Before Techan Cozier shares his personal story, there is something about him that stands out. He has a welcoming, bright smile and from the beginning of the tour, his effervescent and jolly personality shines through.
There’s also a familiarity about the way he speaks that makes me think of home. It’s the way he sounds pronouncing certain words. Then it hits me: “Techan has got to be a Bajan or has Bajan roots.”
He agrees to be interviewed, pausing the tour of the near 70 000-seat Emirates Stadium, home of the world-renowned Arsenal Football Club – the “Gunners” – who now sit atop the English Premier League table in a tight three-way race for the premiership crown.
The 29-year-old is proud to speak about his Barbadian heritage and the area where he spent most of his childhood. He was born in the north London district of Islington, lived in Barbados “on and off” for nine years and returned to Britain in 2004.
While in Barbados, he lived in Alleynedale Hall, St Peter but spent time with relatives in the northern districts of Mile And A Quarter, Six Men’s, Luke Hill and Oxford in St Peter and Broomfield, St Lucy.
A “massive music fan”, Cozier loves the band Krosfyah.
“That is my favourite band out of the entire universe. When I was a kid growing up, I used to remember listening to [their] music. I used to watch the tapes of the performances in the tents and in 2000, I went to the Back In Time Calypso Tent for the first time ever. That was also the year Edwin [Yearwood] won Party Monarch. I remember going to East Coast Road and watching that. It was good fun,” he recalls.
In food, he shares his love of Bajan bakes and a cheese cutter – “the greatest invention ever in the universe because they don’t make enough of them in the UK”.
Outwardly witty, jovial and humble, Cozier’s inner strength shines throughout his professional journey of defying high odds to become the man he is today.
His touching story of resilience and achieving beyond expectations is nothing short of inspirational.
Cozier is the first Black manager in his department since Arsenal moved to the Emirates Stadium in 2006. Reaching this level of success, he says, did not come easy.
There were several prejudices he was up against, not all of them overt.
“I grew up in Tottenham. In the football world, it’s considered a very rough place because of the way that diversity is there, but this is where Arsenal came into my life because my uncle was a big Arsenal fan and he used to take me to the old stadium in Highbury, and from there on that is where I started to develop my life with the club.
“When I came back to the UK, Black people were not really seen as people that were football fans because football was predominantly a White sport . . . . My uncle literally gave me the belief that football is something I should really follow because where I grew up, it was a place where you only had two opportunities; it was either sport or academics. A lot of Black people in that era pushed us towards academics because they felt that academics was more important. But I thought I could do both . . . I became a musician first and then Arsenal kind of took over. I started working at this great football club in 2015 and worked my way up as a tour host.”
At that time, Cozier was one of four Black people in a department of 70.
“In my first five years here, it was kind of tough,” he recalls. “There was no racial tension, but there was an unconscious bias because Black people were not really seen as football fans with a lot of football knowledge.
“Two years ago, I went for the role of the coordinator, which I am now, and I didn’t get it . . . . I understood that I might not have been a prominent person in the department when I was here because I was someone that had no real footballing background. But I still did my due diligence in having my knowledge of the club. And then a year later, I went for the role again and I got it.”
As a Black man of West Indian heritage, Cozier says his feat was the first of many.
“I became the first Black manager in the stadium tours department in 18 years of this football club existing at the Emirates Stadium and I am the only Black manager to ever exist from a Caribbean heritage in the department as well. So for that, I am very, very proud, and hopefully my story that I am telling you at the moment will inspire the next generation of Black Caribbean people or West Indians to actually be able to do things in this country. I think that there’s a big disconnect between the diversity in the UK for people that are from here and the people that actually have descendancy around the world.”
Ironically, Cozier does not have any aptitude in the sport he so loves dearly, but he can recall any significant moment in the history of the beloved Gunners, even the fine details.
His wealth of knowledge of his favourite club and his passion for the sport, the club and his profession are more than enough.
