We were quite lucky to track down an Ipswich programme with Steve Stacey’s name in it, he only played three first team games for the ‘Tractor Boys’. Steve was Ipswich’s first black player.
According to his autobiography, he was told by his then club, 4th division Wrexham, that a deal had been agreed to sell him to a First Division club but he wasn’t told which one. He was driven to Blackpool airport where he was introduced to Bill McGarry, manager of Ipswich Town. When he saw that the contract he was being offered would double his wages he had little hesitation in signing it. He was told he could carry on training with Wrexham for the rest of the week before travelling down to Ipswich on Friday to meet up with his new team mates. He would be making his debut the following day at centre half, a position he rarely played in. It was only in the car on the way back to Wrexham that he realised his debut would be in a home game against mighty Liverpool.
It was not an auspicious start to his Ipswich career. Steve pulled a hamstring in the first half and had to be substituted. His next game for the 1st team that season wasn’t until the 12th April 1969.
By the time Steve played against Liverpool, Ipswich had already played nine games, eight in the League and one in the League Cup. I thought I would have a look at how many black players had appeared in those nine games. The answer? None.
I wondered about Kevin Keelan, Norwich City’s goalkeeper for the 3rd September visit to Portman Road, as he was born in India (on 11th January 1941). His parents were Ivor Herbert Keelan (born 13th May 1915) who was in the British Army, and Dorothy Sheila Keelan (nee Dee, born 4th June 1917). India became an independent nation on 14th August 1947 and so, in February 1948, the Keenans returned ‘home’ to a country they scarcely knew, bringing their five sons (including seven year-old Kevin) with them. Both Kevin’s parents were born in India and the Keelans and the Dees had been there for quite a few generations before that – there is no evidence at all that any of them were of Asian-heritage. So, if Kevin Keelan was white, we will have to look elsewhere for a player with any non-white heritage.
The only other candidate is Paul Reaney who played right back for Leeds United at Portman Road on 20th August. You can find plenty of articles on the internet saying that Paul was of mixed heritage and it’s easy enough to agree that his appearance suggests he might have been. He played for England, making his full international debut in 1968, ten years before that of Viv Anderson, who is widely credited as the first black player to appear as a full international for England. However, Paul has stated that he does not consider himself a “Black” player and it is not our place to contradict him.
If you include substitutes, there were a total of 208 appearances made during those first nine fixtures of the 1968/69 season and not one of them was made by a black player, an unimaginable scenario today. As Steve Stacey has said of his debut ‘I was the only non-white in the dressing room. I had become used to that loneliness.’
Here is a list of those first nine teams Ipswich played:
| First black player | Date of debut | |
| Queens Park Rangers | Tommy Best | 10th December 1949 |
| Norwich City | Tony Collins | 19th August 1953 |
| Leeds United | Gerry Francis | 30th November 1957 |
| Manchester City | Stan Horne | 22nd September 1965 |
| Ipswich Town | Steve Stacey | 14th September 1968 |
| Arsenal | Brendan Batson | 11th March 1972 |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | Don Gardner | 31st March 1975 |
| Leicester City | Winston White | 19th March 1977 |
| Sunderland | Roly Gregoire | 2nd January 1978 |
| Sheffield Wednesday | Tony Cunningham | 11th November 1983 |
Liverpool were still two years away from fielding a black player, an honour that fell to Howard Gayle in 1980.
