Saturday, April 10, 2010

The illustrated Hello: Vince Hilaire

Vince Hilaire was a black footballer in the First Division at a time when that wasn't always a comfortable thing to be:

"After about 20 minutes, the manager, then Terry Venables, told me to go and have a warm-up. I came out of the dug-out, and I started jogging around the touchline. I couldn't believe the abuse that was coming at me... animal noises and all the names you think of calling a black person. Any name under the sun. And it frightened me a bit, so I couldn't wait to get back in the dug-out. And I thought, 'Well, if this is the sort of reception I'm going to get, then I don't really want to know'"

He didn't back down, though, and went on to represent ChelseaCrystal Palace more than 200 times, played for England's Under 21 team, managed a spell in the American soccer scene and enjoyed a gentle career decline through Luton, Portsmouth, Leeds, Stoke and Exeter.

But he owes his big break to Terry Venables. Venables, who fancied himself as something of a singer back in the day:



That clip did feature some Robbie Williams. To offset it, here's Amanda Palmer with her... tribute... to Hilaire's Leeds United. Probably:



[Part of the Illustrated Hello]

[For more - much, much more - on football and music crossing over, Football and Music is your number one source. Which would make it the goalkeeper.]

[Update: Crystal Palace. Not Chelsea. I regret the error.]


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Vince Hilaire never played for Chelsea, it was Crystal Palace you stupid cunt

Anonymous said...

As above. Vince would never have been able to play for Chelsea, due to their fanbase being full of racist twats who liked booing and making monkey noises at their own black players and making Hitler salutes.

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