Book on West Brom F.C mentions 2 Tone & UB40

[Imani]

Taken from the book 'The Three Degrees: The Men Who Changed British Football Forever' by Paul Rees:

The visual message being transmitted by The Specials was as potent as the one sent out by Cunningham, Regis and Batson at West Brom. Hordes of white school kids around the UK rushed to take up their look, wearing the uniform of Jamaican rudeboys like a badge of honour.

'It was a special time, a sort of golden age of tolerance and togetherness,' says Ali Campbell, then recording UB40's debut album Signing Off, which would make stars of him and his band. 'Yes, we had our problems with the National Front and the British Movement, but that was just the obvious politics of depression, and the kids rebelled against it.'

‘What I saw developing then was a multiracial and multicultural society that looked as though it would go on to be even better. We were anticipating a rainbow nation, but that's all gone now. In the thirty years or so since then, very sadly we've taken on an American style of politics and got a generation that is now self-segregated. You've got white gangs, black gangs and Slavic gangs. In Balsall Heath, the Indian kids chase you down the street with baseball bats and hockey sticks if you're white.'

However, and as Campbell freely admits, it wasn’t the case that all of 2 Tone’s audience embraced the utopian vision. ‘UB40 actually shirt-tailed the movement,’ he says. ‘We were a reggae band but we kept our heads down and got on ska-themed bills at places like the Electric Ballroom in Camden. The skinheads in the crowd used to ‘Sieg Heil’ us and generally, we’d come off stage covered in spit. But the thing that they hated us for was playing too slow. It was because of the make-up of the band that we had constant death threats.’

[Trojan]

MI5 also opened a file on UB40 back in the day. I guess in the early days being in UB40 was no easy thing.
_________________
Richard Eddington is innocent.

http://2-tone.info/

[Imani]

[Trojan]

[Fester]

And Country & Western Music

[Imani]

Continuing this West Brom/2 Tone link, this time with Garth Crooks, who did have a stint with them.

He was once featured in an edition of NME, 1981 I think. (Remember 'music papers'? Extinct now.) Every now and again they'd have people from football to list their favourite films, tv, etc. As one of his favourite bands he mentioned The Selecter. This would have been just after their second album.

Another one of those tomorrow.