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Ten years ago today I created the 166th post for Greenford 365. To mark the blog’s anniversary I will attempt to post a photo every day throughout 2022.

There are Polish football stickers on almost every piece of street furniture in Greenford but the content and location of this one made it worth noting. At first glance this may appear to be Hebrew lettering but it is in fact a typeface designed to resemble it. “Jude” is the German word for Jew and “Jude Gang” is what ardent Cracovia fans call themselves. “Jew” is used as a disparaging term for rival supporters at matches and in graffiti in Poland, in Krakow it refers particularly to the rivalry between Wisla and Cracovia, one of the football teams that resisted calls to ban Jewish or “non-Polish” players in the 1930s. It would, however, be a mistake to assume that this apparent self-identification as Jewish means that there is no antisemitism in the game. I first saw this design on a signpost further up this road where it had been placed carefully in a row with a number of others illustrating some of the worst tropes about Jews and Muslims, and celebrating the bad old days of English football’s “Casuals”. This is about more than football. As for its location, in the background is a Shree, rebuilt in a grander style on the site of Greenford’s former synagogue.

Images and text ©Albertina McNeill 2022. Please do not reproduce without permission. All rights reserved. Do not add any of these images to Pinterest or similar sites as this will be regarded as a violation of copyright.

15 Jun This entry was published on June 15, 2022 at 11:03 am. It’s filed under People, Places and tagged antisemitism, culture, Ealing, faith, football, Greenford, local, London, London Borough of Ealing, pedestrian, Polish, postaday, religion, sport, symbolism, UK. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.