Former top-flight footballer more likely seen at an anti-racism A different ball game: Pat Nevin on paving the way for today’s activist superstars
Amid top-flight football’s extravagance and hyperbole, he stood out like a Lada in a Lamborghini showroom; a Joy Division fan at a Dire Straits gig; a healthy parrot in a post-match interview.
He took the Tube home from games, played The Fall on the team bus, and bought his clothes at Oxfam. Often Pat Nevin seemed, as the title of his newly-published autobiography suggests, an Accidental Footballer.
His pace, trickery and goals made him a favourite on the terraces of top clubs, including Chelsea and Everton, while his dress sense, taste in music and enthusiasm for opera and ballet made him a curio in the dressing rooms.
However, a new generation of socially-conscious, activist players have proved Nevin a pioneer. The former Scotland winger, now a respected commentator on the beautiful game, would always have preferred an anti-racism demo to post-match pints – he’s still never had one – but, today, many of the game’s superstars would probably join him.
Whether it’s campaigning for free school meals, awareness of mental health problems or taking a knee in support of Black Lives Matter, the stars of the game are increasingly keen to speak out, although Nevin, now 57, suspects it is easier for the likes of Marcus Rashford to take a stance today than it was when he was playing in the 1980s.
A former chair of the Professional Footballers’ Association, he helped launch campaigns against racism and homophobia in the game long before it became routine to see leading sports stars supporting causes like Black Lives Matter.
“If you look at it now, players are speaking up about racism but it’s because people are asking them about it now. Culture has moved on and changed a lot so it’s not as uncomfortable to speak about it,” he said.
“Back in the 80s it wasn’t like my team-mates were opposed to those opinions or to taking a position on issues away from football. They just weren’t particularly interested and it wasn’t important within the culture of the sport.
“These days there are more who are happy to do that. It may well be that, because footballers have an even higher profile, they’re being asked about it more. Plenty still just want to go and kick a ball and there’s nothing wrong with that either.
“I wasn’t being brave when I was speaking about a variety of issues, I was just being me and I hope footballers who are doing the same today are just being themselves.”
While he happily admits his enthusiasm for obscure indie bands and slim volumes by even more obscure Russian novelists could, at times, seem a little
pretentious to team-mates with less esoteric tastes, Nevin was, then and now, being true to himself although he would now reach for a little PG Wodehouse before Dostoevsky.
His book, The Accidental Footballer – where every chapter is named after a different post-punk anthem – charts his life in football from growing up in Glasgow’s east end and forging a successful career at the very top level despite never not quite fitting in. The strength of character that would see him get up from innumerable scything tackles to go at defenders again and again, that allowed him to withstand a deliberately testing barracking from the great Jock Stein, meant being nicknamed Weirdo by his Chelsea team-mates was water off his Oxfam trenchcoat.
“They thought I was weird, but I thought some of them were weirder,” he said. “Many of them drank far too much. They just didn’t have the same interests as me. They were heading off to the pub when I was going to the ballet or going to a gig. They also didn’t mix with ordinary people as much, and I think that’s even more the case these days.
“Footballers don’t mix with normal people. I think that’s stupid and just because you kick a ball and get paid more money doesn’t make you better than anybody else.
“Back when I played I thought that attitude was ridiculous. It’s a cracker of a job, but it’s still just that. A job. Back when I played, I’d bring stuff into the dressing room and the rest of them would think I was weird and call it rubbish but 10 years later they’d all be listening to it.
“I understand why The Fall maybe gave them a headache. But George Michael gave me a headache.”
Other footballers might not have appreciated Pat’s post-punk musical tastes (he used to buy two copies of the NME because team-mates would invariably tear up the first one for laughs) but he didn’t let it bother him.
“I got it all the time. I just thought they were funny,”
Nevin adds. “I used to get some amount of abuse at West Ham because I was into theatre and the arts and their fans were of the opinion that made me gay. It didn’t offend me because I don’t think gay is an offensive term and I wasn’t gay. They could sing that if they liked. I didn’t care.
“I’d just blow them a kiss. The biggest way to have a go at a bully is to laugh at them and be above them. Some players do find it hurtful but I was so comfortable in myself.
“That sounds awfully confident, doesn’t it? But
I just knew myself pretty well and I was comfortable with who I was.
“It’s one of the messages I hope people take away from the book, to be yourself.
“I managed to go into an ultra-competitive world of football and it didn’t change me. I didn’t ever try to fit in and not be me. And if you don’t want me, I’ll go and try to do something else.
“And if you do try to fit in and not be yourself people can spot that. I’m no big brave guy and I managed it.”