History was made at Wembley on 29th November 1978 when Viv Anderson became the first black player to win a full England cap, although you wouldn’t know it from the match day programme.
But before looking at the programme, it’s worth reminding ourselves of how unlikely Viv’s inclusion would have seemed just a few years earlier. As recently as 1975 the well-known journalist, Bernard Joy, had written that it was unlikely a ‘coloured player’ would ever play for England because they lacked the temperament, couldn’t handle English conditions, didn’t like physical contact and wouldn’t be able to overcome the barracking of the fans.
To show just how wrong a man can be, it’s worth noting that on 8th October 2020, Reece James became the 100th black player to represent England at full international level when he stepped onto the Wembley turf to play against Wales.
It’s easy to condemn Bernard Joy for expressing views based on racist stereotyping but he wasn’t an altogether irredeemable character. He was one of the members of the England team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics who caused a diplomatic incident when they refused to make the Nazi salute before their games against China and Poland in spite of having been instructed to do so.
Back to the programme…
Viv himself has described the scenes in the changing room before the game as ‘pandemonium’ with well wishers congratulating him on his achievement. The well-wishers included the Queen (in a telegram rather than in person!) and Elton John (also not in person).
The programme contains a brief pen picture (as it did for all the players in line to play):
There is no reference to Viv being black but, really, you wouldn’t expect there to be. He had been selected on merit, that was all that mattered.
There was a team photo but Viv wasn’t in it, again not entirely unexpected as he was not yet an established member of the team (and two other members of the squad for the Czechoslovakia game weren’t in it either).
England won the game 1-0 so Viv’s international career was off to a winning start, a further 29 caps would follow.
One name that stood out in the Czech squad for the match was that of Antonin Panenka, the man who gave his name to the cheeky penalty taking technique.
With apologies for the rather loud music, here is the very first Panenka penalty taken by none other than Antonin Panenka himself at the 1976 European Championships: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd1Hr96IenI. What would have happened had Czechoslovakia been awarded a penalty that night at Wembley? Would Peter Shilton have saved it? We will never know, because they weren’t!
What we do know is that it was a night when Viv Anderson made history.