Black History Month Players: Shaka Hislop

 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 this post and today's thread on X falls on #WearRedDay, the most important day in the calendar for one of football's most prominent anti-racism charities in Show Racism the Red Card, with the focus of today's post and thread focusing on the charity's co-founder, Shaka Hislop. 

Born Neil Shaka Hislop in Hackney, London in 1969, Shaka, the middle name he has always been known by, may have been born close to his eventual footballing home of West Ham, but grew up on the Caribbean island of Trinidad from the age of two. Whilst Cricket has always been a sport with the richest heritage in the Caribbean, Hislop was always more attracted to football. Although on a side note, one of Hislop’s childhood friends, Brian Lara, went on to do rather well as a pro cricketer. Or so I’ve been told… Despite wanting to be a striker, Hislop would end up playing in goal due to being the tallest player in the team. And by 18, Hislop would grow to be 6ft 5, when his skills as a goalkeeper earned him a soccer scholarship to Howard University in the USA.

At Howard University, Shaka excelled in both sports and academics. His on-field exploits helped Howard reach the National college or NCAA final in his freshman or first year of university. His off-field achievements during his university career are just as remarkable, earning a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering, with a particular highlight of his degree being a summer internship with NASA, where he worked on the space station freedom project. This is remarkable as the space station freedom project would later become the international space station, highlighting the high level of intelligence that Shaka possesses. But Shaka would follow the sporting route instead of becoming a rocket scientist as towards the end of his studies in 1992, Hislop was scouted by Reading whilst playing for the indoor soccer team, Baltimore Blast, against Aston Villa. He would sign his first professional contract with Reading shortly after graduating.

At 23, Hislop started his career a lot later than most professionals, but that didn’t matter one bit as in his 3 seasons with Reading, Hislop was voted the club’s best player twice, helping the club rise from the 3rd division to the 1995 first division play-offs. To this day, Hislop is still adored by Reading fans, being voted the club’s greatest goalkeeper in 2005 & was voted third in the club’s Player of the millennium competition, despite only playing 104 games during his time with the club.

Leaving Reading in 1995, Hislop moved to Newcastle, where he quickly became a fan favourite as Newcastle raced into a 12-point lead at the top of the league by January 1996, before losing this advantage at the end of the season to Manchester United. But not every fan was welcoming to Hislop. In his own words, Hislop recalls an experience where he was putting petrol in his car & kids started shouting racist abuse. Then one of them realised who he was & told his friends. Then they came over looking for autographs.

This experience really hurt Hislop, who in his own words, felt like he had “been perceived as just another black man”. Wanting to do something about it, Hislop donated £50 to a local anti-racism campaign in Newcastle, run by local anti-racism activist Ged Grebby. As someone who had experience running anti-racism campaigns, Grebby contacted Hislop and discussed a way in which professional footballers could be anti-racism role models. This led to the formation of Show Racism the Red Card. With the first Show Racism The Red Card event being Hislop going to a school in Newcastle to discuss his experiences with racism with teammate John Beresford, the charity has only gone from strength to strength, celebrating its 25th year in 2021 and now active in 7 countries across Europe. Hislop has been honorary president since the charity’s inception in 1996 and still takes great pride in his anti-racism work to this day. You can hear Shaka’s story about how he became involved with the charity in the video below.

After 3 years with NUFC where he helped the club to two consecutive 2nd place finishes in the premier league in 1996 and 1997, Hislop moved to West Ham in 1998, where he once again quickly became a fan favourite and won the Hammer of the Year award in his first season. During this first season at the club in 1998, Hislop used his new club’s stadium to host a Show Racism the Red Card event, where he stated whilst racism may not have been as bad as it was 10 years before[1988], we should never stop striving to remove it completely from the game. Following 4 years with West Ham, Hislop found himself second choice to David James, despite having been the first-choice keeper for the majority of his time with the club. He would not stay at the club and would leave in 2002 & moved to Portsmouth, where he stayed for 3 years.

Hislop spent three years playing for Portsmouth, being instrumental in their promotion from the championship in 2003, replacing former club West Ham in the Premier League. However,  Shaka returned to West Ham for one last season in 2005 where his final game for the club was in the 2006 FA cup final, with this final game for the club not having a fairy-tale ending as he only picked up a runners-up medal . He made 121 appearances for West Ham over two spells & would retire from playing in 2007 after a brief spell in America's MLS with FC Dallas. 

Another great aspect of Hislop’s career and one the man himself is personally proud of, was his representation of Trinidad and Tobago, the island where he grew up. He would represent the country 26 times, even playing for them at the 2006 World Cup, where he kept a clean sheet in their debut game at a World Cup against Sweden, before playing against the country of his birth, England in the same World Cup, sadly losing the Hislop Derby (if we can call it that?) 2-0. However, this almost never happened as in February 1998, Hislop was selected as the substitute goalkeeper for an England friendly against Chile at Wembley Stadium, but never played for the country of his birth and was never called up again. 

After retiring, Hislop would take up work as a TV analyst for ESPN, a role he has held since 2008. Recently, Shaka was in the news when during a game between Tottenham and AC Milan, which he was working for ESPN, he suddenly collapsed live on air. Some believe that the high temperatures in California that day, which were reported to be about 30C might have contributed, but it is unclear if heat was a factor in Hislop's collapse. In this video updating us fans of his situation the following day, Hislop opened the video by stating "That was awkward," before updating fans to let them know that: ""What a 24 hours this has been. Every so often life gives you a moment to pause and this was mine", before adding: "My response now has to be to seek out the best medical opinion I can get and listen to what my doctors have to say. 

Outside of football, Hislop has been happily married to his wife Desha since 1995 and they have 5 children together. Hislop considers the birth of his children to be his proudest moment. He also returned to Howard University in 2012 to get an MBA.

But after a career in which he is fondly remembered by every club he represented & as an excellent anti-racism campaigner, it’s not rocket science to see why Shaka Hislop deserves a thread to show what a great player and man he truly is. 

Plus if anyone knows rocket science, it’s Shaka!

Thanks for reading today's post. If you’re interested in learning more about the great work of show racism the red card, follow this link . 

Today's sources were Brian Belton's 'The Black Hammers'

and the YouTube and video from X/Twitter linked earlier in this interview.