Raheem Sterling Continues To Do his Talking On The Pitch

This has been a difficult week for Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling.

Against Chelsea, Raheem Sterling put in an industrious display. This has been a good season so far for Sterling who has seemingly achieved the impossible, by actually improving on the excellent performance last season. Last season was such a stellar improvement on what had gone before that the idea of actually improving upon it was completely elusive to anyone other than Pep Guardiola. As we have seen Guardiola is a man constantly in search of perfection.

That is not to take away from Sterling though, as it is his hard work, his drive and his commitment which has delivered him as one of the best players in the Premier League.

But ever since leaving Liverpool for Manchester City there has been a campaign against Sterling in much of the media. Orchestrated by Liverpool staff and with cheerleading by ex players and supported by Liverpool fans in the media.

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They sustained the message and tried to portray Raheem as a snake for having the audacity to leave in search of trophies. They made it seem as though leaving was all about money even though Raheem moved to Manchester City for less wages than Liverpool offered James Milner.

At some point the National Press began to make the Raheem story fit in with a different narrative. He became synonymous with the ills of what white middle classes most worried about. Otherness. So Raheem fitted into a press narrative which bordered on a moral panic. One about the role of black men in society. One about drugs, cars, guns, music and girls.

The main stream tabloid media were in the midst of a moral panic about knife crime, and ‘feral’ black urban youths, stabbing teachers and robbing the things they wanted. Listening to grime and making London a no go area on their mopeds and in their lamborghinis. On the face of it, Raheem seemed to fit the bill to be the poster boy of this very British moral panic. He was black, from a slum estate in London. An immigrant from a single parent family because his father died as a result of gun crime.

The problem they had though was here was a young man who had simply bought his mum a house, went out shopping to poundland, drove a dirty car, ate sausage rolls from Greggs and generally seemed like a pretty normal, albeit committed sportsman. The problem was they had an anachronism on their hands. It simply didn’t fit the narrative.

So the media just ploughed ahead anyway. Ignoring the bits that did not fit the agenda. Even the good things Raheem did were being sneered at – showing off diamond encrusted sinks in a mansion said the newspapers, not Proud Raheem shows off the home he has bought his mother after all of her years of struggle supporting him.

Of course it shouldn’t really matter. It should not trouble anyone one bit if he goes out and buys a diamond encrusted moon on a stick every single day. If he can afford it (and he probably can) then he can spend his money however he chooses and everyone else will just have to get over it.

The negative press in the on going narrative was spiteful. It reinforced a deceit and consequently Raheem has faced strong reactions. Crowds boo. England fans boo. And Raheem has faced worse. Arriving at Manchester City’s training ground year last year he was racially abused and assaulted. Last weekend Chelsea fans racially abused him and as we know, Raheem turned the other cheek.

In doing so Raheem showed he is probably a far greater man than I am. He shook his head in the face of the abuse and carried on. And Raheem afterwards pointed out the racial abuse is linked the media portrayal.

Of course this suddenly caterpaulted those media bodies into the limelight and predictably most shrugged off the criticism. Oblivious to the irony as they protested their collective innocence. Some pundits even had the audacity to suggest Raheem should become some kind of campaigner for justice, which so fundamentally misses the point it is untrue. It is the white people who are committing the racism and it is to them that we should seek the solutions – it is not the victim’s responsibility to educate the abusers.

There has even been a faux moral outrage in the liberal press to the racist portrayals in other tabloid media. But what those sanctimonious leader writers have failed to grasp is that their papers are institutionally racist in their portrayal of a different moral panic: the arabs.

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And so what of Raheem? Well, he has simply gotten on and played excellent football. Just cracked on being himself and that is also testament to Raheem and his upbringing.I am proud to have Raheem at our club. His behaviour has been exemplary – what a role model he is. For me, without any shadow of a doubt, he should be the Sports Personality of the Year. No one else even comes close.

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