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<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">In 1982 Paul Canoville became the first black man to play for Chelsea</span></span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">They intimidated me, screamed vile racist abuse and threw bananas... and that was my own club's fans
'Even when I got a goal it was: "Nah, it's still 0-0. The n****r's scored, it doesn’t count"'</span></span>
'Paul, I was one of the idiots who shouted those things. Sorry, mate. I never meant it. I'm not a racist. I was just swept along with the crowd.' That's the usual format. Canoville has heard this thinly-veiled plea for absolution several times in 27 years since he became Chelsea's first black player.
Talk has been therapeutic for Canoville. He started to open up as part of rehab from crack cocaine addiction and, before he knew it, his award-winning autobiography Black and Blue was flying off the shelves. It tells his gripping story of survival, from his strict upbringing in a single-parent family, through petty thievery, borstal, homelessness (he lived in an abandoned car for three weeks), football, racism, injury, drugs, cancer and more.
His experience at Chelsea shamed English football in the Eighties, when racism and violence stalked the terraces in the form of National Front skinheads.
When he climbed from the bench to warm up, Chelsea supporters screamed: 'Sit down you black c***', 'You f***ing w*g, f*** off'. Then they started to chant: 'We don't want the n****r, we don't want the n****r, la la la la'. A banana landed near his feet.
A knee injury meant Canoville was a professional footballer for less than six years but his four-and-a-half years at Chelsea ended after a pre-season fight with a drunken teammate, who called him a 'black c***'.
It was not an isolated incident but he was advised against naming and shaming the culprits in his book.
'They are names you would know,' he nods.
Chelsea's reaction to the incident was to talk Canoville into a £50,000 transfer to Reading, even though he had three years left on his contract.
Twice he has beaten cancer - both times the disease struck after he became hooked on crack cocaine and this, he insists, is not a coincidence.
This year, he has launched Senkaa, a business which starts up youth projects to tackle gun and knife crime.
Canoville should not be surprised to discover a connection with children. He has fathered 11 of them with 10 different women.
He is not entirely comfortable being hailed a pioneer, but Canoville's role in Chelsea's success cannot be ignored.
'Sooner or later someone probably had to take that grief,' he admits.
'There were several youth players coming through the ranks who were at the club before me. How would they have taken that?
Poignant memories: Watching from a hospital cancer wing, Canoville saw a black manager, Ruud Gullit, lead out the team, and Eddie Newton, one of two black players to start for Chelsea, score in a 2-0 FA Cup final win in 1997
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footbal...-Canoville.html
<span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">They intimidated me, screamed vile racist abuse and threw bananas... and that was my own club's fans
'Even when I got a goal it was: "Nah, it's still 0-0. The n****r's scored, it doesn’t count"'</span></span>
'Paul, I was one of the idiots who shouted those things. Sorry, mate. I never meant it. I'm not a racist. I was just swept along with the crowd.' That's the usual format. Canoville has heard this thinly-veiled plea for absolution several times in 27 years since he became Chelsea's first black player.
Talk has been therapeutic for Canoville. He started to open up as part of rehab from crack cocaine addiction and, before he knew it, his award-winning autobiography Black and Blue was flying off the shelves. It tells his gripping story of survival, from his strict upbringing in a single-parent family, through petty thievery, borstal, homelessness (he lived in an abandoned car for three weeks), football, racism, injury, drugs, cancer and more.
His experience at Chelsea shamed English football in the Eighties, when racism and violence stalked the terraces in the form of National Front skinheads.
When he climbed from the bench to warm up, Chelsea supporters screamed: 'Sit down you black c***', 'You f***ing w*g, f*** off'. Then they started to chant: 'We don't want the n****r, we don't want the n****r, la la la la'. A banana landed near his feet.
A knee injury meant Canoville was a professional footballer for less than six years but his four-and-a-half years at Chelsea ended after a pre-season fight with a drunken teammate, who called him a 'black c***'.
It was not an isolated incident but he was advised against naming and shaming the culprits in his book.
'They are names you would know,' he nods.
Chelsea's reaction to the incident was to talk Canoville into a £50,000 transfer to Reading, even though he had three years left on his contract.
Twice he has beaten cancer - both times the disease struck after he became hooked on crack cocaine and this, he insists, is not a coincidence.
This year, he has launched Senkaa, a business which starts up youth projects to tackle gun and knife crime.
Canoville should not be surprised to discover a connection with children. He has fathered 11 of them with 10 different women.
He is not entirely comfortable being hailed a pioneer, but Canoville's role in Chelsea's success cannot be ignored.
'Sooner or later someone probably had to take that grief,' he admits.
'There were several youth players coming through the ranks who were at the club before me. How would they have taken that?
Poignant memories: Watching from a hospital cancer wing, Canoville saw a black manager, Ruud Gullit, lead out the team, and Eddie Newton, one of two black players to start for Chelsea, score in a 2-0 FA Cup final win in 1997
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footbal...-Canoville.html
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