Latest news with #GuardianUS
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Parties and proclamations: Juneteenth across the diaspora
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. I'm Adria R Walker, a Mississippi-based race and equity reporter for the Guardian US, and I'm excited to be taking over this week. I've been working on a story about the ways Black American communities have celebrated – in many cases, for centuries – the formal end of slavery, which is variously called Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day and, perhaps most famously, Juneteenth. My article will be published on 19 June, Juneteenth, a federal holiday that was enshrined into law four years ago. In doing this reporting, I've learned a lot about the holiday that I grew up celebrating. For this week's edition of the newsletter, I'll guide you through what Emancipation Day can look like in the US and its legacy. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, which abolished slavery in the states that had seceded during the civil war, though slavery was abolished nationwide when the 13th amendment was ratified on 6 December 1865. News of the proclamation spread varyingly. Some southern enslavers attempted to outrun the order and the Union soldiers who brought news of it, moving the people they had enslaved farther and farther west until the army caught up with them. In Galveston, Texas, it was not until 19 June 1865 that people who were enslaved found out about the declaration. News of that freedom was enshrined in Juneteenth, celebrated annually by Galvestonians and nearby Houstonians. While Juneteenth has become the most famous emancipation celebration, it is far from the only one. I had the idea for the story a couple of years ago, on 8 May 2023, when I became curious about how communities across the south celebrated emancipation historically and in the present day. On that day, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, one of the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, my home town, had shared a newspaper clipping on Instagram about a historic Emancipation Day celebration on 8 May. The 8 May celebrations, which are still observed by the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science and the local community, began in 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Columbus to inform the enslaved people that they were free. Elsewhere, 8 August commemmorates the day the former president Andrew Johnson manumitted (freed) the people he had enslaved – the emancipation proclamation had not applied to Tennessee or West Virginia. William Isom, the director of Black in Appalachia, tells me that Samuel Johnson, a formerly enslaved person, is credited with the spread of 8 August celebrations. In Florida, the day is celebrated on 20 May, honouring that date in 1865 when Union troops read and enforced the emancipation proclamation at the end of the civil war. In Gallia County, Ohio, they have marked 22 September 1862, the day on which Lincoln drafted the emancipation proclamationsince 1863 – making it one of the longest-running emancipation celebrations in the country, Isom says. Some communities have celebrated 1 January since 1863, when Lincoln signed the proclamation, while others celebrate 31 December, or Watch Night, when enslaved and freed Black Americans gathered to hear news of the emancipation proclamation. Watch Night is still observed in Black communities across the south, including in the Carolinas, where Gullah Geechee people observe Freedom's Eve, and elsewhere. As a child, I attended Watch Night services at church in Mississippi, though I didn't appreciate the significance at the time. Whenever and wherever slavery was abolished, formerly enslaved people observed and celebrated the day – this is consistent across the African diaspora. I knew about Emancipation Day festivities in the Caribbean and in Canada, for example, though they are different from those in the US, but I didn't know such celebrations extended to the northern US. In Massachusetts, Emancipation Day, also known as Quock Walker Day, is on 8 July. Quock Walker, born in 1753, sued for and won his freedom in 1781. His case is considered to have helped abolish slavery in Massachusetts. In New York State, the Fifth of July was first celebrated in 1827, an event first held the day after full emancipation was achieved there. After the British empire ended slavery in 1838, many areas in the north began to observe 1 August. In Washington DC, on 16 April, people commemorate the anniversary of the 1862 signing of the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which abolished slavery and freed about 3,000 people in the capital. Under the act, former enslavers were compensated for the people they had enslaved, a common practice during efforts to end slavery around the world. However, the people who had been enslaved did not receive compensation. I vaguely remember attending my first Juneteenth celebration as a little girl. Farish Street, a historic Black district in Jackson, was abuzz with people. Despite it being the middle of summer in Mississippi, the heat didn't stop folks from coming out to eat, dance and socialise. The state is relatively close to Texas – it is about a six-hour drive from Jackson to Houston – so we have quite a bit of cultural overlap. It made sense that we would share holidays. Like many other cultural traditions, Juneteenth spread across the country with the arrival of southern people during the great migration. In the decades since, Juneteenth has been catapulted from a local or regional event to a national and international one – last year, for example, I was invited to attend a Juneteenth event in Toronto, Canada. Other emancipation commemorations travelled, too. The 8 August celebrations, for example, moved throughout Appalachia, through coal country and into urban metropolises such as Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit. Historically, the holiday included celebratory aspects – eating traditional foods, hosting libations, singing, dancing and playing baseball – but also a tangible push for change. Celebrants would gather to find family members from whom they had been separated during slavery, attend lectures and advocate for education, and practise harnessing their political power – something that was particularly relevant in the reconstruction days. For Isom, Juneteenth can become a day that the entire country comes together to celebrate freedom, while communities' specific emancipation celebrations can be hyper-local and hyper-specific. 'Even in [places] where there's not necessarily many Black folks at all, they're having the Juneteenth events,' he says. 'And so the local celebrations – like for here, 8 August or 22 September – that's where I feel like communities can showcase and celebrate their own cultures and traditions around Emancipation Day. We need both.' To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
The Guardian
18-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Parties and proclamations: Juneteenth across the diaspora
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. I'm Adria R Walker, a Mississippi-based race and equity reporter for the Guardian US, and I'm excited to be taking over this week. I've been working on a story about the ways Black American communities have celebrated – in many cases, for centuries – the formal end of slavery, which is variously called Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day and, perhaps most famously, Juneteenth. My article will be published on 19 June, Juneteenth, a federal holiday that was enshrined into law four years ago. In doing this reporting, I've learned a lot about the holiday that I grew up celebrating. For this week's edition of the newsletter, I'll guide you through what Emancipation Day can look like in the US and its legacy. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, which abolished slavery in the states that had seceded during the civil war, though slavery was abolished nationwide when the 13th amendment was ratified on 6 December 1865. News of the proclamation spread varyingly. Some southern enslavers attempted to outrun the order and the Union soldiers who brought news of it, moving the people they had enslaved farther and farther west until the army caught up with them. In Galveston, Texas, it was not until 19 June 1865 that people who were enslaved found out about the declaration. News of that freedom was enshrined in Juneteenth, celebrated annually by Galvestonians and nearby Houstonians. While Juneteenth has become the most famous emancipation celebration, it is far from the only one. I had the idea for the story a couple of years ago, on 8 May 2023, when I became curious about how communities across the south celebrated emancipation historically and in the present day. On that day, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, one of the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, my home town, had shared a newspaper clipping on Instagram about a historic Emancipation Day celebration on 8 May. The 8 May celebrations, which are still observed by the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science and the local community, began in 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Columbus to inform the enslaved people that they were free. Elsewhere, 8 August commemmorates the day the former president Andrew Johnson manumitted (freed) the people he had enslaved – the emancipation proclamation had not applied to Tennessee or West Virginia. William Isom, the director of Black in Appalachia, tells me that Samuel Johnson, a formerly enslaved person, is credited with the spread of 8 August celebrations. In Florida, the day is celebrated on 20 May, honouring that date in 1865 when Union troops read and enforced the emancipation proclamation at the end of the civil war. In Gallia County, Ohio, they have marked 22 September 1862, the day on which Lincoln drafted the emancipation proclamationsince 1863 – making it one of the longest-running emancipation celebrations in the country, Isom says. Some communities have celebrated 1 January since 1863, when Lincoln signed the proclamation, while others celebrate 31 December, or Watch Night, when enslaved and freed Black Americans gathered to hear news of the emancipation proclamation. Watch Night is still observed in Black communities across the south, including in the Carolinas, where Gullah Geechee people observe Freedom's Eve, and elsewhere. As a child, I attended Watch Night services at church in Mississippi, though I didn't appreciate the significance at the time. Whenever and wherever slavery was abolished, formerly enslaved people observed and celebrated the day – this is consistent across the African diaspora. I knew about Emancipation Day festivities in the Caribbean and in Canada, for example, though they are different from those in the US, but I didn't know such celebrations extended to the northern US. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion In Massachusetts, Emancipation Day, also known as Quock Walker Day, is on 8 July. Quock Walker, born in 1753, sued for and won his freedom in 1781. His case is considered to have helped abolish slavery in Massachusetts. In New York State, the Fifth of July was first celebrated in 1827, an event first held the day after full emancipation was achieved there. After the British empire ended slavery in 1838, many areas in the north began to observe 1 August. In Washington DC, on 16 April, people commemorate the anniversary of the 1862 signing of the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which abolished slavery and freed about 3,000 people in the capital. Under the act, former enslavers were compensated for the people they had enslaved, a common practice during efforts to end slavery around the world. However, the people who had been enslaved did not receive compensation. I vaguely remember attending my first Juneteenth celebration as a little girl. Farish Street, a historic Black district in Jackson, was abuzz with people. Despite it being the middle of summer in Mississippi, the heat didn't stop folks from coming out to eat, dance and socialise. The state is relatively close to Texas – it is about a six-hour drive from Jackson to Houston – so we have quite a bit of cultural overlap. It made sense that we would share holidays. Like many other cultural traditions, Juneteenth spread across the country with the arrival of southern people during the great migration. In the decades since, Juneteenth has been catapulted from a local or regional event to a national and international one – last year, for example, I was invited to attend a Juneteenth event in Toronto, Canada. Other emancipation commemorations travelled, too. The 8 August celebrations, for example, moved throughout Appalachia, through coal country and into urban metropolises such as Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit. Historically, the holiday included celebratory aspects – eating traditional foods, hosting libations, singing, dancing and playing baseball – but also a tangible push for change. Celebrants would gather to find family members from whom they had been separated during slavery, attend lectures and advocate for education, and practise harnessing their political power – something that was particularly relevant in the reconstruction days. For Isom, Juneteenth can become a day that the entire country comes together to celebrate freedom, while communities' specific emancipation celebrations can be hyper-local and hyper-specific. 'Even in [places] where there's not necessarily many Black folks at all, they're having the Juneteenth events,' he says. 'And so the local celebrations – like for here, 8 August or 22 September – that's where I feel like communities can showcase and celebrate their own cultures and traditions around Emancipation Day. We need both.' To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
The Guardian
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
How did 2020's Black Lives Matter movement change the world? Our panel responds
Osita Nwanevu Columnist at the Guardian US and a contributing editor at the New Republic. He is based in Baltimore Five years after 2020's historic wave of racial justice protests, the US is very obviously a country much changed, though not in the ways that activists and reformers had hoped. Many pundits have interpreted Donald Trump's re-election in November and the culture war he's waging against the kind of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that flourished in response to BLM's activism as the products of a broad public backlash against the movement's goals. On DEI in particular, that backlash is not much in evidence – a CBS poll in October, for instance, found 64% of Americans agreeing efforts to promote racial diversity and equality were going either about right or not far enough. But perceptions matter more than realities in politics. It should be said too that realities on the ground have been disappointing for police reformers lately. While the protests of 2020 led to the drafting of thousands of reform bills in state legislatures across the country, momentum has long since stalled. Civilian oversight boards are struggling to make an impact. Cities that initially cut police budgets wound up increasing funding above pre-protest levels. And federally, a few executive orders aside, hopes for major action fizzled completely under Joe Biden – whose 2020 campaign, researchers have found, was probably aided by the political engagement and shifts in public opinion the protests induced. We may not see protests of this scale again, but one never knows: 74 unarmed people, mostly people of colour, were killed by US police officers last year. And well beyond killings and confrontations, criminal justice in the US is riven with extraordinary inequities, racial and not, that affect millions. With the right spark or the right case, the country could return its attention to those inequities sooner than we expect. Fabiana Moraes Journalist and author based in Recife, Brazil I will never forget when the first protest after the murder of George Floyd was called in my city, Recife, in north-eastern Brazil. A neighbour soon appeared in our building's WhatsApp group sharing the poster of the call and saying: 'Be careful, it will be near the building.' The idea that anti-racist movements are something to be scared of is deeply rooted in Brazilian society. The killing of Black people has been part of the Brazilian social landscape for centuries. In fact, our infamously lethal police force is a source of pride for many. In São Paulo, the high number of killings in the outskirts of the city is celebrated, and there had been attempts to refuse body cameras on police uniforms. The state governor, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans party), a supporter of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, is a likely candidate for president of Brazil. Though he has seemingly reversed his position on body cameras, the thinktank Afrocebrap still warns that Freitas is committed to 'the populist notion that 'a good criminal is a dead criminal''. Unfortunately, the record for leftwing administrations is also grim. In the state of Bahia, which has a Workers' party governor, 752 people were killed in 662 violent incidents involving military police in less than one year in 2023. Another statistic about the Bahian police is even more stark: in that state, of the 616 people killed as a result of military police intervention in 2021, 603 were Black. This number represents 97.9% of the cases. Five years on from Black Lives Matter (BLM), there is little sign of reform or progress – in fact, the US is exacerbating the issue as they provide funding and training to Brazilian police. Adam Elliott-Cooper Researcher and writer based in London. He is the author of Black Resistance to British Policing and a member of Black Lives Matter UK 2020 was a hugely significant moment for our movement. BLM UK as an organisation received more than 36,000 individual donations, amounting in total to an incredible £1.2m. We didn't see this money as 'ours' but meant for Black anti-racist struggle in general, so we decided to redistribute 50% of the funds to other groups. It was described as the largest redistribution of funding to Black groups since the 1980s. This mean £570,000 went towards to dozens of grassroots, Black‑led collectives. This was part of our goal to uplift Black organising both in Britain and internationally. We dedicated the remaining funds towards building a Black-led, antiracist movement that can face the challenges ahead. Some of this key work is represented at our Festival of Collective Liberation, an annual national event in central London, and Project Timbuktu, our Black liberation political education programme. Hundreds of thousands of people in Britain took to the streets chanting 'Black lives matter', and forced institutions to confront colonial legacies, remove racist symbols and adopt (often imperfect) DEI initiatives. These modest and largely symbolic gains were short-lived, as the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment and recent race riots reveals the tenacity of racism in Britain. The return of Donald Trump and the rise of Reform, in the context of Labour's austerity economics, declining living standards and the hostile environment, makes antiracist solidarity and resistance more urgent now than ever. Zanele Mji Writer, investigative journalist and podcaster based in Johannesburg, South Africa In June 2020, South Africans marched through Johannesburg. We had taken to the streets the year before over the rape and murder of 19-year-old Uyinene Mrwetyana, a watershed-moment in our problem with gender-based violence. And we are no stranger to state killings – notably there was the case of Collins Khosa, who was beaten to death by soldiers in Johannesburg during South Africa's Covid-19 lockdown enforcement. This time, we were marching in solidarity with BLM. But I noticed something: the US-based BLM organisation and its leaders offered little reciprocal support to our and other African struggles, such as Nigeria's #EndSars protests against police brutality. It seemed that some Black lives mattered more than others. BLM's insularity benefited US corporations more than Black communities worldwide. Brands rushed to declare solidarity, launching DEI initiatives and partnering with prominent Black figures. But their investment in representation didn't translate into lasting systemic change. Meanwhile, 'digital nomads' fleeing the Trump presidency's erosion of human rights and DEI gains have flocked to South Africa, driving up the cost of housing and other necessities (conversely, Trump is inviting white Afrikaners to seek 'asylum' in the US citing false claims of 'white genocide'). Among them are Black Americans who seem to ignore local Black South Africans' pleas for them to consider the impacts of their 'lifestyle neocolonialism'. Wealthy, western Black lives matter most of all. Abeo Jackson Multi-disciplinary artist and academic from Trinidad and Tobago When I sat opposite the US Embassy in Port of Spain after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, I knew why I had been moved to join the protest. It was about recognising the injustice of racism and anti-blackness not just in the US but here in Trinidad and Tobago, where a considerable percentage of Afro-Trinbagonians face disparities in income, education and opportunity, and are victims of extrajudicial killings that are excused by a desensitized wider society. Trinidad and Tobago has seen few truly meaningful changes regarding the betterment of Black lives and our interactions with state apparatus. There have been amendments to school policy as it pertains to Afro hairstyles. This in a nation where more than 40% of our population is, in fact, of African descent. But our education system remains unequal, and government schools face the scourge of limited resources. The caveat of the new hair policy is that despite the new amendments being ministry policy, enforcement is at each school board's discretion. Extrajudicial killings undertaken by the police continue largely unchecked. The Police Complaints Authority continues to fight an uphill battle against 'rogue' elements in the service. And the population vacillates between apathy and support for these killings in the face of feeling helpless with regard to white-collar-funded gang violence. There continues to be outcry, however, in impoverished 'hot spot' communities where these murders take place. Many times their pain is met with wider public castigation and ridicule. We now have the further complication of a new government that is extremely sympathetic to Trumpian policy. The United National Congress administration was elected on a manifesto that promised easier access to firearms for citizens and stand-your-ground home invasion laws. These potential developments do not bode well for us, a society with issues of distrust along racial lines. Daniel Gyamerah Chair of Each One Teach One In Berlin, Black African people have been marching under the banner of Black Lives Matter since the Ferguson unrest of 2014. But 2020 felt like a turning point – the first time that we were joined by a cross-section of German society, to confront this global phenomenon of anti-Black racism. There was a sense that things in Germany might actually change. The German government presented a list of 89 measures to fight racism and extremism. But five years on that change has not come, the measures long forgotten. In April 2025, a young Afro-German man, Lorenz A, was killed by police in Oldenburg. He was shot at least three times from behind. This has made Afro-diasporic communities feel incredibly vulnerable and unsafe, and the government has said nothing. Even the most basic demand – to refer to a current UN effort to protect the human rights of people of African descent in the new coalition agreement's priorities – has not been taken up. Such disappointment has meant that antiracism activists have restrategised. Though we still agitate for change, we are focusing more on building our own institutions and infrastructure to sustain our movement. To take one example: Each One Teach One is a Black empowerment organisation based in Berlin – we recently published the Afrozensus, a data-gathering project that aims to fill in the knowledge gaps about the 1 million people of African origin in Germany. Though the rise of the far right threatens these gains, we are building confidence, and durable empowerment infrastructure not beholden to political moments.
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Field Notes: The birth of the playoffs, English football's biggest weekend
With the Guardian's unstoppable rise to global dominance** we at Guardian US thought we'd run a series of articles for fans wishing to improve their knowledge of the sport's history and storylines, hopefully in a way that doesn't patronise you to within an inch of your life. A warning: If you're the kind of person that finds The Blizzard too populist this may not be the series for you. ** Actual dominance may not be global. Or dominant The English Football League play-offs were introduced at the start of the 1986-87 season. So, having established that fact, let's park the idea completely, and go a further century back, all the way to Victorian times, and the birth of the Football League itself. The Football League was launched in 1888, and while its round-robin system of home and away games seems so glaringly obvious now – so watertight, so perfect – it's easy to forget that at some point in time it didn't exist, and some poor guy had to come up with the idea in the first place. Getting there took a bit of feeling around in the dark, accompanied by some abject failure. For example, a rival competition was set up by clubs not part of the nascent Football League. The Combination involved 20 clubs, but nobody put much thought into what any of them were combining with or for. Each would play eight matches against eight other sides in the division, and, er, that's it. Clubs were told to make their own arrangements, and with no central planning or subsequent guidance, this exercise in cat herding descended into high farce and was dissolved before the first season could be completed. A tough break for Newton Heath, who were looking good as the form team at the point of annulment; whatever happened to them? A total fiasco and an affront to sporting integrity, then, albeit one which bears worrying similarities to the new Swiss-style Champions League. Oh the humanity. Will we ever learn? While the Combination was floundering, at least the Football League had their house in order. Even so, when it kicked off, it was thought that the titular table would be ordered by number of wins alone, until someone came up with the bright idea of two points for a win and one for a draw two months later. There wasn't even a trophy for Preston North End to lift when they secured the title in January 1889. Everyone was making it all up while flying by the seat of their pants. So when a second tier of the Football League came along in 1892, what to do? Again, it would seem obvious to the modern eye that automatically relegating the worst x number of teams in the First Division and replacing them with a similar number of the best teams from the Second Division was the logical way forward. But that wasn't sufficiently complex for the hiveminds of the time. Instead, the Test Matches were born. The first promotion-relegation play-off system in English football history! The bottom three clubs in 1892-93's First Division played the top three of the all-new Second Division, with a place in the top division the prize for the winners of each Test. Better luck for Newton Heath this time round, as despite finishing bottom of the First, they won their Test with Second Division champions Small Heath (whatever happened to them, part II) after a rematch, 5-2, and retained their status. Darwen, third in the Second Division, beat Notts County, who went down a division, while Second Division runners-up Sheffield United beat Accrington, who resigned from the league then went out of business altogether. You'll notice we didn't say that Sheffield United and Darwen went up, because they didn't. At least, not immediately, not technically, not automatically, as they then had to be elected to the First Division through the committee. To be clear, they were subsequently given the green flag and granted promotion – any black-balling would have rendered the whole thing an entire waste of time – but what a pompous hoo-hah. At least the concept of the winner-takes-all Tests were fair and easy enough to understand. So of course the Football League soon set about tweaking the format, and after three years, the Tests morphed into a mini-league of four teams, the bottom two from the First and the top two from the Second. That's all good and well if it were it a round-robin like the League itself, but it wasn't, not quite. Instead, each team faced the two clubs from the other division, playing twice, but didn't get the chance to play the club from their own division at all. Debacle incoming! Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion The problem inherent in this scheme revealed itself during the 1898 Tests, and in some style. The play-off mini-league saw First Division failures Blackburn Rovers and Stoke take on the upwardly mobile Second Division pair of Burnley and Newcastle United. The first Tests panned out in such a manner that when Burnley and Stoke met in their final fixture, they knew that a draw would promote Burnley while also maintaining Stoke's first-tier status. And there wouldn't a single thing Blackburn or Newcastle could do about it. Goalless pact ahoy! The 0-0 draw that followed wasn't just predictable; it was brazen. There were no shots on goal. Players repeatedly hoofed the ball into touch, occasionally launching 'passes' or 'shots' out of the ground altogether. From their cynical viewpoint, this carry-on ensured everyone in the ground would be going home happy. But times were hard, the crowd had spent cash money to be entertained, and both sets of fans wanted a proper contest. And so, incensed, and by way of protest, they began fetching and returning all of the balls ballooned into touch; at one point, five were pinging around the field of play. And so football beat pinball to the multiball system by a good 58 years. (Bally's 1956 game Balls-a-Poppin was the first to do this, since you're asking.) 'These Test games have proved an utter farce!' hollered an editorial in the Manchester Guardian. 'A change of some kind is absolutely necessary if the contests are in future to be regarded with any seriousness.' To this end, after a month of controversy-fuelled to-ing and fro-ing, Football League bosses decided to expand the First Division, apologetically offering Newcastle and Blackburn sympathy promotions. The Tests were abolished, and a simple system of two up, two down, automatically decided by the final league placings, was introduced. You have to wonder why they didn't just go with this in the first place. The concept of play-offs didn't come around again until 1985, when the threat of a breakaway Super League (some things never change) was staved off by a compromise deal which gave more money and voting rights to the bigger clubs (those immutable things, again) and tweaked the Football League's structure. Play-offs, designed to rejig the size of each division, and to generate a little more dollar with the game struggling pretty much across the board, were the headline-grabber, to be implemented at the start of the 1987-88 season for two years. 'I hope it becomes a permanent feature in all divisions,' said Gordon Taylor, the head of the players union. 'It gives the end of the season more spice.' Business-end spice quickly became the order of the day. The format for the first two years of the new play-offs was particularly delicious, each divisional battle involving the team that had finished one place above the automatic relegation spots in the First Division and the three teams below the automatic promotion places in the Second Division. Two-legged semis were followed by a two-legged final. Replays if necessary. Cue a smorgasbord of stories that sizzled with dramatic heat. In 1987, sleeping giant Leeds United (immutable etc.) were seven minutes from promotion to the First Division in their final replay until Peter Shirtliff scored twice in four minutes to retain Charlton Athletic's status. A shock – not least because Shirtliff was a jobbing centre-back who, outside those four minutes, scored 13 goals in a 518-match career. But that was nothing compared to the seismic suffering of Sunderland, who were relegated to the Third Division for the very first time in their history after losing their semi-final with Gillingham 6-6 on away goals. The campaign cost Lawrie McMenemy a reputation hard won at Southampton. Not so great, man. Meanwhile in the battle for a place in the Third, Aldershot won promotion having conquered the Wanderers of both Bolton and Wolverhampton, a couple of David v Goliath slingshots of a magnitude scarcely believable now. A year later, Chelsea were surprisingly condemned to the Second Division by Middlesbrough at Stamford Bridge, at which point the on-pitch throwing of hands commenced between home fans and police. But overall, the play-offs had been an unqualified success, and Gordon Taylor got his wish. The Football League voted for more end-of-season spice, keeping the play-offs albeit tweaking them into a fully promotion-facing affair. The teams finishing one place above the automatic relegation spots could breathe again, with the demise of Chelsea and Sunderland having spooked some bigger clubs into dialling down some of that scary jeopardy. In the end, the play-offs didn't hold off the advent of a Super League for too long, with the Premier League coming into being in 1992. Nevertheless, the 90s also established the play-offs in the national consciousness, thanks to some of the most absurd and memorable rollercoaster rides in English football history: Swindon holding off a three-goal Leicester fightback in 1993; Steve Claridge volleying Leicester's winner 11 seconds from time against Crystal Palace in 1996; the eight goals shared between Charlton and Sunderland in 1998, Clive Mendonca's hat-trick, Michael Gray's chunked penalty, all that. 'I'm gutted,' sighed Charlton's match-winner Mendonca. 'I'm the biggest Sunderland fan in the world. But I'm also a professional footballer and I work for Charlton.' This paper added that it was 'the best game played at Wembley in 30 years,' right up there with the 1966 World Cup final and the 1953 Matthews match. It took a few twists and turns, and no small amount of tweaking and tinkering. But the Football League got there in the end.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Field Notes: The birth of the playoffs, English football's biggest weekend
With the Guardian's unstoppable rise to global dominance** we at Guardian US thought we'd run a series of articles for fans wishing to improve their knowledge of the sport's history and storylines, hopefully in a way that doesn't patronise you to within an inch of your life. A warning: If you're the kind of person that finds The Blizzard too populist this may not be the series for you. ** Actual dominance may not be global. Or dominant Advertisement The English Football League play-offs were introduced at the start of the 1986-87 season. So, having established that fact, let's park the idea completely, and go a further century back, all the way to Victorian times, and the birth of the Football League itself. The Football League was launched in 1888, and while its round-robin system of home and away games seems so glaringly obvious now – so watertight, so perfect – it's easy to forget that at some point in time it didn't exist, and some poor guy had to come up with the idea in the first place. Getting there took a bit of feeling around in the dark, accompanied by some abject failure. For example, a rival competition was set up by clubs not part of the nascent Football League. The Combination involved 20 clubs, but nobody put much thought into what any of them were combining with or for. Each would play eight matches against eight other sides in the division, and, er, that's it. Clubs were told to make their own arrangements, and with no central planning or subsequent guidance, this exercise in cat herding descended into high farce and was dissolved before the first season could be completed. A tough break for Newton Heath, who were looking good as the form team at the point of annulment; whatever happened to them? A total fiasco and an affront to sporting integrity, then, albeit one which bears worrying similarities to the new Swiss-style Champions League. Oh the humanity. Will we ever learn? Advertisement Related: Wrexham's success shows that content is now truly king in football While the Combination was floundering, at least the Football League had their house in order. Even so, when it kicked off, it was thought that the titular table would be ordered by number of wins alone, until someone came up with the bright idea of two points for a win and one for a draw two months later. There wasn't even a trophy for Preston North End to lift when they secured the title in January 1889. Everyone was making it all up while flying by the seat of their pants. So when a second tier of the Football League came along in 1892, what to do? Again, it would seem obvious to the modern eye that automatically relegating the worst x number of teams in the First Division and replacing them with a similar number of the best teams from the Second Division was the logical way forward. But that wasn't sufficiently complex for the hiveminds of the time. Instead, the Test Matches were born. The first promotion-relegation play-off system in English football history! The bottom three clubs in 1892-93's First Division played the top three of the all-new Second Division, with a place in the top division the prize for the winners of each Test. Better luck for Newton Heath this time round, as despite finishing bottom of the First, they won their Test with Second Division champions Small Heath (whatever happened to them, part II) after a rematch, 5-2, and retained their status. Darwen, third in the Second Division, beat Notts County, who went down a division, while Second Division runners-up Sheffield United beat Accrington, who resigned from the league then went out of business altogether. Advertisement You'll notice we didn't say that Sheffield United and Darwen went up, because they didn't. At least, not immediately, not technically, not automatically, as they then had to be elected to the First Division through the committee. To be clear, they were subsequently given the green flag and granted promotion – any black-balling would have rendered the whole thing an entire waste of time – but what a pompous hoo-hah. At least the concept of the winner-takes-all Tests were fair and easy enough to understand. So of course the Football League soon set about tweaking the format, and after three years, the Tests morphed into a mini-league of four teams, the bottom two from the First and the top two from the Second. That's all good and well if it were it a round-robin like the League itself, but it wasn't, not quite. Instead, each team faced the two clubs from the other division, playing twice, but didn't get the chance to play the club from their own division at all. Debacle incoming! Related: Soccer still has the power to leave us in tears. I should know The problem inherent in this scheme revealed itself during the 1898 Tests, and in some style. The play-off mini-league saw First Division failures Blackburn Rovers and Stoke take on the upwardly mobile Second Division pair of Burnley and Newcastle United. The first Tests panned out in such a manner that when Burnley and Stoke met in their final fixture, they knew that a draw would promote Burnley while also maintaining Stoke's first-tier status. And there wouldn't a single thing Blackburn or Newcastle could do about it. Goalless pact ahoy! Advertisement The 0-0 draw that followed wasn't just predictable; it was brazen. There were no shots on goal. Players repeatedly hoofed the ball into touch, occasionally launching 'passes' or 'shots' out of the ground altogether. From their cynical viewpoint, this carry-on ensured everyone in the ground would be going home happy. But times were hard, the crowd had spent cash money to be entertained, and both sets of fans wanted a proper contest. And so, incensed, and by way of protest, they began fetching and returning all of the balls ballooned into touch; at one point, five were pinging around the field of play. And so football beat pinball to the multiball system by a good 58 years. (Bally's 1956 game Balls-a-Poppin was the first to do this, since you're asking.) 'These Test games have proved an utter farce!' hollered an editorial in the Manchester Guardian. 'A change of some kind is absolutely necessary if the contests are in future to be regarded with any seriousness.' To this end, after a month of controversy-fuelled to-ing and fro-ing, Football League bosses decided to expand the First Division, apologetically offering Newcastle and Blackburn sympathy promotions. The Tests were abolished, and a simple system of two up, two down, automatically decided by the final league placings, was introduced. You have to wonder why they didn't just go with this in the first place. The concept of play-offs didn't come around again until 1985, when the threat of a breakaway Super League (some things never change) was staved off by a compromise deal which gave more money and voting rights to the bigger clubs (those immutable things, again) and tweaked the Football League's structure. Play-offs, designed to rejig the size of each division, and to generate a little more dollar with the game struggling pretty much across the board, were the headline-grabber, to be implemented at the start of the 1987-88 season for two years. 'I hope it becomes a permanent feature in all divisions,' said Gordon Taylor, the head of the players union. 'It gives the end of the season more spice.' Business-end spice quickly became the order of the day. The format for the first two years of the new play-offs was particularly delicious, each divisional battle involving the team that had finished one place above the automatic relegation spots in the First Division and the three teams below the automatic promotion places in the Second Division. Two-legged semis were followed by a two-legged final. Replays if necessary. Cue a smorgasbord of stories that sizzled with dramatic heat. Advertisement In 1987, sleeping giant Leeds United (immutable etc.) were seven minutes from promotion to the First Division in their final replay until Peter Shirtliff scored twice in four minutes to retain Charlton Athletic's status. A shock – not least because Shirtliff was a jobbing centre-back who, outside those four minutes, scored 13 goals in a 518-match career. But that was nothing compared to the seismic suffering of Sunderland, who were relegated to the Third Division for the very first time in their history after losing their semi-final with Gillingham 6-6 on away goals. The campaign cost Lawrie McMenemy a reputation hard won at Southampton. Not so great, man. Meanwhile in the battle for a place in the Third, Aldershot won promotion having conquered the Wanderers of both Bolton and Wolverhampton, a couple of David v Goliath slingshots of a magnitude scarcely believable now. Related: New Reading owner Rob Couhig: 'There is a real market for the EFL in the US' A year later, Chelsea were surprisingly condemned to the Second Division by Middlesbrough at Stamford Bridge, at which point the on-pitch throwing of hands commenced between home fans and police. But overall, the play-offs had been an unqualified success, and Gordon Taylor got his wish. The Football League voted for more end-of-season spice, keeping the play-offs albeit tweaking them into a fully promotion-facing affair. The teams finishing one place above the automatic relegation spots could breathe again, with the demise of Chelsea and Sunderland having spooked some bigger clubs into dialling down some of that scary jeopardy. In the end, the play-offs didn't hold off the advent of a Super League for too long, with the Premier League coming into being in 1992. Nevertheless, the 90s also established the play-offs in the national consciousness, thanks to some of the most absurd and memorable rollercoaster rides in English football history: Swindon holding off a three-goal Leicester fightback in 1993; Steve Claridge volleying Leicester's winner 11 seconds from time against Crystal Palace in 1996; the eight goals shared between Charlton and Sunderland in 1998, Clive Mendonca's hat-trick, Michael Gray's chunked penalty, all that. 'I'm gutted,' sighed Charlton's match-winner Mendonca. 'I'm the biggest Sunderland fan in the world. But I'm also a professional footballer and I work for Charlton.' This paper added that it was 'the best game played at Wembley in 30 years,' right up there with the 1966 World Cup final and the 1953 Matthews match. It took a few twists and turns, and no small amount of tweaking and tinkering. But the Football League got there in the end.
