It's time to acknowledge black culture's influence on football

North West London’s likeable YouTube star Chunkz has had a meteoric rise over the past year or so. The numbers say it all, with over 1 million YouTube subscribers, 975k Instagram followers and 265k Twitter followers. But for many, he is more recognisable for the hilarious football-related videos he features in for brands such as Pro:Direct Soccer, Footlocker and Footasylum that often involve him or good friends Yung Filly and Harry Pinero interviewing professional football players or managers from a more unique and refreshing angle.

These have prompted viral moments such as Mason Mount losing a ‘Guess the song challenge’ and his forfeit being to do Chunkz’s ‘Frankenstein’ celebration. Mount agreed and did the amusing celebration after opening the scoring for Chelsea against Everton back in March. His Chelsea and England team-mate Tammy Abraham had sent social media into a frenzy the month before when he exhibited his singing talents after losing the same challenge. Other highlights include Raheem Sterling cackling at Chunkz’s hairline and the YouTuber curling an incredible free-kick into the top corner of the goal in front of Arsenal duo Sead Kolasinac and Henrikh Mkhitaryan during the club’s pre-season tour of the United States.

However, despite Chunkz, Yung Filly and Harry Pinero being more known for their comedic moments, a couple of videos with the England futsal team are very insightful into the differences between futsal and the more familiar 11-a-side game of football. While a discussion over whether a footballer should walk off the pitch if they are being racially abused proved that they are capable of handling more thought-provoking topics too.

Some will point to the launch of YouTube network COPA90 in 2012 as a key juncture in introducing more diverse and original football content, as opposed to old, white, grumpy ex-players moaning on television - an editorial proposition that has become embodied with the likes of Graeme Souness being more concerned by Paul Pogba’s latest haircut rather than what is happening on the field. COPA90’s early coverage was headlined by Poet & Vuj’s talk show ‘Comments Below’ and comedian Tom Deacon’s ‘Eurofan’. The former saw the quirky duo discuss the latest football news through the medium of fans’ YouTube comments, whereas the latter saw Deacon visit various European cities where Champions League clubs are based to sample the footballing culture and witness a game live in the stadium amongst the ultras.

More recently, COPA90 have two channels - COPA90 Football, which has more varied content including a women’s football podcast entitled ‘That’s the Tea’, and COPA90 Stories, which is home to a brilliant series called Derby Days that is presented by the energetic Australian Eli Mengem. Two particularly good episodes are a trip to Belgrade, Serbia to learn more about the Partizan and Red Star rivalry and an episode on the South Coast derby between Southampton and their arch-rivals Portsmouth.

Poet left COPA90 after some sexist tweets from his past surfaced. David Vujanic left voluntarily with him and the duo have now set up their own channel and platform that already has over 100k subscribers despite being less than a year old. The main show on the channel is ‘Comments Under’. The filming location tends to be a source of humour, with the duo planting their chairs outside Shoreditch High Street station, in a kebab shop and other random places to discuss the latest football stories.

They also have a podcast on the channel that featured Ian Wright, Rio Ferdinand and Troy Deeney as its first three guests. The channel is not the only football discussion platform the duo are involved with either, as the long-running Filthy Fellas, which features Poet as a regular panellist and Vuj as an occasional one, continues to entertain. Started in 2014, ahead of the 2014-15 football season, by RWD Magazine and their editor Tego Sigel, it has become popular due to its unique format, risqué humour and the hilarious in-jokes that sometimes cause them to drift wildly off-topic.

Other regular guests on the show have included jokester and former professional footballer Kevin Stephens, who is more widely known as Stevo the Madman; Craig Mitch who presents content for BBC Sport and the FA amongst others; internet personality and DJ Specs Gonzalez; actor/presenter Miles, who is the butt of most jokes; and the trio of Jordy, Skits and Skribz, who along with Poet form the rap group Vibbar.

The Beautiful Game Podcast and Stoppage Time TV are worthy of a mention too. Both podcasts feature a team of young black males and attract high-profile participants. In its four and a bit months of existence, The Beautiful Game Podcast has featured Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers, Atletico Madrid and England right-back Kieran Trippier and Arsenal Women’s star Leah Williamson as part of its impressive array of guests. Much of what is discussed by the team of Dotun Abijoh, Tunji Abijoh, Deji Odedina and Justin Cole along with each of their invitees is later picked up on by the mainstream media and used for national news articles, which is testament to the quality of the quartet’s work. Meanwhile, Stoppage Time TV has had rapper, actor and Tottenham fan Scorcher as one of their multiple guests from the music world. The self-anointed first black female-led football podcast in England, Goal Diggers UK, is equally impressive and last year took part in a show on South London-based radio station Reprezent.

Many of these YouTubers may be racking up hundreds of thousands of views, and millions in some cases, but how relevant are they really? Very, is the answer. Sky Sports’ new show Saturday Social has featured Youtubers such as WillNE and Spencer Owen and rappers including Kamakaze, Yizzy, Capo Lee and Youngs Teflon all debating football’s major talking points each week. Although traditionalists are likely to be very critical of this type of football coverage, it makes sense to balance traditional coverage with content that engages young people, is slightly less serious than in-depth tactical analysis and embraces black culture’s influence on football in this country - something that is largely ignored by mainstream media outlets.

Even the football clubs themselves are starting to see the benefit of tapping into black culture by collaborating with rappers to launch their kits for the forthcoming season: AJ Tracey dropped football-themed grime anthem ‘False 9’ to help Spurs promote their 2017-18 home shirt and Sheffield MC Coco linked up with fellow Sheffield United fan Toddla T to assist the Blades with their 2019-20 kit launch.

In the NBA, players’ outfits when arriving at games and their footwear when they play are a source of interest and entertainment, whereas in British sport and particularly football they are policed. As part of the NBA’s fun-filled annual All-Star weekend, players are able to express themselves and celebrate their talent through events such as the dunk contest, skills challenge and the All-Star game itself. Popular musicians always perform as part of it too, with black artists such as J Cole, Alicia Keys and Drake being past choices for the All-Star game’s famed halftime show.

This is not to say that British football, and especially the Premier League, should become Americanised and incorporate aspects that may detract from the football itself. Instead, this is a challenge for British football’s stakeholders to embrace more original and entertaining forms of football content that have been making waves on social media and YouTube for years. Not as a replacement for traditional football coverage but as something to supplement it.

There should also be an onus on British football and those at the top of its hierarchy to embrace black culture more widely considering that the quantity of BAME footballers in the Premier League is now estimated to be approaching 40%. Sky Sports have made one of the first tentative steps to do so, and BBC Sport have also done work in this area with rappers such as Big Zuu and Double S performing a 90-second freestyle on the football team they support being one example.

In all likelihood, this is to some extent due to the presence of black football pundits such as Ian Wright, whose success as a pundit has largely been attributed to him not toning down his affable personality, thus encouraging the aforementioned companies to engage with black culture more and again showing why representation is so important. This is evidenced by him presenting a show called Wrighty's Tekkers Challenge - a collaboration between BBC Sport and music platform SBTV that saw rappers go up against each other in a series of skills and finishing drills to see who is the better footballer.

Hopefully all media covering football will increasingly realise that acknowledging black culture is essential to the way in which they cover the beautiful game.

By James Truscott - @jgtruscott