SOCCER ANGLES:As the Stephen Lawrence murder trial continues, football people should be wary of taking partisan positions on the racism issue, writes MICHAEL WALKER

'THE POINT about football in Britain is that it is not just a sport people take to, like cricket or tennis or running long distances. It is inherent in the people. It is built into the urban psyche, as much a common experience to our children as are uncles and school. It is not a phenomenon; it is an everyday matter. There is more eccentricity in deliberately disregarding it than in devoting a life to it . . . the way we play the game, organise it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are."– Arthur Hopcraft, The Football Man, 1968

DUE TO the success of the film remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spythis year, some of you may be fortunate enough to receive a DVD copy of the original TV series wrapped in Christmas paper in the next 24 hours.

As the opening music plays hauntingly over slow pictures of Russian dolls, a name appears: it is Arthur Hopcraft’s.

It is an enticing reminder that the man behind the screen adaptation of a brilliant series was also responsible for one of the great books on what in Ireland is known as soccer, The Football Man.

The sentences quoted above are lifted from the first paragraph of Hopcraft’s introduction to a fantastic book. They were worth revisiting in a week when English football once again proved its power, though this has not been such an enticing reminder of the sheer everyday importance of football.

These are hard times across these islands yet in the midst of it, in the shape of Luis Suarez, Patrice Evra, Anton Ferdinand and John Terry in particular, football again shoved its way to the top of the agenda.

Of course, it has been no everyday matter in the Hopcraft sense. The slur of racism has made this an unpleasant, difficult time but one that must be confronted.

There was a feeling that the Suarez-Evra and Terry-Ferdinand issues might slip away into a fudge in the manner of Joleon Lescott’s and Tim Howard’s claims against the Turkish Newcastle player Emre following a game at Everton five years ago.

Emre was said to have called Joseph Yobo “a f**cking nigger”. Emre’s defence was that he called Yobo “a f**king negro”. An independent commission found they were “not satisfied” the case had been proved.

Even if black players’ heads were shaken in silence, you could still hear their dismay. Negro is a legitimate word but then so are many – such as Turk or Fenian – until they arrive coated in bile. These cases should make us think about our use of language.

But this week a combination of the English Football Association and, more controversially, the Crown Prosecution Service ensured the Emre fudge would not be repeated. Another independent commission found that Suarez had used the colour of Evra’s skin in remarks made during the Liverpool-Manchester United match in October.

We still do not know the full details but Suarez has not denied using a word similar to negro towards Evra.

The commission – in full knowledge of the facts – decided to ban Suarez for eight games and fine him £40,000 (€48,000). This acts as both punishment and message to football and beyond: zero tolerance towards racism.

Liverpool’s reaction was like that of the Kop seeing Suarez tripped in the box: fast, loud and with fingers pointed.

Suddenly Suarez was both perpetrator, and victim.

Maybe he is, and maybe there are shades of grey in this incident. Liverpool colleagues and manager Kenny Dalglish donned T-shirts on Wednesday at Wigan to illustrate their feelings and certainly Suarez does not seem like a card- carrying member of the English Defence League. But T-shirts? Is this The Liverpool Way? There is an inescapable conclusion that Liverpool think Evra is a liar at worst, an unreliable character at best.

This ignores the fact the commission heard no denial from Suarez.

John Barnes, a man who knows the subject, confirmed this when calling the punishment a “witch-hunt”.

Barnes said of Suarez: “By admitting (what he said), he obviously didn’t feel that what he said was that significant. Because he could easily have gotten away with it by saying: ‘I never said a word’.”

It may have been “significant” to Evra. This is the “cultural differences” defence and Barnes accepts it. It does not mean he agrees with it but there will be some who view Barnes’s opinion through his friendship with Dalglish.

If so, perhaps they should consider Paul McGrath’s stern reaction in the context of his years at Old Trafford.

But to do so brings us back to the everyday tribalism that distorts perspective but which is omnipresent.

Hopcraft would have recognised that this week but he may also have shared McGrath’s opinion that there has been a shift in gear since the 1960s.

There now appears to be a parallel process to football controversy. The process itself becomes a story; there is a circling of wagons, phone calls to the lawyers. In a globalised world English football looks more tribal than ever and a language of choice is abuse.

When McGrath said: “The game itself has gone too big, it’s about winning and the money. The actual element of football being a game has long since gone, it is all about protecting your interest,” he hit upon a nerve – or should have.

Protecting your interest: that is a telling phrase. The Game is a game within a game.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is another telling phrase and it applies to John Terry. But how did the chest-thumping Chelsea captain look to Anton Ferdinand on Thursday night. Does anyone think Ferdinand has raised the matter on a whim? Ferdinand’s brother Rio plays alongside Terry for England. Anton Ferdinand knows there is a bigger picture and that he is taking a risk by walking into it. Once again there will be abuse.

But there is the bigger picture and it is society. If one good can come from these incidents it is that racism is being discussed in a serious forum and that the voices of the abused are being heard. Football is that forum and that matters because football is “inherent in the people”.

A problem arises if, as is happening, a rival chorus intends to drown out those voices, or another tries to morph the situation into an older geographical hostility. Then football is the forum for other characters and football suffers.

It is suffering and McGrath’s “long since gone” argument is a strong one.

Football matters, yes, but it would be appropriate if some stood back and saw that this is occurring at the same time as Stephen Lawrence’s murder trial.

And turned down the volume.