When Bill Hern spoke to Viv Anderson it was clear that Viv could remember little about his debut game (Sheffield Wednesday, away, 21st September 1974), but, for reasons that will become clear, he certainly remembered his second game (Newcastle, away, 25th September 1974). We haven’t been able to track down a programme from Viv’s debut but we do have a programme for the Newcastle game.
The first thing to say is that the front page of the progamme gave us a real scare when we looked at it. In ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ we say that Viv made his debut on 21st September (see above) but the programme for the Newcastle game is dated 18th September. There was a moment of absolute horror, had we made a basic schoolboy error? Fortunately there is another explanation, whoever typeset the programme had simply got the date wrong (the full fixture list on the inside page confirms the date was the 25th as does the authoritative English National Football Archive website). Please, don’t do that!
Another surprise, a more pleasant one, was when we saw that Viv was named in the Forest team.
Given that he had only made his debut four days earlier it was a bit of a surprise to see Viv’s name included. And, we don’t know if you noticed, but the typesetter was having a bit of a ‘mare, the next home game is shown as being on 28th August!
This game pre-dates the arrival of Brian Clough as manager in January 1975 that was going to transform Forest’s fortunes but already the team contains three names who would feature in the glory days to come – Martin O’Neil, Ian Bowyer and, of course, Viv Anderson.
The editorial, written by John Gibson of the Evening Chronicle, alludes to the problem of hooliganism and crowd trouble that was such a sad feature of the English game at the time. After mentioning that Newcastle were banned from playing FA Cup games at home this season (this was because, in the previous season, a pitch invasion during a cup game against Forest had forced the players off, eventually the game was ordered to be replayed at a neutral venue), Gibson went on to say, ‘the first match at the City Ground wasn’t a brilliant one but it was fair and honest and there was no crowd trouble. I know I speak for people within Gallowgate when I say that we are all looking for a repeat tonight. Let us keep our dignity both on and off the field and watch a good game.’ Presumably these comments refer to hooliganism in general rather than the racist abuse of players but, as you will see, Gibson’s comments were in vain.
This game sticks out in Viv’s memory not because of the silky skills Forest displayed that night, and certainly not because of the result, a 3-0 defeat that was best forgotten, but because of the racist abuse he experienced, which started even before the game got underway. He told then manager, Allan Brown, that he didn’t want to play in the game because of the racist abuse that rained down on him from the terraces during the warm up (there were over 26,000 in the crowd that night). You can hear Viv talking about his experiences: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/about/films/. He refers here to a game at Carlisle but elsewhere he has made it clear that his experience in the game at St James Park was at least as bad if not worse. A number of other black players have also spoken about their experiences in games at Newcastle, one of several grounds that had a particularly bad reputation at the time.
Sadly players today still experience racist abuse, Rhian Brewster also speaks about it in this film. And it happens at all levels of the game. Liam MacDevitt, currently plying his trade with Bury AFC, has commented that in his career he has already experienced upwards of twenty racist incidents against him in his relatively short time in the game, both from fans and opposition players. Echoing comments made by many other players before him, Liam says that he uses the abuse to fire himself up, to work harder, to score and silence the abusers. You can read about Liam here: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/about/bury-afc-liam-macdevitt/
Proving that good come from bad, one Newcastle fan who witnessed the racist abuse at St James’s Park over the years eventually got sick of it and helped create the organisation Show Racism the Red Card which campaigns against racism in the game and is heavily involved in education projects across the country.