BOOK REVIEW: Football’s Black Pioneers
Football’s Black Pioneers is one of those books you can easily keep picking up. Even if you only have a few minutes to spare you can read a chapter and come back wanting more. A short story book about football with lots of history added, it’s an ideal present at Christmas for followers of our national game.
The book covers the first black footballers to play for the current 92 Premier and Football League clubs, from Accrington Stanley to Wycombe Wanderers. A four-year project by co-authors Bill Hern and David Gleave recalls the fascinating stories of each player, their highs and lows and in many cases incidents of racism which they suffered both on and off the field.
It’s a black social history of this country since the first, Albert Wharton, made his debut for Sheffield United in the first division in 1895 right up to the present day.
Unless you are an ardent fan of a specific club, you are unlikely to know even the names of these players but that does not diminish the value and importance of this book.
There are some well known players, Viv Anderson MBE at Nottingham Forest, who was England’s first full international black player, Laurie Cunningham (West Bromwich Albion) who went on to glory with Real Madrid, and Roland Butcher (Stevenage FC) who was also outstanding at cricket, where he became the first black player to represent England in 1980.
Locally you will find out that Mick Maynard in 1967 was the first black player to represent Peterborough United while Dennis Walker, a ‘busby Babe’ and the first black player to play for Manchester United, became the first to do so at Cambridge United. Another player you will read about is Charlie Williams MBE (Doncaster Rovers), who later found fame as a member of ITV’s 1970s TV show ‘The Comedians’.
My favourite chapter covers the story of Carl Valentine, whose father Barbrian was part of the Windrush generation who came over from Jamaica in the mid 1950s. Carl was the first black player at Oldham Athletic in 1976. A teenage star for the North West side, he made the move to play for Vancouver Whitecaps in the then hugely popular North American Soccer League in 1979. Vancouver won the trophy in his first year. He later obtained Canadian citizenship and went on to play for them at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Quite a story! There are some harrowing stories of discrimination throughout the book as authors Bill and David play ‘Who do you think you are’ with each debutant, detailing how they came to play for each club.
The 1970s saw the biggest change as over a quarter of clubs fielded their first black player during this troublesome decade for black footballers when racism in football became a serious problem. The abuse inflicted upon black players during the 1970s and 1980s by supporters was disgraceful and, in some cases, players received little support from their own clubs.
If you like sport and want to find out about ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ I can promise you a book which will enlighten you on Black British social history and the barriers the players had to overcome. All of them were pioneers to the England heroes of today, the like of Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford and the rising talents of Jadon Sancho, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Bukayo Saka.
They should not be forgotten.
By Stephen Wallis
Rating 9/10
The book can be bought from publisher Conker Editions (www.conkereditions.co.uk/shop), Amazon, Waterstones or any good book shop. RRP £16.
lHear Stephen interview co-author Bill Hern on his podcast – visit soundcloud.com and search for ‘Paddock and the Pavilion’.
