Black History Month Players: Jobi McAnuff

  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 Jobi McAnuff. 

Born on the 9th of November 1981 in North London,  McAnuff grew up in the Northumberland Park area, which sits in the shadows of Tottenham Hotspur's former ground, White Hart Lane, but instead of coming through with his local club in Spurs, McAnuff made his way into professional football through Wimbledon’s academy in the late 1990s, signing his first pro contract at the age of 18, but not making his debut until a year later. 

Emerging in the Wimbledon side for the 2001/02 season, McAnuff became an immediate regular and was a breakout star that season, earning the young player of the year award from Wimbledon fans. In his 2 and a half seasons with the club, McAnuff made 96 appearances, scoring 13 goals. After his breakout season With Wimbledon, McAnuff received international recognition, when he made his international debut for Jamaica for whom he was eligible to play for through his Jamaican father, in a friendly against Nigeria in May 2002. However, after this game, McAnuff would not play for Jamaica again until 2013. As McAnuff became a breakout star, clubs became interested in him and his departure became inevitable due to the precarious financial situation Wimbledon found themselves in at the time. Alongside teammate Nigel Reo Coker, He would agree a move to Portsmouth in 2003, but the move fell through due to financial complications. However, he would eventually move away from Wimbledon, joining West Ham in January 2004, where he'd be reunited with his former Wimbledon teammates, Nigel Reo-Coker and Adam Nowland.

In his 6 months with the club, McAnuff would play 14 games & score 1 goal, a spectacular effort against Crewe as shown below, before being moved on to Cardiff City in the summer of 2004 in order to make room for more funds, but honestly left West Ham far too soon. 

McAnuff would come back to haunt West Ham whilst at Cardiff, scoring his first goal for the Welsh club in a 4-1 win over the Hammers. In his sole season with Cardiff, he would make 48 appearances, scoring 3 goals and was a standout star in an average Cardiff side that season that finished 16th. His performances at Cardiff earned him a £600,000 move to Crystal Palace, where he was one of the standout stars of the championship in his first season. In his two seasons with Palace, McAnuff made 83 appearances for the club, scoring 14 goals. Once again impressing at another football club, McAnuff would earn a £1.75 million pound move to Watford. His time at Watford was a strange spell in McAnuff’s career as a slow start saw him replaced in the side before returning to the side to make himself a key player again. 

After leaving Watford, McAnuff would move to Reading, where he would become a key member of the side for 5 years, serving as captain of the club for2011 onwards, winning the championship title in 2012, beating former club West Ham to the title in his first season as captain. In the 2012/13 season, McAnuff would play in the Premier League for the first and only season in his career. McAnuff would leave Reading in 2014 after 5 years of loyal service, making 206 appearances and scoring 16 goals for the Berkshire Club. McAnuff holds his time at Reading in reverence saying in a statement after leaving that “It's been a thoroughly enjoyable chapter of my life & I've captained the club with massive amounts of pride & enjoyment”.

During his solitary premier league season, McAnuff would also reignite his international career with Jamaica, earning an additional 31 caps over the next 3 years and becoming part of the squad that won the 2014 Caribbean Cup in their home country, in which McAnuff scored a penalty in the shootout in the final against Trinidad and Tobago. He would follow this up with an appearance at the 2016 Copa America tournament, before retiring from international football at the age of 34. 

But back to his club career, After leaving Reading in 2014, McAnuff would joining Leyton Orient for 2 years, making 51 appearances and scoring 6 goals before being released in 2016, shortly after he had returned from participating in the Copa America. After going on trial with US side Minnesota United, he joined Stevenage for the 2016/17 season, where he made 31 appearances and scored 4 goals in his sole season with the club,  returning to Leyton Orient in 2017. 

In his second spell with Orient, he would become a key figure at the club, becoming captain of the side in the 2018/19 season as the club would return to the football league after being relegated the previous season. McAnuff would also help lead the club as captain, through its grief of suddenly losing its manager Justin Edinburgh, who sadly died in 2019, shortly after achieving promotion with the club. McAnuff’s loyalty to the club was rewarded with a new contract as a player-coach.In his final season of playing, McAnuff would have to balance his playing role with managing as he was named interim manager of Leyton Orient in February last year. He would stabilise the club in 11th place in league two before leaving the club and retiring at the age of 39. 

In his playing career, McAnuff is remembered by all his clubs as a skilful winger who always gave his all for his teams. But he is so much more than a player, as shown through his charity work & now administrative role with the FA. McAnuff’s charity work can be traced back to 2012. After witnessing the 2011 London riots begin in Tottenham, where McAnuff had grown up, he tried to remedy the social problems caused by the cutting of funding to youth programs in the area & one of many causes of the riots. As the issue of cutting funding to these programmes is a whole other issue that I could very easily address in its own post, McAnuff took the opportunity to invest something back into the area he grew up in, trying to give kids free access to football & other such opportunities. 

Through his charity Infinite Sports Management agency & academy, McAnuff wanted to offer kids from poorer backgrounds the opportunity to succeed, stating that he wasn’t in it for the money, but to help people, just like he had been helped as a kid. In his own words, McAnuff states that offering kids opportunities in working-class areas like Tottenham gives them the hope that “they could be getting a better chance”, something that cutting funding to these opportunities restricts & is detrimental to society as a whole. As a working-class kid myself, who has grown up exclusively in social housing & is only doing a PhD due to the fact that student finance is available, McAnuff’s words resonate with me as restricting these opportunities benefits no one, but funding them can make such a difference. 

And finally, in addition to this charity work, McAnuff was appointed as an independent non-executive director on the FA board last year. McAnuff aims to use his position to tackle the issue of racial inequality at the coaching, management & executive levels of the game. McAnuff also took the opportunity when interviewed about this position to talk about black History month. Stating his confliction with the concept, McAnuff said: "I don’t think it should be shoe-horned into one month, where we can come out and talk about prominent Black people who have made contributions to society across the world in all the different sectors, these conversations, celebrations and the education around them should be taking place all year round in schools, work places and organisations up and down the country. But at the same time, I think it absolutely must be celebrated and people should be recognised for what they’ve done whether that’s in sport, media, teachers, doctors, nurses and people making a hands-on impact in all sectors of our society." McAnuff hits the nail on the head perfectly when he says: "Black history IS history. Full stop."  as Western civilisation owes a lot of gratitude to black and African history, not just only as the birthplace of humanity, but the birthplace of modern civilisation and history. People will have their own agendas and try to disparage this, but if you know your history, then you know McAnuff is right! 

If you want to find out more about McAnuff’s charity work, here is an interview from 2012 with McAnuff discussing it: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/reading-captain-jobi-mcanuff-sets-1326212.amp And here is an article by the man himself on his role with the FA: https://www.thefa.com/news/2022/oct/01/jobi-mcanuff-black-history-month-20220110 And once again, thanks for reading!