then the whole business was finished in a minute or two. No case to answer.
Arsenal made sure I had a solicitor, support, and good advice. But then I really started thinking. What if I’d not been a footballer playing for Arsenal? What if I’d just been any other black teenager on my way home from a party that night? What would have happened then?
My relationship with my sons Du’aine and Jordan has always been driven by my love for them and has been grounded in my own experience. My environment growing up was very different to theirs, and they’re both aware of that.
I feel I can make a difference to the game: working in coach education, in coach development and, all the while, pushing for more diversity, encouraging black players, in particular, to take their qualifications.
Real ability gets lost to the game because so many people who should be getting a chance never do. We need to take on other points of view and push for change together: we’re all affected by the environment we’ve created.
The alternative is to be like the person who’s ill but puts off going to the doctor until it’s too late: that’s how football’s been for too many years.
Southgate the quiet leader
Gareth Southgate is a great example of that new approach to coaching, leadership and management. When I was still playing, in the ’80s and ’90s, would Gareth have been able to get work as a coach or a manager?
When he was appointed as the national head coach in 2016, there were still plenty of people who weren’t sure. He’s too softly spoken. He’s not tough enough. He hasn’t got the authority to coach international players. But Gareth’s intelligence and his commitment both to footballing principles and to human values have proved the doubters wrong.
Gazza, Kettering and the wanted man
I’ve met a lot of decent people in football. But I’ve also met some I wasn’t so sure about. A friend of mine recently showed me an article they’d come across on the internet. The story was about a guy named Imraan Ladak. He’d been sentenced to six months in prison in Birmingham for contempt of court, but had gone missing.
He was a wealthy guy and a big Tottenham fan. In October 2005, he appointed Paul Gascoigne as manager at Kettering Town. I’d met Gazza on a coaching course and he brought me in as his assistant.
What really cost Paul at Kettering, though, was his relationship with the owner. Imraan was new to football. He wanted to know everything. “Who’s in the team?”. All that really got to Paul.
He couldn’t handle it and stopped answering his calls. Mr Ladak sacked Paul and then asked me if I’d be willing to take over as caretaker manager. I said no. And that was that: an extraordinary experience; an extraordinary couple of months.
Title winning night at Anfield
The title-winning night at Anfield in 1989 is a night I am sure will never be repeated.
It was difficult for the injured guys who weren’t involved: me, Niall Quinn, Brian Marwood. Our tickets weren’t in the directors’ box. They were in the Anfield Road end in with the fans. The three of us were all in our navy blue club blazers.
It was 1-0, the clock was ticking down and we thought it would be worth climbing over the railings and onto the running track before the end of the game.
The stewards weren’t having it. But the Arsenal supporters around us realised what was going on and eventually we got our way.
I’ll always be grateful to those fans. If it hadn’t been for them, we’d have been outside in Anfield Road and would have missed Michael Thomas’s goal. Can you imagine? I’d have taken away a completely different memory of that famous night.
- Paul Davis: Arsenal and After is on sale August 18, RRP £20. Pre-order for 25% off from reachsportshop.com
