In an effort to rid the racism he was seeing when attending football games, Cardiff University student Dan Tennent-Ralphs, created t-shirts promoting team unity and the freedom for anyone to play the sport. He sent the shirts to various football players and asked them to have a photograph of them wearing the T-Shirts
so he can post them to his website."I have been a big soccer fan for years and I despise racism, like most people. In recent weeks, I have been speaking personally to such names in football as Gabriel Clarke, Steve Bruce, Ron Atkinson, Jon Champion, Peter Reid, Glen Hoddle, Graham Taylor, Clive Tyldesley, Terry Venables, David Pleat, Mervyn Day and Gary Lewin,” said Tennent-Ralphs.
Launching a charity that would help spread the message to end racism in all sports is one of Tennent-Ralphs goals. Another is to encourage sports players to visit schools to talk about racism and why it is an unnecessary and unacceptable.
So far, football players Theo Walcott, James Millner and Mark Noble have participated by sending their photos.
Because many young people enjoy playing or watching football matches and since many idolise their favourite players, Tennent-Ralphs hopes that his message to end racism will be heard and his message of ‘One game for all, without racism’ will be embraced.
(c)Griszka Niewiadomski, www.sxc.hu
