Guests on Piers Morgan’s talkshow, Piers Morgan Uncensored, believe that football clubs such as Manchester United and Man City should remove the ships from their emblems after claims that all ships are racist.
Piers Morgan is never far away from a controversial topic (The Ronaldo debacle was still only a couple of months ago!) , and a recent episode of his talkshow Piers Morgan Uncensored hasn’t disappointed. Morgan welcomed guests Bonnie Greer, an American-British novelist, playwright, critic and broadcaster, alongside lawyer and TalkTV contributor Paula Rhone-Adrien.
The first topic of the episode was campaigners from The Guardian insisting that Manchester United and Man City ditch the ships from their team crests because of their connections to the slave trade.
A clip posted by Piers Morgan Uncensored’s Twitter page shows the conversation turning into a shouting match as Greer & Rhone-Adrien defend the position that the removal of ships from football crests is worth considering, and Morgan abjectly opposing the concept.
"Are all ships racist?"
Piers Morgan finds the airbrushing of history "exhausting".@piersmorgan | @TalkTV | #PMU pic.twitter.com/RSAmcjzxri
— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) April 21, 2023
This discussion comes off the back of an article recently published by The Guardian, in which the question is asked “Does this symbol of slavery shame Manchester and its clubs?”.
The newspaper had released another article the month before, in which they wrote about their own connections to the slave trade. The article outlined the fact that the founder of The Guardian, as well as one of its earliest investors, had many partnerships with cotton merchants whose products were that of enslaved peoples in the Americas, and how this money was what the business was built on.
In their recent article they go on to make the connection between the many ships that travelled in and out of Manchester’s ports in the 1800’s, trading with various countries overseas. The article suggests that much of the city’s wealth was built upon trading with countries and companies who used slave workforces, and suggest that this could in some way be tied by association to football clubs bearing a ship on their crest.
They go on to mention that teams whose cities were directly associated with the slave trade, such as London, Liverpool and Bristol, steer clear of ships on their badges for this reason. They argue that those that do, such as Grimsby Town’s trawler, or Tranmere’s warship, do so because those ships were not in any way associated with slavery.
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree that ships be removed from football crests, it is always beneficial when people take a moment to reflect on the darkest actions of mankind and imperative to consider how we can create a world without them.
