Dr Colin King established the Black and Asian Coaches Association (BACA) a support network of over 700 diverse coaches nationally.
King is a UEFA A licence holder from Brixton who is also a qualified psychiatric nurse and founder of the Martin Shaw King Trust. The charity was established 20 years ago in memory of his late brother and supports opportunities for people from disadvantaged communities.
Doctor Colin King MBE writes to celebrate fifty years of empowerment through sport and 30 years of Black History Month…
Fifty years on from the black power salute and thirty years since the inaugural Black History Month, it is important that all people across the borders of race embrace the salute of humanity of social and political change once attempted by the human rights salute during the 1968 Olympic games on October 16th.
It is also important to celebrate how the PFA has supported grassroots communities. I have been blessed, highly privileged and treated with both dignity and respect by all at the PFA including Jim Hicks (Head of Coaching), Colin Hill (Commercial Director) and Gordon Taylor OBE (Chief Executive).
The PFA have normalised me as human, conversed with me without perceptions or barriers and empowered me with true equity to be part of the warmth of their sporting family.
As a grassroots player who failed to make it into the professional game due to a mental health breakdown, the PFA have supported me with both wisdom and warmth and celebrated my achievements, including my induction into the Hall of Fame in 2015 and in 2017 when I was awarded with an MBE.
The PFA have encouraged me to speak out about injustices in and outside sport.
They have embraced the important role of sport activism and rescued many from the post trauma of racism suffered in British society.
Over this period, I have built important relationships of mentoring, support and guidance from PFA staff within a joint salute of humanity celebrated during the Olympic games of 1968.
There have been enriching moments of humanity that can be attributed to this moment on October 16th, 1968 when a white individual alongside two black athletes, Tommy Smith and John Carlos stood on that stand and embraced the human rights salute.
It has had important implications for my experiences in sport and outstanding individuals inside the PFA who have engaged with the sentiment of change in race equality that has led a new empowering culture of sport equality.
PFA Head of Equalities Simone Pound and her team have embraced the communal spirit of change. Jim Hicks has provided a focused in relation to equality within coaching as a lived commitment to redress injustices of the access to BAME coaches.
As an organisation it has connected with the experiences under-represented as a leader of change of race equality, we should all be celebrated as individuals who have stood together with their BAME sisters and brothers to drive real change in sport activism.
The PFA have stood in empowerment with a generation of diverse groups and individuals and created the birth and the life as a civil rights campaigning organisation.
They have become the practitioners of authentic equality, they share a purpose, like the empowerment salute fifty years ago, developing an important legacy of coproduction, of working collaboratively, of standing on the same stand, working in the same room and reaching a new equality in sport for the next fifty years.
Most importantly I would like to highlight Michael Bennett (PFA Head of Player Welfare) who has enhanced the world of many in both the grass and professional game without discrimination and empowered through the uniqueness of his altruism and fate.
.jpg)
