19th October 1946 - my first visit to see Sunderland play.

 The link below is to the programme of the first football league game I ever attended. It was held at Sunderland's ground which was then at Roker Park. My father took me as I was only aged ten. Normally I then went to watch him play in goal at home and away matches for a local team called Easington Village Rovers. So our visits to Roker Park were then limited depending on his team not having a game. About a couple of years later I started watching regular matches at Roker Park with my school mates. Sunderland then playing in the top division of the Football League.

https://www.mullocksauctions.co.uk/lot-767237-194647_sunderland_v_grimsby_town_div_1_match.html

Diane Abbott's letter.

 

Although Diane Abbott has apologised for her letter to the Guardian which led to her loss of membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party, she remains suspended. This is the letter that she is suspended over.

"Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated”, Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.

It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.
Diane Abbott
House of Commons, London SW1"

Her letter clearly ignores leading experiences of racism such as the Holocaust. Given a comment from her opposing all forms of racism, she should then quickly have her membership restored.  This matter could also have been resolved without her explusion from the Parliamenary Labour Party.