Good question - its a job where you constantly get publicly criticised by some of your customers (most of whom could never do your job) no matter how well you do. The chances of lasting success is minimal and almost everyone ends up getting sacked.
Good question - its a job where you constantly get publicly criticised by some of your customers (most of whom could never do your job) no matter how well you do. The chances of lasting success is minimal and almost everyone ends up getting sacked.
Cabin Crew….
More on this sorry saga later from your resident, Southgate, Dutch Red.
From experience I know how evil the press in this country can be/is
More on this sorry saga later from your resident, Southgate, Dutch Red.
From experience I know how evil the press in this country can be/is
Pure evil - it has been a very steep learning curve in that area, for some recent arriviste.
Likely reflecting the inevitable influence of lawyers... ...there is definite improvement in the more measured & "vanilla" tone of their last statement.
Great article Steve thanks for sharing. Annoying it’s behind a paywall!
Special report: John Yems, Crawley Town and the racism allegations that saw him lose his job
Daniel Taylor, Dan Sheldon and more
May 8, 2022
In this day and age – or, let’s face it, any day and age – it is not a question that a football journalist would ordinarily have to ask when a manager turns up for his post-match news conference.
“Is it true that Crawley Town have, at any stage, had segregated dressing rooms for white and black players?”
Lewis Young, Crawley’s interim manager, shifted uncomfortably and his awkwardness was understandable as a black man who, until recently, was the assistant to John Yems, the man at the centre of this alleged scandal.
Young started off by pointing out he was restricted in what he could say while an investigation was ongoing. Yet here was a man, unmistakably, who was stung by the suggestion that he, or anyone at Crawley, would have allowed themselves to be part of such a set-up.
“I’ve tried to stay calm,” said Young. “But we, as individuals inside the dressing room, who are living it, know there are certain things we wouldn’t stand for. And if that (black and white dressing rooms) was to go on, something would have been said. We know what we would stand for, and what we wouldn’t.”
Young, the brother of former England international Ashley, was talking to The Athletic after Crawley had finished their season with a 3-3 draw at Oldham Athletic featuring protests and boycotts from the home supporters. Oldham, already relegated to the National League, are a broken club. This was their last match in the EFL and it was a strained, mutinous atmosphere.
Yems was fired this week (Photo: Mark Fletcher/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Yet Crawley have been embroiled in a crisis of their own that has been traumatic, to say the least, for a club that goes by the motto of “Town, Team, Together”.
Yems is under investigation for allegedly operating with racial divisions and, presumably, will be grateful that somebody inside the camp has been willing to speak out and knock down some of the claims against him.
That, however, tells only part of the story when Yems has also been accused of saying the N-word as well as referring to one player as a “Zulu warrior” and using other racial terms.
One youth-team player was allegedly called a “suicide bomber” and told not to wear a backpack on the train home in case the other passengers thought he intended to blow it up.
The allegations are disturbing in the extreme and, perhaps just as shocking, anti-racism campaigners have told The Athletic they are aware of players at other clubs who have been subjected to this kind of language from managers and coaches but not felt able to speak out because they were “frightened” about the consequences for their careers.
On Friday it was announced that Yems had lost his job with Crawley and it felt pointed and deliberate that the League Two club released the news with a statement declaring they wanted to “build a team and community to be proud of – on and off the pitch.”
The Football Association is gathering evidence with a view to launching a disciplinary case. Young, 32, says he has dealt with issues in the last few weeks that “some coaches wouldn’t have to deal with in five, ten or 20 years.” And, though it is a difficult, complex and sensitive issue, it is also increasingly clear there are people within the club, as well as many supporters, who think the truth is somewhat different to how it has been presented so far.
As the supporters queued for entry to the Mayo Wynne Baxter suite on Wednesday night, it was difficult not to get the impression that some did not fully understand the seriousness of the situation.
“I just want Yemsy back,” explained a middle-aged man near the front of the queue. “It’s all bollocks. Give the guy a chance. Why would he appoint a black assistant if he was racist? There is nothing to investigate.”
Another supporter joined in the conversation. “It’s disgusting what has happened to Yemsy, isn’t it?”
The scene was the Broadfield Stadium and it was the first opportunity for supporters to meet the American consortium that had just made Crawley the first club in England to be owned by a cryptocurrency group.
That morning, the Daily Mail had carried quotes from a Crawley player that made it absolutely clear Yems’ career was in threat.
“He called us terrorists, suicide bombers, curry munchers,” said the player. “He called one of the players a Zulu warrior. It’s been going on since 2020-21 — in the changing room, during training. No one challenged him on it as he’s the gaffer and we didn’t feel we could. Sometimes players say things in the heat of the moment but from the manager, it’s different. He’s the boss, so it’s an abuse of his power.”
It was the first time in Crawley’s 125-year history that they had appeared on the back page of a national newspaper and the timing was particularly awkward after the club had arranged a fans’ forum that evening with Eben Smith and Preston Johnson, the co-founders of WAGMI.
The club’s response was to bring in two doormen, of the type you would normally expect to see outside a nightclub, to explain to every new arrival that anybody who tried to film the event would be ejected. WAGMI abandoned its plans to live-stream the event across the internet and, for the two Americans at the top table, it was a tricky introduction.
“I guess I want to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room,” Smith began, apologising for announcing Yems’ suspension on April 23 via the WAGMI Twitter feed rather than the club’s website. “We are not going to comment on the ongoing investigation. We aren’t even qualified to do that. We have hired someone else to help us do that.”
Still, though, there were some challenging moments once they had finished their question-and-answer session in front of 150 people.
One supporter approached Smith to ask whether Crawley would reinstate Yems. Smith said he could not discuss it and was told very matter-of-factly that if Yems lost his job without any hard evidence of wrongdoing, the club would lose a lot of fans.
Perhaps this was just to be expected given Yems’ popularity in Crawley and the fact the team had lost all three games since he was suspended in a 1.30am call, UK time, by the people whose masterplan is to bankroll the club through the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Yems had been at the team hotel in Mansfield, preparing for a game the following afternoon, when he took that call. Crawley lost 2-0 while Yems was travelling back to Sussex on the train, alone. That was followed by a 3-0 defeat at Sutton United and a 2-0 loss at home to Leyton Orient, with chants from fans of “We want our Yems back”.
At that stage, the fans did not know the explicit details of what was being alleged. “As owners, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” Peter Frake, whose company Innovation Fire & Security is one of Crawley’s shirt sponsors, wrote on Twitter after the Sutton defeat. “Disjointed, no direction and the best manager in League Two sitting at home. NFT people listen to this, 450 away fans chanting for their manager.”
Smith, in particular, looked drained at the fans’ forum, having flown in from California. Johnson was wearing a multicoloured hoodie and tried to lighten the mood. “I was nervous,” he explained of his dress sense. “I threw up a few times.”
What neither man told the audience was that, behind the scenes, the club had already started planning for next season without Yems even before the club’s internal investigation was complete. The relevant people had heard enough to decide for themselves that the allegations about Yems were, in the words of the club’s statement, “serious and credible”. Even in their brief time together, what they had heard had alarmed them, to say the least.
Crawley’s investigation was led by Ahron Cohen, a sports executive who has been appointed as an adviser to WAGMI. Cohen is the former president and chief executive of the Arizona Coyotes in the NHL and, before that, worked for the Minnesota Vikings, the NFL franchise. He was also previously the chief legal officer for the Coyotes.
Cohen led Crawley’s investigation (Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
At the same time, the FA has opened its own investigation into what could feasibly be the most serious allegations of in-house racism since the inquiry into Graham Rix and Gwyn Williams and their behaviour towards Chelsea’s youth-team players during the 1980s and 1990s. Earlier this year, Chelsea paid damages to a number of former players who were suing the club at the High Court. Rix and Williams denied being racist.
“These are very serious allegations (at Crawley),” says Tony Burnett, chief executive of Kick It Out, football’s largest anti-racism organisation. “We will hold the football authorities to account, at all levels, for a proper and fair investigation to get to the bottom of it. From that, we will see what action needs to be taken.
“If these allegations are true, and even if they are not, it does call into question how much training and awareness is needed for managers and coaches. We will happily work with the LMA (League Managers’ Association) or any other organisations because clearly something has gone awry.”
Yems has been given legal advice that this is one occasion when he should not say anything. It is known, however, that he emphatically denies using the N-word and, on the face of it, it is difficult to comprehend how a multiracial group of players would ever have tolerated a working environment featuring white and black dressing rooms. Crawley have one of the more diverse squads in League Two and pride themselves on that fact. Their players take the knee before every match – a practice introduced under Yems – and Young was assisted in the dugout against Oldham by the Ghana international Kwesi Appiah, who was out of the team because of injury.
“I’m restricted to what I can say because of the investigation that’s ongoing,” said Young. “Obviously, though, there are things being said that we are going to say are definitely wide of the mark. We have to hold our tongue for the moment but we will get our time to speak. It’s been a tough few weeks to hear a lot of outside noise with people questioning our integrity. That’s hurt, that really has hurt. But the boys know what we would and wouldn’t stand for and hopefully the investigation will shine some light on some of the claims.”
The Athletic has also spoken to numerous people — players, executives and others with connections to the club — who have worked with Yems and been willing to share their experiences on condition of anonymity.
It is true that there are two changing rooms at Horsham, where Crawley train, because neither is big enough to accommodate everyone, but nobody contacted by The Athletic, recalls any segregation and many share Young’s annoyance that it has been portrayed this way, and that, secondly, it is now being discussed by some people, including parts of the media, as a fact rather than an allegation.
What tended to happen, according to one, was that the first team would get changed in one dressing room, whereas the players who were not in the starting XI might use the other one. At one point, a number of black players were out of the team and therefore, in his view, it might appear like a white/black split when in reality, it was never intended to be that way.
Another black ex-player — again speaking on the basis of confidentiality — says he, too, did not see it as out of the ordinary and never heard any instruction from Yems, or anybody else, that the players should pick a changing room depending on their skin colour.
Senior staff are emphatic. “There was absolutely no segregation whatsoever in the dressing room,” says one. “The only segregation would be down to youngsters and safeguarding policies, not because of race.”
Yet there is a specific allegation that this is how Crawley operated on Yems’ watch and, though it was not official policy, that it was reinforced by comments to white players such as: “Don’t change in the black boys’ room”.
Young insists the dressing rooms were not segregated (Photo: Pete Norton/Getty Images)
Yems, it is also alleged, called a young player of Cypriot descent a “Greek bobblehead” (though The Athletic understands that left-back Nick Tsaroulla, a player who has previously described Yems as a father figure, is not the source of any complaints).
At least one player has reportedly sought counselling because of the effect on his mental health and, more than anything, it feels damning that there are multiple allegations against Yems.
This is not one person’s word against another. It started with two players complaining to the PFA via the EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) department that has ex-pros Jason Lee and Terry Angus as the first point of call. Seven players are now reported to have complained.
Yems has enlisted the help of the LMA to argue his case that it is inconceivable that someone in his position, having appointed a black man as his assistant and signed so many non-white players, would have created this kind of division. Solicitors are involved and The Athletic has also been told there are people at the club who remain pro-Yems and are worried about the impact on him when he has talked openly in the past about struggling with mental health issues.
“I haven’t been allowed to speak to him,” said Young. “Before he went (on suspension), I wished him well because, regardless of what comes out, you have to worry about the person. No matter what is being said, I’ve always said that you still have to worry about the human being.”
What is beyond dispute is that Yems already had a reputation for being old-school and occasionally challenging the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not.
He has also developed a reputation on the journalistic circuit as being a difficult guy to interview after matches and someone who, in his worst moods, could stray dangerously close to unpleasantness.
At other times, he could go the other way and indulge in the kind of banter that is not exactly the norm when managers sit down in front of the television cameras.
Yems’ last pre-match news conference involved him announcing that one of his players, Isaac Hutchinson, had “played in more positions than he’d get if he was in a porn film”.
Yems previously declared that his favourite number was 69 and has been acclaimed in the Daily Star for being “hilarious” and “leaving the internet in stitches”.
It was, for the most part, pretty harmless stuff, but perhaps it also hinted at a man who increasingly thought he could say what he wanted.
Members of the Crawley Town Supporters’ Alliance had privately mentioned to the previous regime that maybe his interview technique was not doing him any favours. Yems was getting a reputation for being a loose cannon and it was gently suggested that, for his own sake, maybe he should undergo media training before he talked himself into trouble.
Yems was never interested in going down this route and, on the face of it, he was an unlikely fit for the WAGMI crew — an acronym for We’re All Gonna Make It (a popular expression among online cryptocurrency enthusiasts) — and all the NFT terminology that must feel like something from another planet for an old-fashioned bibs-and-cones man.
“When you talk about crypto, I thought that was the stuff that kills Superman,” Yems announced at the press conference to mark the takeover. “I ain’t got a clue. But how many people in football know what their owners do, or where they get their money from?”
At 62, Yems was the fourth-oldest manager in English football behind Roy Hodgson, Ralf Rangnick and Phil Brown.
“Old-school is a broad term,” says one former colleague at Crawley. “He was determined to win and not lose, and when they lost, he’d be an angry fella, but which manager isn’t?”
Yems recently served a three-match touchline ban for verbally abusing the referee during a 1-0 defeat against Hartlepool and following it up by branding him a “clown” in his post-match interviews.
But it is also alleged he had a habit of saying things that would make people around him stop in their tracks. On at least one occasion, it is said he has been challenged by his own players.
What is not clear is why the complaints surfaced so quickly after Crawley’s £5 million takeover. Why not previously with the former chief executive, Erdem Konyar, under the ownership of Turkish steel magnate Ziya Eren?
Konyar has declined to comment but is willing to help the relevant inquiries. He will tell the FA that, to the best of his knowledge, there was no segregation in the dressing rooms and that he is shocked because at no time did any player approach him with a complaint.
Others with knowledge of the situation say it is important to keep an open mind and, speaking generally, not to underestimate how difficult it is for any footballer, or footballers, to go against the man who picks the team every weekend.
Yems is under investigation by the FA (Photo: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
“I question how many players are suffering in silence when it comes to discrimination and bullying,” says Burnett of Kick It Out. “It is a huge problem: not just in professional ranks but also junior ranks. We come across it on a regular basis — players feeling like they have to put up with inappropriate behaviours.
“They are concerned about what might happen to their careers. They are frightened about not being picked or not getting their contracts renewed. It’s the fear of consequences. It’s that threat of, ‘This person has got so much influence over my career’.
“We need to make it easier for players, or any employees within football clubs, to whistleblow because we are hearing examples of really inappropriate behaviour going unreported pretty consistently. We have to make sure that the people who have the power — the managers and coaches — are educated and trained about appropriate behaviour because they are powerful people and they need to understand where the lines are.”
Will Yems work in football again? His supporters say he should not be driven out of the game when there is meant to be a premise in life of innocence unless proven guilty. Yems, they say, has been a coach for more than 30 years without any allegations of this nature coming out in the past.
His first managerial position came with non-League Horsham in 1992 and he has also had spells of coaching and scouting for Millwall, Grays Athletic, Exeter City, Torquay United and Gillingham. As a player, Yems was restricted to reserve-team level for Reading, Crystal Palace and Millwall. He started coaching with Fulham’s youth team and was part of Eddie Howe’s backroom staff when Bournemouth climbed to the Premier League.
Ultimately, though, he has potentially lost his whole career, as well as a £70,000-a-year job. The damage, reputation-wise, is already significant and, whatever the outcome of the FA investigation, there will not be a stampede of potential employers who are willing to risk the backlash of employing him.
Tomorrow, Crawley have their player of the year awards dinner. Yems was due to present the trophy. His seat will be empty and the reasons for his absence will be a stain on his reputation that is hard to wash out.
(Other contributors: Adam Crafton and Phil Buckingham; Top photo: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
Great article Steve thanks for sharing. Annoying it’s behind a paywall!
Special report: John Yems, Crawley Town and the racism allegations that saw him lose his job
Daniel Taylor, Dan Sheldon and more
May 8, 2022
In this day and age – or, let’s face it, any day and age – it is not a question that a football journalist would ordinarily have to ask when a manager turns up for his post-match news conference.
“Is it true that Crawley Town have, at any stage, had segregated dressing rooms for white and black players?”
Lewis Young, Crawley’s interim manager, shifted uncomfortably and his awkwardness was understandable as a black man who, until recently, was the assistant to John Yems, the man at the centre of this alleged scandal.
Young started off by pointing out he was restricted in what he could say while an investigation was ongoing. Yet here was a man, unmistakably, who was stung by the suggestion that he, or anyone at Crawley, would have allowed themselves to be part of such a set-up.
“I’ve tried to stay calm,” said Young. “But we, as individuals inside the dressing room, who are living it, know there are certain things we wouldn’t stand for. And if that (black and white dressing rooms) was to go on, something would have been said. We know what we would stand for, and what we wouldn’t.”
Young, the brother of former England international Ashley, was talking to The Athletic after Crawley had finished their season with a 3-3 draw at Oldham Athletic featuring protests and boycotts from the home supporters. Oldham, already relegated to the National League, are a broken club. This was their last match in the EFL and it was a strained, mutinous atmosphere.
Yems was fired this week (Photo: Mark Fletcher/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Yet Crawley have been embroiled in a crisis of their own that has been traumatic, to say the least, for a club that goes by the motto of “Town, Team, Together”.
Yems is under investigation for allegedly operating with racial divisions and, presumably, will be grateful that somebody inside the camp has been willing to speak out and knock down some of the claims against him.
That, however, tells only part of the story when Yems has also been accused of saying the N-word as well as referring to one player as a “Zulu warrior” and using other racial terms.
One youth-team player was allegedly called a “suicide bomber” and told not to wear a backpack on the train home in case the other passengers thought he intended to blow it up.
The allegations are disturbing in the extreme and, perhaps just as shocking, anti-racism campaigners have told The Athletic they are aware of players at other clubs who have been subjected to this kind of language from managers and coaches but not felt able to speak out because they were “frightened” about the consequences for their careers.
On Friday it was announced that Yems had lost his job with Crawley and it felt pointed and deliberate that the League Two club released the news with a statement declaring they wanted to “build a team and community to be proud of – on and off the pitch.”
The Football Association is gathering evidence with a view to launching a disciplinary case. Young, 32, says he has dealt with issues in the last few weeks that “some coaches wouldn’t have to deal with in five, ten or 20 years.” And, though it is a difficult, complex and sensitive issue, it is also increasingly clear there are people within the club, as well as many supporters, who think the truth is somewhat different to how it has been presented so far.
As the supporters queued for entry to the Mayo Wynne Baxter suite on Wednesday night, it was difficult not to get the impression that some did not fully understand the seriousness of the situation.
“I just want Yemsy back,” explained a middle-aged man near the front of the queue. “It’s all bollocks. Give the guy a chance. Why would he appoint a black assistant if he was racist? There is nothing to investigate.”
Another supporter joined in the conversation. “It’s disgusting what has happened to Yemsy, isn’t it?”
The scene was the Broadfield Stadium and it was the first opportunity for supporters to meet the American consortium that had just made Crawley the first club in England to be owned by a cryptocurrency group.
That morning, the Daily Mail had carried quotes from a Crawley player that made it absolutely clear Yems’ career was in threat.
“He called us terrorists, suicide bombers, curry munchers,” said the player. “He called one of the players a Zulu warrior. It’s been going on since 2020-21 — in the changing room, during training. No one challenged him on it as he’s the gaffer and we didn’t feel we could. Sometimes players say things in the heat of the moment but from the manager, it’s different. He’s the boss, so it’s an abuse of his power.”
It was the first time in Crawley’s 125-year history that they had appeared on the back page of a national newspaper and the timing was particularly awkward after the club had arranged a fans’ forum that evening with Eben Smith and Preston Johnson, the co-founders of WAGMI.
The club’s response was to bring in two doormen, of the type you would normally expect to see outside a nightclub, to explain to every new arrival that anybody who tried to film the event would be ejected. WAGMI abandoned its plans to live-stream the event across the internet and, for the two Americans at the top table, it was a tricky introduction.
“I guess I want to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room,” Smith began, apologising for announcing Yems’ suspension on April 23 via the WAGMI Twitter feed rather than the club’s website. “We are not going to comment on the ongoing investigation. We aren’t even qualified to do that. We have hired someone else to help us do that.”
Still, though, there were some challenging moments once they had finished their question-and-answer session in front of 150 people.
One supporter approached Smith to ask whether Crawley would reinstate Yems. Smith said he could not discuss it and was told very matter-of-factly that if Yems lost his job without any hard evidence of wrongdoing, the club would lose a lot of fans.
Perhaps this was just to be expected given Yems’ popularity in Crawley and the fact the team had lost all three games since he was suspended in a 1.30am call, UK time, by the people whose masterplan is to bankroll the club through the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Yems had been at the team hotel in Mansfield, preparing for a game the following afternoon, when he took that call. Crawley lost 2-0 while Yems was travelling back to Sussex on the train, alone. That was followed by a 3-0 defeat at Sutton United and a 2-0 loss at home to Leyton Orient, with chants from fans of “We want our Yems back”.
At that stage, the fans did not know the explicit details of what was being alleged. “As owners, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” Peter Frake, whose company Innovation Fire & Security is one of Crawley’s shirt sponsors, wrote on Twitter after the Sutton defeat. “Disjointed, no direction and the best manager in League Two sitting at home. NFT people listen to this, 450 away fans chanting for their manager.”
Smith, in particular, looked drained at the fans’ forum, having flown in from California. Johnson was wearing a multicoloured hoodie and tried to lighten the mood. “I was nervous,” he explained of his dress sense. “I threw up a few times.”
What neither man told the audience was that, behind the scenes, the club had already started planning for next season without Yems even before the club’s internal investigation was complete. The relevant people had heard enough to decide for themselves that the allegations about Yems were, in the words of the club’s statement, “serious and credible”. Even in their brief time together, what they had heard had alarmed them, to say the least.
Crawley’s investigation was led by Ahron Cohen, a sports executive who has been appointed as an adviser to WAGMI. Cohen is the former president and chief executive of the Arizona Coyotes in the NHL and, before that, worked for the Minnesota Vikings, the NFL franchise. He was also previously the chief legal officer for the Coyotes.
Cohen led Crawley’s investigation (Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
At the same time, the FA has opened its own investigation into what could feasibly be the most serious allegations of in-house racism since the inquiry into Graham Rix and Gwyn Williams and their behaviour towards Chelsea’s youth-team players during the 1980s and 1990s. Earlier this year, Chelsea paid damages to a number of former players who were suing the club at the High Court. Rix and Williams denied being racist.
“These are very serious allegations (at Crawley),” says Tony Burnett, chief executive of Kick It Out, football’s largest anti-racism organisation. “We will hold the football authorities to account, at all levels, for a proper and fair investigation to get to the bottom of it. From that, we will see what action needs to be taken.
“If these allegations are true, and even if they are not, it does call into question how much training and awareness is needed for managers and coaches. We will happily work with the LMA (League Managers’ Association) or any other organisations because clearly something has gone awry.”
Yems has been given legal advice that this is one occasion when he should not say anything. It is known, however, that he emphatically denies using the N-word and, on the face of it, it is difficult to comprehend how a multiracial group of players would ever have tolerated a working environment featuring white and black dressing rooms. Crawley have one of the more diverse squads in League Two and pride themselves on that fact. Their players take the knee before every match – a practice introduced under Yems – and Young was assisted in the dugout against Oldham by the Ghana international Kwesi Appiah, who was out of the team because of injury.
“I’m restricted to what I can say because of the investigation that’s ongoing,” said Young. “Obviously, though, there are things being said that we are going to say are definitely wide of the mark. We have to hold our tongue for the moment but we will get our time to speak. It’s been a tough few weeks to hear a lot of outside noise with people questioning our integrity. That’s hurt, that really has hurt. But the boys know what we would and wouldn’t stand for and hopefully the investigation will shine some light on some of the claims.”
The Athletic has also spoken to numerous people — players, executives and others with connections to the club — who have worked with Yems and been willing to share their experiences on condition of anonymity.
It is true that there are two changing rooms at Horsham, where Crawley train, because neither is big enough to accommodate everyone, but nobody contacted by The Athletic, recalls any segregation and many share Young’s annoyance that it has been portrayed this way, and that, secondly, it is now being discussed by some people, including parts of the media, as a fact rather than an allegation.
What tended to happen, according to one, was that the first team would get changed in one dressing room, whereas the players who were not in the starting XI might use the other one. At one point, a number of black players were out of the team and therefore, in his view, it might appear like a white/black split when in reality, it was never intended to be that way.
Another black ex-player — again speaking on the basis of confidentiality — says he, too, did not see it as out of the ordinary and never heard any instruction from Yems, or anybody else, that the players should pick a changing room depending on their skin colour.
Senior staff are emphatic. “There was absolutely no segregation whatsoever in the dressing room,” says one. “The only segregation would be down to youngsters and safeguarding policies, not because of race.”
Yet there is a specific allegation that this is how Crawley operated on Yems’ watch and, though it was not official policy, that it was reinforced by comments to white players such as: “Don’t change in the black boys’ room”.
Young insists the dressing rooms were not segregated (Photo: Pete Norton/Getty Images)
Yems, it is also alleged, called a young player of Cypriot descent a “Greek bobblehead” (though The Athletic understands that left-back Nick Tsaroulla, a player who has previously described Yems as a father figure, is not the source of any complaints).
At least one player has reportedly sought counselling because of the effect on his mental health and, more than anything, it feels damning that there are multiple allegations against Yems.
This is not one person’s word against another. It started with two players complaining to the PFA via the EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) department that has ex-pros Jason Lee and Terry Angus as the first point of call. Seven players are now reported to have complained.
Yems has enlisted the help of the LMA to argue his case that it is inconceivable that someone in his position, having appointed a black man as his assistant and signed so many non-white players, would have created this kind of division. Solicitors are involved and The Athletic has also been told there are people at the club who remain pro-Yems and are worried about the impact on him when he has talked openly in the past about struggling with mental health issues.
“I haven’t been allowed to speak to him,” said Young. “Before he went (on suspension), I wished him well because, regardless of what comes out, you have to worry about the person. No matter what is being said, I’ve always said that you still have to worry about the human being.”
What is beyond dispute is that Yems already had a reputation for being old-school and occasionally challenging the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not.
He has also developed a reputation on the journalistic circuit as being a difficult guy to interview after matches and someone who, in his worst moods, could stray dangerously close to unpleasantness.
At other times, he could go the other way and indulge in the kind of banter that is not exactly the norm when managers sit down in front of the television cameras.
Yems’ last pre-match news conference involved him announcing that one of his players, Isaac Hutchinson, had “played in more positions than he’d get if he was in a porn film”.
Yems previously declared that his favourite number was 69 and has been acclaimed in the Daily Star for being “hilarious” and “leaving the internet in stitches”.
It was, for the most part, pretty harmless stuff, but perhaps it also hinted at a man who increasingly thought he could say what he wanted.
Members of the Crawley Town Supporters’ Alliance had privately mentioned to the previous regime that maybe his interview technique was not doing him any favours. Yems was getting a reputation for being a loose cannon and it was gently suggested that, for his own sake, maybe he should undergo media training before he talked himself into trouble.
Yems was never interested in going down this route and, on the face of it, he was an unlikely fit for the WAGMI crew — an acronym for We’re All Gonna Make It (a popular expression among online cryptocurrency enthusiasts) — and all the NFT terminology that must feel like something from another planet for an old-fashioned bibs-and-cones man.
“When you talk about crypto, I thought that was the stuff that kills Superman,” Yems announced at the press conference to mark the takeover. “I ain’t got a clue. But how many people in football know what their owners do, or where they get their money from?”
At 62, Yems was the fourth-oldest manager in English football behind Roy Hodgson, Ralf Rangnick and Phil Brown.
“Old-school is a broad term,” says one former colleague at Crawley. “He was determined to win and not lose, and when they lost, he’d be an angry fella, but which manager isn’t?”
Yems recently served a three-match touchline ban for verbally abusing the referee during a 1-0 defeat against Hartlepool and following it up by branding him a “clown” in his post-match interviews.
But it is also alleged he had a habit of saying things that would make people around him stop in their tracks. On at least one occasion, it is said he has been challenged by his own players.
What is not clear is why the complaints surfaced so quickly after Crawley’s £5 million takeover. Why not previously with the former chief executive, Erdem Konyar, under the ownership of Turkish steel magnate Ziya Eren?
Konyar has declined to comment but is willing to help the relevant inquiries. He will tell the FA that, to the best of his knowledge, there was no segregation in the dressing rooms and that he is shocked because at no time did any player approach him with a complaint.
Others with knowledge of the situation say it is important to keep an open mind and, speaking generally, not to underestimate how difficult it is for any footballer, or footballers, to go against the man who picks the team every weekend.
Yems is under investigation by the FA (Photo: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
“I question how many players are suffering in silence when it comes to discrimination and bullying,” says Burnett of Kick It Out. “It is a huge problem: not just in professional ranks but also junior ranks. We come across it on a regular basis — players feeling like they have to put up with inappropriate behaviours.
“They are concerned about what might happen to their careers. They are frightened about not being picked or not getting their contracts renewed. It’s the fear of consequences. It’s that threat of, ‘This person has got so much influence over my career’.
“We need to make it easier for players, or any employees within football clubs, to whistleblow because we are hearing examples of really inappropriate behaviour going unreported pretty consistently. We have to make sure that the people who have the power — the managers and coaches — are educated and trained about appropriate behaviour because they are powerful people and they need to understand where the lines are.”
Will Yems work in football again? His supporters say he should not be driven out of the game when there is meant to be a premise in life of innocence unless proven guilty. Yems, they say, has been a coach for more than 30 years without any allegations of this nature coming out in the past.
His first managerial position came with non-League Horsham in 1992 and he has also had spells of coaching and scouting for Millwall, Grays Athletic, Exeter City, Torquay United and Gillingham. As a player, Yems was restricted to reserve-team level for Reading, Crystal Palace and Millwall. He started coaching with Fulham’s youth team and was part of Eddie Howe’s backroom staff when Bournemouth climbed to the Premier League.
Ultimately, though, he has potentially lost his whole career, as well as a £70,000-a-year job. The damage, reputation-wise, is already significant and, whatever the outcome of the FA investigation, there will not be a stampede of potential employers who are willing to risk the backlash of employing him.
Tomorrow, Crawley have their player of the year awards dinner. Yems was due to present the trophy. His seat will be empty and the reasons for his absence will be a stain on his reputation that is hard to wash out.
(Other contributors: Adam Crafton and Phil Buckingham; Top photo: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
The link worked it was more a comment that the wider public won’t get to read it compared to the daily shi**
I read that this morning, it's worth noting that it's a very balanced article that outlines the arguments on both sides, which is very refreshing to read (such as the comments made by Lewis Young and a few other sources questioning how it has been portrayed, whilst noting the fact that multiple players came forward to make the allegations rather than it being just one disgruntled player) . I would imagine that once the FA and PFA have finished their investigations we will have a much clearer idea as to what actually happened. All that's important to me is that the truth comes out.
The comment by the anti-racism campaigner about what players from other clubs have told him about racist abuse by coaches is also pretty alarming and needs to be looked into as well. Maybe this is just indicative of a wider issue around English football that goes far beyond Crawley Town and John Yems?
A very good read but the most refreshing part of it for me is the confirmation, from Lewis Young, that the rubbish about a segregated dressing room is clearly exactly that, rubbish!! It was ludicrous in the extreme to even consider that to be the case but some people seemed to take leave of their senses and somehow believe rubbish written by a credibility-less English’s MSM.
It’s also refreshing to hear Lewis suggest that although players and staff are governed by a vow of silence at the moment, there will be a time when you will hear their voice, and personally it can’t come soon enough.
Personally I am 100% certain that John Yems is not a racist and until I hear damning evidence to the contrary I won’t be swayed by trouble makers, rumour, supposition and the political correct brigade who insist on being offended on behalf of others who aren’t offended.
A very good read but the most refreshing part of it for me is the confirmation, from Lewis Young, that the rubbish about a segregated dressing room is clearly exactly that, rubbish!! It was ludicrous in the extreme to even consider that to be the case but some people seemed to take leave of their senses and somehow believe rubbish written by a credibility-less English’s MSM.
It’s also refreshing to hear Lewis suggest that although players and staff are governed by a vow of silence at the moment, there will be a time when you will hear their voice, and personally it can’t come soon enough.
Personally I am 100% certain that John Yems is not a racist and until I hear damning evidence to the contrary I won’t be swayed by trouble makers, rumour, supposition and the political correct brigade who insist on being offended on behalf of others who aren’t offended.
Think the artice is an important corrective to some of the more puzzling assumptions of what was going on at Horsham. But I would really caution against trying to find a culture war angle to this - certainly many are available if you want to get worked up about that kind of thing, "political correctness gone mad", "American attitudes vs British common sense" - all I strongly believe will be proved wide of the mark.
At the end of the day, there is a certain standard of conduct and behaviour that, if you have a position of management responsibility over others, particularly young staff, that you will be expected to conform to in this country, whether you do your job, my job or any job in football.
A very good read but the most refreshing part of it for me is the confirmation, from Lewis Young, that the rubbish about a segregated dressing room is clearly exactly that, rubbish!! It was ludicrous in the extreme to even consider that to be the case but some people seemed to take leave of their senses and somehow believe rubbish written by a credibility-less English’s MSM.
It’s also refreshing to hear Lewis suggest that although players and staff are governed by a vow of silence at the moment, there will be a time when you will hear their voice, and personally it can’t come soon enough.
Personally I am 100% certain that John Yems is not a racist and until I hear damning evidence to the contrary I won’t be swayed by trouble makers, rumour, supposition and the political correct brigade who insist on being offended on behalf of others who aren’t offended.
Steve98 banging his head against a wall somewhere reading that.
Special report: John Yems, Crawley Town and the racism allegations that saw him lose his job
Daniel Taylor, Dan Sheldon and more
May 8, 2022
In this day and age – or, let’s face it, any day and age – it is not a question that a football journalist would ordinarily have to ask when a manager turns up for his post-match news conference.
“Is it true that Crawley Town have, at any stage, had segregated dressing rooms for white and black players?”
Lewis Young, Crawley’s interim manager, shifted uncomfortably and his awkwardness was understandable as a black man who, until recently, was the assistant to John Yems, the man at the centre of this alleged scandal.
Young started off by pointing out he was restricted in what he could say while an investigation was ongoing. Yet here was a man, unmistakably, who was stung by the suggestion that he, or anyone at Crawley, would have allowed themselves to be part of such a set-up.
“I’ve tried to stay calm,” said Young. “But we, as individuals inside the dressing room, who are living it, know there are certain things we wouldn’t stand for. And if that (black and white dressing rooms) was to go on, something would have been said. We know what we would stand for, and what we wouldn’t.”
Young, the brother of former England international Ashley, was talking to The Athletic after Crawley had finished their season with a 3-3 draw at Oldham Athletic featuring protests and boycotts from the home supporters. Oldham, already relegated to the National League, are a broken club. This was their last match in the EFL and it was a strained, mutinous atmosphere.
Yems was fired this week (Photo: Mark Fletcher/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Yet Crawley have been embroiled in a crisis of their own that has been traumatic, to say the least, for a club that goes by the motto of “Town, Team, Together”.
Yems is under investigation for allegedly operating with racial divisions and, presumably, will be grateful that somebody inside the camp has been willing to speak out and knock down some of the claims against him.
That, however, tells only part of the story when Yems has also been accused of saying the N-word as well as referring to one player as a “Zulu warrior” and using other racial terms.
One youth-team player was allegedly called a “suicide bomber” and told not to wear a backpack on the train home in case the other passengers thought he intended to blow it up.
The allegations are disturbing in the extreme and, perhaps just as shocking, anti-racism campaigners have told The Athletic they are aware of players at other clubs who have been subjected to this kind of language from managers and coaches but not felt able to speak out because they were “frightened” about the consequences for their careers.
On Friday it was announced that Yems had lost his job with Crawley and it felt pointed and deliberate that the League Two club released the news with a statement declaring they wanted to “build a team and community to be proud of – on and off the pitch.”
The Football Association is gathering evidence with a view to launching a disciplinary case. Young, 32, says he has dealt with issues in the last few weeks that “some coaches wouldn’t have to deal with in five, ten or 20 years.” And, though it is a difficult, complex and sensitive issue, it is also increasingly clear there are people within the club, as well as many supporters, who think the truth is somewhat different to how it has been presented so far.
As the supporters queued for entry to the Mayo Wynne Baxter suite on Wednesday night, it was difficult not to get the impression that some did not fully understand the seriousness of the situation.
“I just want Yemsy back,” explained a middle-aged man near the front of the queue. “It’s all bollocks. Give the guy a chance. Why would he appoint a black assistant if he was racist? There is nothing to investigate.”
Another supporter joined in the conversation. “It’s disgusting what has happened to Yemsy, isn’t it?”
The scene was the Broadfield Stadium and it was the first opportunity for supporters to meet the American consortium that had just made Crawley the first club in England to be owned by a cryptocurrency group.
That morning, the Daily Mail had carried quotes from a Crawley player that made it absolutely clear Yems’ career was in threat.
“He called us terrorists, suicide bombers, curry munchers,” said the player. “He called one of the players a Zulu warrior. It’s been going on since 2020-21 — in the changing room, during training. No one challenged him on it as he’s the gaffer and we didn’t feel we could. Sometimes players say things in the heat of the moment but from the manager, it’s different. He’s the boss, so it’s an abuse of his power.”
It was the first time in Crawley’s 125-year history that they had appeared on the back page of a national newspaper and the timing was particularly awkward after the club had arranged a fans’ forum that evening with Eben Smith and Preston Johnson, the co-founders of WAGMI.
The club’s response was to bring in two doormen, of the type you would normally expect to see outside a nightclub, to explain to every new arrival that anybody who tried to film the event would be ejected. WAGMI abandoned its plans to live-stream the event across the internet and, for the two Americans at the top table, it was a tricky introduction.
“I guess I want to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room,” Smith began, apologising for announcing Yems’ suspension on April 23 via the WAGMI Twitter feed rather than the club’s website. “We are not going to comment on the ongoing investigation. We aren’t even qualified to do that. We have hired someone else to help us do that.”
Still, though, there were some challenging moments once they had finished their question-and-answer session in front of 150 people.
One supporter approached Smith to ask whether Crawley would reinstate Yems. Smith said he could not discuss it and was told very matter-of-factly that if Yems lost his job without any hard evidence of wrongdoing, the club would lose a lot of fans.
Perhaps this was just to be expected given Yems’ popularity in Crawley and the fact the team had lost all three games since he was suspended in a 1.30am call, UK time, by the people whose masterplan is to bankroll the club through the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Yems had been at the team hotel in Mansfield, preparing for a game the following afternoon, when he took that call. Crawley lost 2-0 while Yems was travelling back to Sussex on the train, alone. That was followed by a 3-0 defeat at Sutton United and a 2-0 loss at home to Leyton Orient, with chants from fans of “We want our Yems back”.
At that stage, the fans did not know the explicit details of what was being alleged. “As owners, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” Peter Frake, whose company Innovation Fire & Security is one of Crawley’s shirt sponsors, wrote on Twitter after the Sutton defeat. “Disjointed, no direction and the best manager in League Two sitting at home. NFT people listen to this, 450 away fans chanting for their manager.”
Smith, in particular, looked drained at the fans’ forum, having flown in from California. Johnson was wearing a multicoloured hoodie and tried to lighten the mood. “I was nervous,” he explained of his dress sense. “I threw up a few times.”
What neither man told the audience was that, behind the scenes, the club had already started planning for next season without Yems even before the club’s internal investigation was complete. The relevant people had heard enough to decide for themselves that the allegations about Yems were, in the words of the club’s statement, “serious and credible”. Even in their brief time together, what they had heard had alarmed them, to say the least.
Crawley’s investigation was led by Ahron Cohen, a sports executive who has been appointed as an adviser to WAGMI. Cohen is the former president and chief executive of the Arizona Coyotes in the NHL and, before that, worked for the Minnesota Vikings, the NFL franchise. He was also previously the chief legal officer for the Coyotes.
Cohen led Crawley’s investigation (Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
At the same time, the FA has opened its own investigation into what could feasibly be the most serious allegations of in-house racism since the inquiry into Graham Rix and Gwyn Williams and their behaviour towards Chelsea’s youth-team players during the 1980s and 1990s. Earlier this year, Chelsea paid damages to a number of former players who were suing the club at the High Court. Rix and Williams denied being racist.
“These are very serious allegations (at Crawley),” says Tony Burnett, chief executive of Kick It Out, football’s largest anti-racism organisation. “We will hold the football authorities to account, at all levels, for a proper and fair investigation to get to the bottom of it. From that, we will see what action needs to be taken.
“If these allegations are true, and even if they are not, it does call into question how much training and awareness is needed for managers and coaches. We will happily work with the LMA (League Managers’ Association) or any other organisations because clearly something has gone awry.”
Yems has been given legal advice that this is one occasion when he should not say anything. It is known, however, that he emphatically denies using the N-word and, on the face of it, it is difficult to comprehend how a multiracial group of players would ever have tolerated a working environment featuring white and black dressing rooms. Crawley have one of the more diverse squads in League Two and pride themselves on that fact. Their players take the knee before every match – a practice introduced under Yems – and Young was assisted in the dugout against Oldham by the Ghana international Kwesi Appiah, who was out of the team because of injury.
“I’m restricted to what I can say because of the investigation that’s ongoing,” said Young. “Obviously, though, there are things being said that we are going to say are definitely wide of the mark. We have to hold our tongue for the moment but we will get our time to speak. It’s been a tough few weeks to hear a lot of outside noise with people questioning our integrity. That’s hurt, that really has hurt. But the boys know what we would and wouldn’t stand for and hopefully the investigation will shine some light on some of the claims.”
The Athletic has also spoken to numerous people — players, executives and others with connections to the club — who have worked with Yems and been willing to share their experiences on condition of anonymity.
It is true that there are two changing rooms at Horsham, where Crawley train, because neither is big enough to accommodate everyone, but nobody contacted by The Athletic, recalls any segregation and many share Young’s annoyance that it has been portrayed this way, and that, secondly, it is now being discussed by some people, including parts of the media, as a fact rather than an allegation.
What tended to happen, according to one, was that the first team would get changed in one dressing room, whereas the players who were not in the starting XI might use the other one. At one point, a number of black players were out of the team and therefore, in his view, it might appear like a white/black split when in reality, it was never intended to be that way.
Another black ex-player — again speaking on the basis of confidentiality — says he, too, did not see it as out of the ordinary and never heard any instruction from Yems, or anybody else, that the players should pick a changing room depending on their skin colour.
Senior staff are emphatic. “There was absolutely no segregation whatsoever in the dressing room,” says one. “The only segregation would be down to youngsters and safeguarding policies, not because of race.”
Yet there is a specific allegation that this is how Crawley operated on Yems’ watch and, though it was not official policy, that it was reinforced by comments to white players such as: “Don’t change in the black boys’ room”.
Young insists the dressing rooms were not segregated (Photo: Pete Norton/Getty Images)
Yems, it is also alleged, called a young player of Cypriot descent a “Greek bobblehead” (though The Athletic understands that left-back Nick Tsaroulla, a player who has previously described Yems as a father figure, is not the source of any complaints).
At least one player has reportedly sought counselling because of the effect on his mental health and, more than anything, it feels damning that there are multiple allegations against Yems.
This is not one person’s word against another. It started with two players complaining to the PFA via the EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) department that has ex-pros Jason Lee and Terry Angus as the first point of call. Seven players are now reported to have complained.
Yems has enlisted the help of the LMA to argue his case that it is inconceivable that someone in his position, having appointed a black man as his assistant and signed so many non-white players, would have created this kind of division. Solicitors are involved and The Athletic has also been told there are people at the club who remain pro-Yems and are worried about the impact on him when he has talked openly in the past about struggling with mental health issues.
“I haven’t been allowed to speak to him,” said Young. “Before he went (on suspension), I wished him well because, regardless of what comes out, you have to worry about the person. No matter what is being said, I’ve always said that you still have to worry about the human being.”
What is beyond dispute is that Yems already had a reputation for being old-school and occasionally challenging the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not.
He has also developed a reputation on the journalistic circuit as being a difficult guy to interview after matches and someone who, in his worst moods, could stray dangerously close to unpleasantness.
At other times, he could go the other way and indulge in the kind of banter that is not exactly the norm when managers sit down in front of the television cameras.
Yems’ last pre-match news conference involved him announcing that one of his players, Isaac Hutchinson, had “played in more positions than he’d get if he was in a porn film”.
Yems previously declared that his favourite number was 69 and has been acclaimed in the Daily Star for being “hilarious” and “leaving the internet in stitches”.
It was, for the most part, pretty harmless stuff, but perhaps it also hinted at a man who increasingly thought he could say what he wanted.
Members of the Crawley Town Supporters’ Alliance had privately mentioned to the previous regime that maybe his interview technique was not doing him any favours. Yems was getting a reputation for being a loose cannon and it was gently suggested that, for his own sake, maybe he should undergo media training before he talked himself into trouble.
Yems was never interested in going down this route and, on the face of it, he was an unlikely fit for the WAGMI crew — an acronym for We’re All Gonna Make It (a popular expression among online cryptocurrency enthusiasts) — and all the NFT terminology that must feel like something from another planet for an old-fashioned bibs-and-cones man.
“When you talk about crypto, I thought that was the stuff that kills Superman,” Yems announced at the press conference to mark the takeover. “I ain’t got a clue. But how many people in football know what their owners do, or where they get their money from?”
At 62, Yems was the fourth-oldest manager in English football behind Roy Hodgson, Ralf Rangnick and Phil Brown.
“Old-school is a broad term,” says one former colleague at Crawley. “He was determined to win and not lose, and when they lost, he’d be an angry fella, but which manager isn’t?”
Yems recently served a three-match touchline ban for verbally abusing the referee during a 1-0 defeat against Hartlepool and following it up by branding him a “clown” in his post-match interviews.
But it is also alleged he had a habit of saying things that would make people around him stop in their tracks. On at least one occasion, it is said he has been challenged by his own players.
What is not clear is why the complaints surfaced so quickly after Crawley’s £5 million takeover. Why not previously with the former chief executive, Erdem Konyar, under the ownership of Turkish steel magnate Ziya Eren?
Konyar has declined to comment but is willing to help the relevant inquiries. He will tell the FA that, to the best of his knowledge, there was no segregation in the dressing rooms and that he is shocked because at no time did any player approach him with a complaint.
Others with knowledge of the situation say it is important to keep an open mind and, speaking generally, not to underestimate how difficult it is for any footballer, or footballers, to go against the man who picks the team every weekend.
Yems is under investigation by the FA (Photo: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
“I question how many players are suffering in silence when it comes to discrimination and bullying,” says Burnett of Kick It Out. “It is a huge problem: not just in professional ranks but also junior ranks. We come across it on a regular basis — players feeling like they have to put up with inappropriate behaviours.
“They are concerned about what might happen to their careers. They are frightened about not being picked or not getting their contracts renewed. It’s the fear of consequences. It’s that threat of, ‘This person has got so much influence over my career’.
“We need to make it easier for players, or any employees within football clubs, to whistleblow because we are hearing examples of really inappropriate behaviour going unreported pretty consistently. We have to make sure that the people who have the power — the managers and coaches — are educated and trained about appropriate behaviour because they are powerful people and they need to understand where the lines are.”
Will Yems work in football again? His supporters say he should not be driven out of the game when there is meant to be a premise in life of innocence unless proven guilty. Yems, they say, has been a coach for more than 30 years without any allegations of this nature coming out in the past.
His first managerial position came with non-League Horsham in 1992 and he has also had spells of coaching and scouting for Millwall, Grays Athletic, Exeter City, Torquay United and Gillingham. As a player, Yems was restricted to reserve-team level for Reading, Crystal Palace and Millwall. He started coaching with Fulham’s youth team and was part of Eddie Howe’s backroom staff when Bournemouth climbed to the Premier League.
Ultimately, though, he has potentially lost his whole career, as well as a £70,000-a-year job. The damage, reputation-wise, is already significant and, whatever the outcome of the FA investigation, there will not be a stampede of potential employers who are willing to risk the backlash of employing him.
Tomorrow, Crawley have their player of the year awards dinner. Yems was due to present the trophy. His seat will be empty and the reasons for his absence will be a stain on his reputation that is hard to wash out.
(Other contributors: Adam Crafton and Phil Buckingham; Top photo: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
The link worked it was more a comment that the wider public won’t get to read it compared to the daily shi**
Good job too...poorly written and a few glaring errors.....first time we've been on the back pages lol,been on the bleeding front page matey and fir footballing reasons.
A very good read but the most refreshing part of it for me is the confirmation, from Lewis Young, that the rubbish about a segregated dressing room is clearly exactly that, rubbish!! It was ludicrous in the extreme to even consider that to be the case but some people seemed to take leave of their senses and somehow believe rubbish written by a credibility-less English’s MSM.
It’s also refreshing to hear Lewis suggest that although players and staff are governed by a vow of silence at the moment, there will be a time when you will hear their voice, and personally it can’t come soon enough.
Personally I am 100% certain that John Yems is not a racist and until I hear damning evidence to the contrary I won’t be swayed by trouble makers, rumour, supposition and the political correct brigade who insist on being offended on behalf of others who aren’t offended.
Think the artice is an important corrective to some of the more puzzling assumptions of what was going on at Horsham. But I would really caution against trying to find a culture war angle to this - certainly many are available if you want to get worked up about that kind of thing, "political correctness gone mad", "American attitudes vs British common sense" - all I strongly believe will be proved wide of the mark.
At the end of the day, there is a certain standard of conduct and behaviour that, if you have a position of management responsibility over others, particularly young staff, that you will be expected to conform to in this country, whether you do your job, my job or any job in football.
We just need to wait and see what comes out of the FA and PFA when they finish their investigation, as their reports should give by far the strongest indication as to what actually occured. I'm not too worried abot the speed at which this is done as it's important to make sure that their reports are accurate and they have gathered all the evidence that's available. With the decision that was made a few days ago (plus the club hiring a specialist to deal with it), I'd hope that the main focus for Preston, Lewis and co. now is to sort out which players should be offerered new contracts as well as begin the process of finding the manager that's right for this club going forward. Again there is no rush at all (especially as the season has finished now) as it's more important to do it properly so we hire the best possible person for the job
