It was a thrilling and explosive encounter, a powder-keg game, but also a poisonous fixture that exposed the ugly face of racism in sport, thanks to the confrontation between Liverpool’s Luis Suarez and Manchester United’s Patrice Evra.
Bad blood reached boiling point when the teams and officials lined up for the traditional handshake before kick-off at Old Trafford.
Suarez snubbed Evra’s offer of a handshake – making the atmosphere even more poisonous and precipitating another debate on racism, or let me say racism in sport.
Old Trafford is the ultimate venue for any soccer fanatic.
The atmosphere is always incredible. It’s the noisiest ground I’ve ever attended a match at. Soccer fanatics like me get tingles throughout the game.
During the game, which I attended as guest of Manchester United, Suarez was relentlessly booed by many in the capacity Old Trafford crowd of 75 000 whenever he went near the ball. United’s fans chanted “racist b******” and sang: “You know what you are, you know what you are. Luis Suarez, you know what you are.”
The game and incident came days after Fabio Capello quit as England manager because John Terry, who allegedly racially abused Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a game in October, was stripped of the captaincy without his knowledge. Terry, who is the captain of Chelsea, faces a trial in July over the racism claims, which he denies.
As a victim of racism during my childhood and now as a citizen of the world, I constantly agonise about racism across the world and what all of us can do eradicate this scourge.
These days – unlike when I was left standing on the roadside in a busy New York street after midnight because I did not know that some taxi drivers did not pick up black people suspected of going to Harlem or when I was getting my luggage searched every time I arrive at an international airport in case I may be transporting drugs – I am tortured whenever I watch Liverpool supporters, Suarez and other players such as Terry. My Old Trafford visit left me to agonise even further.
Let us refresh our memories. Terry’s case is one of two that have rocked English football in recent months, and came just before Fifa president Sepp Blatter told CNN that there was no problem with on-pitch racism, a guff he later retracted.
So far the spotlight has been on Liverpool and their fans. Suarez served an eight-match ban after he was found guilty by the English Football Association (FA) over allegedly racist remarks he made to Evra during a Premier League match.
Suarez has apologised for his antics at Old Trafford, but the debate about racism in sport and his future as a Liverpool player continues.
There is no shortage of racist incidents these days. For example, British police have been trawling through CCTV footage after Nigerian and Oldham footballer Tom Adeyemi was allegedly abused by fans during an FA Cup game against Liverpool.
In television footage, Adeyemi appeared to take offence at something shouted by Liverpool fans.
Despite reassurances from his teammates and Liverpool players Dirk Kuyt and Steven Gerrard, the right-back seemed close to tears.
Police arrested a suspect after former English Premier League star and football pundit Stan Collymore was racially abused on Twitter. Collymore played for Liverpool until 10 years ago.
These are just a few reported incidents that have made headlines in recent days.
There are many more. Every hour and minute of the day, somewhere, somehow, someone is being abused because of his colour, race and religion, sometimes with deadly consequences.
It is good that the FA has committed itself to leading the fight against racism, and a British parliamentary inquiry into racism will be held soon to deal with the latest racial incidents.
As we all battle the scourge of racism, I always wonder how this wonderful planet can overcome its obsession with skin colour, religion and race.
True, the current headlined incidents are not a result of bad organisation of football federations, particularly the FA. They are examples of problems of societies and communities in general.
Because people often use racism and prejudice interchangeably, it is important that we look at the terms separately.
Prejudice is an individual phenomenon whereby someone has an opinion, usually unfavourable, without considering the facts.
And there are as many types of racism as there are types of people on this beautiful planet of ours.
Some black people are racists. Some white people are racists.
While there is more white-on-black racism, as it is with the Suarez-Evra incident, in the world, there is also racism among black people with the same skin as it is among Asians with the same skin, as it is among Europeans with the same skin.
So, how do we as a planet, including soccer players and supporters, defeat racists and race baiters among us?
Difficult discussions on these issues are necessary to effectively deal with the racism that exists within and among us.
For me the answer always lies in what I learnt from a workshop at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York soon after my taxi incident a decade ago.
Every time I encounter what I suspect could be a racial incident, I always remember or go back to read extracts from Eli Siegel, the American poet, historian and educator who founded Aesthetic.
Siegel says contempt is “the lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it… the addition of self through the lessening of something else”.
Aesthetic Realism taught and still teaches me that racism starts not with race alone, but with the desire in the race baiter to have contempt for the world and thus develop a feeling of contempt against people because of their race or ethnicity.
As Siegel puts it, contempt is also the cause of prejudice.
“Prejudice,” Siegel writes, “is a preference for an opinion we choose to have rather quickly, as against one that might arise from judging fairly.”
Since attending the Aesthetic Realism workshop and reading articles and journals on the philosophy, my whole way of seeing the world has changed and continues to change.
This is the education we all need to make the horror of racism a thing of the past.
No one can and will sleep easy and be happy unless we all eradicate contempt and embrace honesty, intelligent use of our minds and respect.
Eradicating racism, whether on a political, structured, institutionalised or a personal level, means that we must abandon the convenient impulses of contempt and the emphasis on racial, ethnic and religious differences, and embrace the source of kindness, truth, good sense in life.
As Martin Luther King jr said: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
It is possible to eradicate racism. It is not too late at all.
Let us have faith.