Many football fans will have heard of ‘the Three Degrees’, the three black players (Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regis and Brendon Batson) who played for West Bromwich Albion. They first appeared together in a game on 4th March 1978 at Ipswich Town and went on to play together in 57 games for Albion. It is a period that Albion fans look back on fondly, but it ended far too soon when Cunningham moved to Real Madrid in 1979.
But this was not the first time that three black players had appeared in the same Football League team, that particular piece of history belongs to West Ham United. The three players in question were Clyde Best, Ade Coker and Clive Charles (younger brother of John Charles, the first black player to pull on an England shirt). The game was played at Upton Park on 1st April 1972, almost exactly six years before West Brom’s more celebrated trio stepped onto the Portman Road turf. It is clear from the match day programme that Charles and Coker were late selections, stepping into the boots of Frank Lampard (Snr) and Geoff Hurst.
It was a good day for the Hammers as they ran out 2-0 winners in front of a crowd of over 30,000. Trevor Brooking scored the opener in the 40th minute and Ade Coker himself clinched the points with a goal in the 89th minute.
People who saw him play say that Ade Coker was highly talented but he never quite established himself in the West Ham team, making only ten appearances over the course of three seasons. He moved to America where he had a long career playing for teams with names like Boston Minutemen, New York Arrows and Rochester Lancers until retiring from the game in 1987.
Clive Charles made 15 appearances for West Ham before moving to Cardiff City where he spent five seasons. Clive also ended up in America where he played for Portland Timbers, Pittsburgh Spirit and Los Angeles Lazers.
Clyde Best was the most successful of the three, his West Ham career spanned seven seasons in total. He played 221 games for the Hammers and scored 58 goals. He too ended his career in America playing for teams like the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Cleveland Force. The Americans certainly have a way with team names!
While West Ham were making history by fielding three black players, the Spurs squad photo in the programme has no black faces in it.
After nine seasons with West Ham, Martin Peters, who played in another historic game on 4th May 1963, the game in which John Charles became West Ham’s first black player of the modern era, was now playing in Tottenham’s colours.
West Brom’s ‘Three Degrees’ are remembered partly because of manager Ron Atkinson’s flair for publicity and partly because they played together over fifty times. The West Ham trio only ever played together once more (away to Arsenal on 22nd April). Nevertheless, it only takes ‘once’ to make history if ‘once’ is also the ‘first’.