Black History Month Players: Bernard Lama

 As October is Black History Month in the UK, I will spend this month publishing threads on X (formerly Twitter) on certain players who have been part of a long and distinguished line of Black representation at West Ham United. With this being the second year I have undertaken this exercise, I thought it would be fair to publish a blog post for those who don't have X or find threads on the platform difficult to read. Feel free to read last year's threads, via this link. But today's post and thread on X is on the first World Cup-winning goalkeeper to play for West Ham United, Bernard Lama. 

Born just outside of Rennes in Western France on the 7th of April 1963, Lama actually grew up in the French territory of Guyana from the age of 3. Living in the Guianese capital of Cayenne, Lama learned how to play football on the beaches of the South American country. At 15, Lama began his footballing career with the amateur futsal club, Montjoly FC. He would play for the club for 3 years before leaving to return to France at the age of 18 without his father's permission, determined to make it as a professional footballer. His gamble paid off as he was signed by top division club Lille in 1981, but was assigned to play in Lille’s B team and sent on loan to develop his skills as a professional goalkeeper. Between 1981 and 1984, Lama would go on 2 loan spells to teams in the lower divisions of French football in Abbeville & Besançon.

It was at Besançon where Lama got his first taste of regular professional football, making 23 appearances for the side and earning the attention of his parent club, Lille, where they decided to renew his contract for an additional season. Finally making his debut for Lille in the 1985/86 season, Lama made the most of the additional season he had been given by the club becoming the club's number 1 in the following few years, making 103 appearances for the club before leaving in 1989. Remarkably, Lama also scored a singular penalty for Lille during a game in 1989. However, Lama never felt as if he was the indisputable number 1 for Lille and wanted that security in his position, so he left to join Metz.

Ironically, despite wanting security as an undisputed number-one goalkeeper, Lama spent the next 3 years playing for three different clubs as a number-one keeper (Figure that one out).  He would join Metz from Lille in 1989, playing all 38 games that season before moving to Brest in 1990, where Lama never missed a single game in that season either. Finally, he joined Lens for the 1991/92 season, making 36 appearances, before signing for PSG in 1992. 

Signing for PSG in 1992 was a big deal as Lama was replacing the iconic Joel Bats, who had been the club’s long-term keeper as well as France’s number 1 for many years. Lama would replace Bats for both club and country, making his France debut in 1993, going on to make 44 appearances for the French side between 1993 and 2000. In his 5 years with PSG, Lama helped the club win the Coupe de France twice, with the first win coming in his debut season for the club and would help the club win a European Cup winners cup in 1996.  He was also voted French football’s best player in 1994. By 1996, Lama was France’s recognised first-choice keeper, playing all 5 games of their Euro 96 campaign in England and was his club’s first-choice keeper too. Then things took a little wobble...

Having suffered a serious knee injury in September 1996, Lama missed the rest of 1996 recovering from the injury before returning to action in early 1997. However, only weeks after returning, Lama was banned from French football for 2 months in February 1997 for cannabis consumption, with PSG washing their hands of the player shortly after. Needing a new club to play for with the 1998 World cup in his home country of France on the horizon, Lama was picked up by West Ham as a replacement for Craig Forrest in December 1997 after spending the first half of the season training with the PSG reserves. He got his chance when Forrest was injured, making his debut against Arsenal in a 0-0 draw in March 1998. Between that game and the end of the season, Lama made 12 appearances for the club and impressed the club enough to offer him a longer contract to stay in and his country to select him for the 1998 World Cup as an understudy to Fabian Barthez, who had taken Lama's position as France's number 1 goalkeeper. However, instead of staying in London with the Hammers, he re-joined PSG following the World Cup in 1998, which France won for the first time in their home country.

Making another 65 appearances for PSG in the following 2 years, Lama would make the French Euro 2000 squad that won the tournament, before retiring from playing full time in 2001 after a final season with Rennes, where he made 32 appearances. 

But Lama was not finished in football just yet and in 2006, he would become manager of the Kenyan national team. His coaching career would not last longer and he would resign 2 months later, blaming a lack of professionalism from the Kenyan Football Federation. But despite his coaching career not working out, Lama has been responsible for the development of young players through his involvement with the Diambars institute in Senegal alongside other pros including Patrick Vieira and Marcel Desailly. The Diambars institute13-year-old is a non-profit school started in 2003 by many footballers of African heritage, with a mission statement of using “football as a driving force of education”, where 13-year old students will spend 5 years honing their football and academic skills. Whilst the likes of Idrissa Gueye are part of the 20% of students who go on to become professional footballers, the school sets up the other 80% to become what they call “champions of life”. 

Additionally, Lama has taken an interest in producing clean water in his home country of Guyana. Whilst the water supply of the country is vast, it has also suffered mercury pollution in connection to gold mining. In response to this, Lama set up two purification plants and his company Dilo produces 1/3 of the clean water in the country. 

When he is not encouraging the new generation of African footballers or providing clean water to Guyana, Lama is also an anti-racism campaigner. His personal belief that football has the beauty of its responsibility that demands individuals takes for themselves as well as others is one that he also applies to his anti-racism work. He also states his beliefs that racism has no place in society and no such place in sports, which explains his outspoken views against a proposed quota by French football in 2011 regarding players of black and Arabic origin. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the 2011 saga, French media uncovered a proposal by the French football federation proposals that would limit the number of players of African and north African descent in training academies once they reach the age of 13 to 30%. This caused huge outrage in France with these racist proposals discussed and supported by then France manager & Lama’s former teammate Laurent Blanc. Many of Lama’s former teammates also came out against these proposals, which were quickly denounced & forced Blanc out of the job. But they highlighted that racism is still in sport & that if hierarchies are trying to impose such policies, we have a long way to go to ensure an equal and inclusive game for all with Lama rightly believing and proclaiming that we are all responsible to ending racism & stopping racist quotas like these. 

Thanks for reading. 

If you are interested in learning about the 2011 French Football quota saga, the French language documentary Les Blues is the best place to start. Failing that, this article from 2011 is a good place to start too: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/29/french-football-race-row 

Additional quotes were taken from Brian Belton's 'The Black Hammers'.