Sixty years ago, in September 1960, Tony Collins became the first black manager of an English Football League club when he took over the reins at Rochdale. His first game in charge was a 2-1 win at Carlisle; 5,262 fans were in Brunton Park that Tuesday evening although it is unlikely many realised they were witnessing history being made.
We have had the privilege of putting some questions to Tony and share his answers with you here.
Tony was coming towards the end of his playing career when he signed for Rochdale from Crystal Palace in the summer of 1959. In the 1959/60 season he played 37 League and Cup games for Rochdale, scoring four goals. In all but one of the games he wore the No.11 shirt which in those days meant that he was played on the left wing, his favoured position.
As the 1960/61 season got under way the manager, Jack Marshall, moved the short distance to take over at Blackburn Rovers. Blackburn were in the 1st Division (equivalent of the Premier League today) while Rochdale languished in Division Four (now League Two) so this was a massive step up for Jack; he must have done a decent job as he remained in charge there until February 1967.
This left Rochdale with a vacancy to fill. Tony remembers that “Jack Marshall told me to put in for the job at Rochdale” which he duly did. Rochdale’s owner, Freddy Radcliffe, who later revealed that there were 30 applicants to choose from, was aware that appointing Tony might be controversial, after all, the League had been running since 1888 and there had never been a black manager at any of the clubs. Radcliffe, speaking about appointing “a coloured boy” as manager is quoted as saying “we were aware that eyebrows might be raised because of his colour. But that makes no difference, and we sincerely hope that it will make no difference in his career as manager.”
So, as we contemplate the ongoing dearth of black managers in the English game, how did Tony come to get the job?
We started by asking Tony which managers he had played for during his career who he particularly looked up to or admired or who had perhaps encouraged him to consider going into management himself? Tony cited Eric Webber, who he played for during his spell with Torquay United “we used to have chats about the game and strategies, this lead to me thinking about coaching and possibly management.” He went on to add that “I also had a great relationship with Cyril Spiers,” Spiers was manager of Crystal Palace during Tony’s time there, “and of course Jack Marshall.”
Rochdale were the epitome of ‘unfashionable’ and during Tony’s seven+ seasons in charge at Spotland the highest they finished was 6th (in 1964/65) and they had to apply for re-election three times after finishing in the bottom four. This may not sound all that impressive but Tony’s record was on a par with what other managers had achieved at Spotland. He was managing on a shoestring budget and his best players were regularly sold to balance the books.
What very much exceeded expectations was that in 1962 Tony took Rochdale to the final of the League Cup. Although they lost the final over two legs to 2nd Division Norwich, they remained the only club from the bottom tier of the League to reach the final of a major cup competition until Bradford achieved it in 2013.
Tony chose to leave Rochdale in 1967 as he felt he had taken them as far as he could. Not unreasonably, he hoped for offers from elsewhere, “I always wanted another club of my own,” he said “I had applied for many jobs towards the end of my time at Rochdale and afterwards. People knew with my track record at Rochdale that I was a good judge of a player and we won games we shouldn’t have done and that came down to tactics and stopping better teams play through my analysis.” Tony applied to many clubs: Watford, Rotherham, Peterborough, Macclesfield, Chester, Darlington and Stockport County among them, but no offers materialised. Tony’s daughter, Sarita, feels that the colour of Tony’s skin counted against him but he himself has never been one to play the race card.
We asked him how he felt about the lack of black managers in the game. “Its very difficult. Obviously you shouldn’t get the job or be ruled out because of the colour of your skin. The difficulty these days is getting the experience to get into a league club, with only 92 clubs available.” Tony went on to list the qualities and skills a manager needs: “you have to be a leader, were you a club captain, did you get the responsibilities on the pitch that go with that? Coach, man management skills, a great communicator, tactician, a businessman -dealing with members of the board who are professional business men – I went on a sales/business course. You need to be an excellent negotiator, these days the figures are so enormous, you have to work well under pressure, you have to have a team of backroom people around you who you can trust, have your back covered and who’s opinion you respect.” Although Tony made a smooth transition from player to manager (he was player/manager in his first season at Spotland), he commented that “these days to have been a great player isn’t enough.” Finally he added “you may have to make sacrifices in your family life, you never switch off, your time is not your own as it was as a player.”
Many of the players we spoke to in the course of researching ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ mentioned the Rooney rule and Tony did too. “The Rooney rule could be a good place to start. I was lucky the player’s wanted me to be the boss, and Jack wanted me to take over from him.” Player loyalty was clearly something Tony fostered as, when he announced he would be leaving Rochdale, the players petitioned the Board saying that they wanted him to stay.
Although Tony never managed another club he was a very successful assistant manager to Alan Dicks at Bristol City and his obvious ability was spotted by Don Revie who took him to be part of the backroom team at Leeds. Tony worked with Don Revie at Leeds and England and Ron Atkinson and Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, we asked him how they compared?
“I respect all of them – great managers, very different personalities, for me Don was number 1, great times and in my opinion we had a great team at Leeds, he had the whole camp set up right, it felt like a family right down to the person who made the tea, he was special.” The respect was clearly mutual, when Don Revie took up duties as manager of England he asked Tony to undertake scouting duties for him.
Tony was at Manchester United as Chief Scout from the back end of 1981. It was Ron Atkinson who brought him into the United set up “Tony is a real professional in this scouting business and is one of the most experienced in the game. i’m sure he will be a big help.” Tony had this to say about ‘Big Ron’ “I enjoyed my time at United with Ron, again we had a good team, people take notice of the persona they created of Ron but I’ll tell you he knew his stuff.”
After five years of 3rd or 4th place finishes, a poor start to the 1986/87 season saw the departure of Ron and a young man from Scotland was appointed. Although Tony is too diplomatic to say anything negative about Alex Ferguson (just plain ‘Alex’ in those days) you don’t get quite the same sense of warmth “Alex, I respect what he achieved at United, at the time I was with him at United he was under a lot of pressure and finding his feet – pleased for him as a professional that it worked out.”
If you read ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ you will find out about Tony’s role as the first black player at Crystal Palace, Norwich and Watford but we only had room to touch briefly on Tony’s achievement of being the first black manager of an English Football League club at Rochdale. As Viv Anderson comments in the foreword to our book, perhaps one day we will be able to write about the first black manager at each of the EFL clubs. Hopefully this article has given a more rounded picture of Tony’s achievements in the game. If your interest has been piqued you can read more about Tony and his relationship with Don Revie, Ron Atkinson and Alex Ferguson in ‘Tony Collins – Football Master Spy’ co-authored by Quentin Cope and Tony’s daughter Sarita. Tony was still at Leeds during Brian Clough’s brief, tumultuous spell in charge at Elland Road and the Cope/Collins book has more to say about that episode.
Buy ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ from Conker Editions and receive a signed copy of the book and a free limited edition A5 size poster https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/product/footballs-black-pioneers-subscriber-copies-for-pre-order/ Alternatively you can get the book through Amazon, Waterstones or any good bookshop.