Cleveland Brown

After a night of yet more shameful Euro racism at City's draw with the Old Lady, I thought it would be worthwhile jotting down a few words in celebration of a great black man. Where the fuck do the Italians (and Spanish for that matter) get off with the fucking monkey noises? I mean, Russia, Serbia, Croatia... Though you can't condone it in these places, you can perhaps see why the vicious meatheads have some traction, what with the history of war and totalitarian regimes, as well as the lack of exposure to any kind of multi-culturalism. But Italy? All that stuff with Paolo Di Canio. It makes the blood run cold.

So, on to our celebration.

A football player for the Cleveland Browns, Jim Brown (b. 1936 - just a year after my own father's birth) went into acting after his sporting career had ended. He was a supreme athlete, excelling at (American) football, basketball, lacrosse and running. He is often described as the greatest player in NFL history, and that's going some. He was good at rushing or something - I've not really been a fan of NFL since I was a teenager, but I can of course appreciate how talented the guy must have been to receive such an accolade.

His character in The Dirty Dozen - Robert T Jefferson - was convicted of killing a white officer in self defence, and of course is deeply disliked by Telly Savalas' racist and psychotic Maggot (I don't mean that Telly had a racist psychotic maggot for a pet. He may have done, but I don't think so).

Jim has had quite an illustrious film career, going on to appear in such movies as Ice Station Zebra, The Running Man, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Mars Attacks!, and Any Given Sunday, among many others. He was also a regular in stuff like The A Team, TJ Hooker, Highway to Heaven, CHiPs and Knight Rider and would have spent a great deal of time gracing British TV screens on Saturdays and Sundays during the 80s. In the film 100 Rifles, he was lucky enough to play in supposedly the first interracial love scene with Raquel Welch. Lucky bastard. Still going strong as some sort of adviser to the Cleveland Browns, he seems also to be still making movies, with - according to IMDb - The Sandy Creek Girls currently in production. I mean, what's not to love about a guy like that?

I'm glad Jo got the equaliser to stick it to those fascist cunts.