And then I learned a couple of days later that the fans of his previous club Lokomotiv Moscow had marked his departure with this banner:
The banana, of course, is meant to indicate that Odemwingie is a monkey. He is half-Nigerian and half-Uzbekistani. Does he really look like a monkey?
As distasteful as this truly is, the response of my fellow Baggies has been wonderful. The blogosphere and message boards have been busy spreading the word and a fast-growing Facebook group expressing out disgust at this racism has been created. A banner has been designed and is in production, hopefully to be on display at our next home game:
Of course we do have form in this regard. In the 70s the Albion were at the forefront of the integration of black players into English football; while most clubs in England were exclusively white we had three black guys in the first team (in contrast Everton didn't manage to find a black player who was good enough to play regularly for their team until the 1990s). And it was a superb team too.
It's made me even prouder to be a Baggie. And I'm always very proud to be a Baggie so that's no mean feat at all!
