historycalroots - Football's Black Pioneers

Chesterfield – Peter Foley MBE

In a career that spanned six seasons he never had a black team mate or saw a black player on any opposing team

Peter Foley joined Chesterfield just before the start of the 1969/70 season. He had previously been Scunthorpe’s first black player and on 9th August 1969 he achieved the same status at Chesterfield. Before Scunthorpe he had played in 80 games for Workington (in the League in those days) between 13^th February 1965 (his debut) and his last game for them on 13^th May 1967 – in a nice piece of symmetry both games were against Reading.

Peter in his Scunthorpe days (we haven’t yet located a photo of Peter in Chesterfield’s strip)

Peter’s Chesterfield debut took place at Swansea’s Vetch Field and ended in a goalless draw before 7,939 people. He played on the right wing. As we shall see, the Nottingham Football Post’s pre-season prediction that “the coloured winger signed from Scunthorpe has shown signs that might well be usefully channelled on the right wing” was to prove over optimistic.

It had been almost 12 months since Peter’s last League game and he had joined Chesterfield on a three-month trial basis. He seemed to have proved his fitness by starting four games in the space of 11 days in August 1969. This included his first home game for Chesterfield, a 1-0 defeat against Port Vale. Sadly, it also included his last ever game as a full-time professional, another 1-0 defeat, this time at home to Bradford City in a First Round League Cup replay. In that final game he suffered a serious injury and was replaced by Ernie Moss who would go on to become a Chesterfield legend.

Having only just avoided having to apply for re-election in 1968/69, Chesterfield went on to win the Division Four title in 1969/70 but Peter wasn’t around to share that glory. At only 25 years of age his League career was over. It was a career that spanned six seasons during which he made a total of 104 appearances and scored 21 goals, a respectable return for someone who played most of his games on the wing,

Peter has commented that at no time did he play in a team with a black team mate, nor did he ever see another black player in any opposition team.

While Chesterfield were celebrating their title success, Peter was plying his trade at Bacup Borough in the Lancashire Combination League. He had signed for the non-league club in November 1969. Incidentally, he was also Bacup’s first black player.

Peter also played for non-league clubs such as Netherfield, Morecambe and Rossendale after leaving League football. In addition, he had a spell managing Workington after they had dropped out of the Football League. Football management is a precarious career and with a family to support it was probably just as well that he found a new career working with the Windscale Nuclear Power Station, known as Sellafield since 1981.

But his greatest and most lasting impact was through the work he performed to fight racism. Peter was particularly active as a Trades Union representative and held senior positions with the General Municipal Boilermakers’ Union (GMB) including chairing the GMB Northern Region Race Committee, being president of the Union’s National Race Committee, being a member of the GMB and TUC’s National Race Committees and playing a crucial role in developing the Union’s equality and diversity policies.

In 1998, he received an award from the Professional Footballers’ Association for being a Pioneer of Black British Football.

In the New Year’s Honour’s list 2003 he was awarded the MBE for his anti-racism work both through the Union and the Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football campaign.

He also worked for Show Racism the Red Card and was admitted to their Hall of Fame on 9th October 2013.

On the occasion of Peter’s inclusion in the Hall of Fame, Tommy Brennan, the GMB Regional Secretary, said: “Peter has been a fantastic ambassador for GMB over his many years of service gaining the respect of all concerned in the battle against racism generally and in football particularly.”

Although Peter retired from full-time employment, his valuable anti-racism work continues and he is chair of AWAZ Community Interest Company an organisation which helps Black and Minority Ethnic groups in Cumbria where he lives.

In case you wondered, AWAZ is not an acronym but a word that means ‘voice’ in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages.

Peter was indeed a pioneer. It is said he was one of only five black players in the English Football League when he made his debut for Workington in 1965. Fast forward 50 years and quite possibly every individual Football League club has at least five black players on its books. He was the first black player for Workington, Scunthorpe, Chesterfield and Bacup and has continued to use what he experienced to improve the lives of other minority groups fully earning the accolades he may not have achieved as a footballer but he has earned as a strong and caring defender of the community.

You can read more about Peter, including the remarkable story of his long lost brother, in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ where he features in the Scunthorpe chapter.

Happy Birthday Chris Kamara

As far as we know, only one of the players to feature in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ has appeared on the panel show ‘Would I lie to you?’ Chris Kamara tried to persuade the opposing team that, not only was he born on Christmas Day, but that his parents had named him ‘Christmas’. To be honest, he did make it sound plausibe (a bit, if you’d had a few drinks) but the other team didn’t buy it – they pronounced it a lie.

It was partly true, Chris’s birthday is 25th December but he was not given the name Christmas. So we take the opportunity today to wish Chris Kamara a happy birthday.

As well as being the first black player at Swindon Town (and, by the reckoning of some, Brentford), Chris was also one the few black players to make a successful transition into management and, of course, is now a well-known TV pundit.

But Chris is truly a man of many talents as I hope you will agree after listening to this track:

Happy birthday, Chris, from the team at Football’s Black Pioneers and happy Christmas to anyone reading this during the festive season.

Backpass

The alarming thing about the December 2020 issue of ‘Backpass’ magazine was the number of names I recognised on the obituaries pages, it was a relief and a pleasure to turn to the full page spread on ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’:

For those unfamiliar with it, ‘Backpass’ is a 64 page, glossy magazine that will appeal to supporters of a certain age (that age is possibly best described as ‘getting on a bit’). It isn’t entirely a nostalgia-fest though as three pages are devoted to the Jeff Astle Foundation and the very topical subject of possible links between repeatedly heading a football and the increased risk of dementia.

Backpass was out on 3rd December and I picked my copy up from a branch of WH Smiths.

Today is Barbados Independence Day

Three of the first black players featured in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ were born on Barbados and at least another seven had Bajan heritage. Use our interactive map to find out their names:

https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/about/footballs-black-pioneers-where-were-they-born/

And read the book to discover their unique contributions to British footballing history!

Independent Pioneers

‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ was featured in The Independent in November 2020. If you missed it, you can read the full article by Colin Drury here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/first-black-footballers-book-arthur-wharton-b1722698.html

Colin’s article opened with the story of Jack Leslie of Plymouth Argyle which we have featured on this site before. As a Barnsley fan Colin, understandably, also wrote about Steve Mokone, Barnsley’s first black player. If there were to be an award for the least pleasant of our Pioneers then Mokone would surely be a front runner!

“Also here … is Steve Mokone, the self-proclaimed Pele of South Africa who arrived at Barnsley in 1961, played one game, and caused so much (unspecified) disruption the club terminated his contract within five days. He later served 12 years in a US prison for assault. A character, as they say.”

Colin continues “Bill Hern and David Gleave, authors of Football’s Black Pioneers, say they set out four years ago to write a dip-in-dip-out tome that would appeal to sports fans. Yet the result is only ostensibly about the (not always) beautiful game. Rather, what emerges over 92 wildly different mini-biographies, is a far wider social history about the black British experience over the last 130 years, touching on everything from slavery to Windrush and black lives mattering. Here, writ large in often agonising detail, is racism, prejudice, isolation and the loneliness of going where others have not yet been.”

“‘We started writing a book about football,’ says Gleave today. ‘But as we progressed, we found we were uncovering more and more stories that made us realise, actually, these lives offered a real sense of a wider black British history; they touch on so many issues that members of the black community – whatever their job or position – have faced down the years.'”

But, Colin adds “Yet this is by no means a bleak read. The lives here are shot through with triumph, defiance against stacked odds and genuine, real-life heroism. There are moments of levity here too. In a chapter on Willie Clarke – who, on Christmas Day 1901, became the first black player to score a league goal while playing for Aston Villa – it is noted that his marriage to a white girl was disapproved of by her father. Ada Higginbottom’s dad was not, it is hinted, overly-concerned about Clarke’s Guyanese heritage but was none too keen on his daughter marrying a footballer.”

Colin also probed our reasons for writing the book: “Gleave is 68, white and a retired civil servant by trade. But in 1981 – the year of the Brixton riots – he married Roxanne, a Guyanese teacher, with who he has three mixed-race children, all now grown-up. ‘As a couple, we knew from first-hand experience there was very little black history taught in school so we decided very early that we would have to teach this part of their heritage,’ he says today. ‘We were always keen to stress that having this mixed heritage gives you not just one culture to draw on, but two. It is far more interesting and exciting.’”

Colin continued “Thus, began a three-decade journey into black history which has seen him produce books and online packs about everything from slave campaigner Olaudah Equiano to composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Then, four years ago, as he and Hern concluded an educational project on black soldiers who fought in World War One, the latter suggested the idea that would become this new book.

Hern is 64, also white and a retired civil servant. His passion for history had led him to focusing on black issues, he says, ‘because it is an area that is so rich but so often overlooked.'”

Colin explored how we set about the research for the book “That work included speaking to clubs (‘mainly useless’), sifting through old newspapers and programmes, chatting with local historians and going through more birth, death and marriage certificates than either man can count.

Online fan forums proved hugely useful – although not always. ‘On several occasions we had people saying to us something like, ‘Oh yes, we had an Egyptian prince play for us in the Twenties and he always played in bare foot. There are various stories of that sort doing the rounds, although sorry to say we never found any Egyptian princes.’

They interviewed about 20 of the pioneers, with Hern – a Sunderland fan now living in Yorkshire – speaking to Viv Anderson and Chris Kamara. The latter – today a semi-legendary pundit – had no idea he had been a trailblazer with Swindon, despite it being splashed all over the local newspaper at the time. ‘I also interviewed Yeovil Town’s,’ says Gleave, ruefully. ‘Then they dropped out of the football league so we couldn’t include it.'”

“If the book has a central message … it may be that work still needs to be done on tackling prejudice – in football and beyond. It points out that there remains, even in 2020, few black managers in the game.”

Quoting author Gleave again Colin wrote: “‘I think it’s quite easy for white liberal people to say things are getting better but actually, I think if you’re involved with the black community, it’s fairly obvious that things aren’t altogether better,’ he says. ‘My wife and I were abused on the street only a year ago for no reason so these things are still happening. Are things getting better? I don’t know, maybe. But what I am sure of is it’s easy to exaggerate how much better they are, and that is not a trap we should fall into. There is still a huge amount of work to be done.’”

* Football’s Black Pioneers is published by Conker Editions.

Brighton Rock – The podcast

Bill Hern certainly gets around, this week he was ‘in’ Brighton – not literally of course, Bill is a law abiding citizen! He spoke to Russell Guiver and David Townsend who run the Brighton Rock blog. Funnily enough Russell and David are Brighton fans. Brighton Rock has been described as “Probably the best podcast you will hear concerning Brighton fc. Very insightful, hosted by a presenter who is passionate about our club.”

It didn’t take long for the conversation to get round to a discussion of Brighton’s first black player and it soon became evident that Dave Busby (for it was he) had slipped under the radar of both Russell and David. This is precisely why we felt it was important to write ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ now before the contributions of players like Dave are completely lost to history.

You can listen to their wide-ranging discussion here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/footballs-black-pioneers-with-guest-bill-hern/id1504890714?i=1000499448132

Walter Tull exhibition

Just got back from a couple of hours in Barbados (Zoom is a wonderful thing!) where I attended an event hosted by the museum in Bridgetown. On this Remembrance Day (11th November) it is fitting to remember Walter Tull, who lost his life in World War One. As you may know, Walter’s father was born in Barbados.

The museum is hosting an online exhibition about Walter and you can access it here: http://waltertullexhibition.org/

They hope that, Covid permitting, they will be able to make the exhibition a physical entity at some point during 2021. But, for now, why not take a virtual tour of the exhibits?

Join us for a (not really a launch) event!

Covid-19 may have disrupted our plans for a grand national tour to launch ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ but it can’t stop us celebrating the book with an online event on Thursday 12th November. Why not join us? You can get your ticket here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/footballs-black-pioneers-tickets-127092114937

We will be joined by special guests Greg Foxsmith and Matt Tiller from the Jack Leslie campaign. Doors will open (in a strictly digital sense) from soon after 19.00 for a 19.30 start.

TalkSPORT encore!

Bill Hern must feel like a regular now following another appearance on the Hawksbee & Jacobs show on Talksport radio:

You can buy ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ (“an important book” – Paul Hawksbee) from the publishers, Conker Editions, Amazon or, if you prefer, from your favourite local book shop.

Across The Pitch

Bill Hern took part in a three-way podcast between Accrington, Arizona and, neatly maintaining the alliteration, his home village of Aberford in Yorkshire, for ‘Across the Pitch’. The podcast covered a wide range of players including Gerry Clarke and Romy Boco of Accrington, Brendon Batson (Arsenal), Les Lawrence and Alf Charles (Burnley), Howard Gayle (Blackburn) and, of course, the great Jack Leslie plus a few others.

You can listen here: https://acrossthepitch.libsyn.com/episode-184-footballs-black-pioneers?tdest_id=1001309

And don’t forget that you can buy a copy of the book direct from the publishers: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/product/footballs-black-pioneers-subscriber-copies-for-pre-order/. As Amazon have currently put their price up, buying from the publisher is a really good option as you will get a free A5 size commemorative poster as well as (hopefully) a signed copy of the book.

Bury FC / AFC

Steve Johnson, Bury FC’s first black player

We debated long and hard whether we could include Bury in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’, in the end the conclusion, reached with a heavy heart, was that we could not. In many ways the demise of the club, who joined the Football League in 1894, sums up much of what is wrong with football today. A club in financial difficulties, an ‘investor’ who failed to match actions to words and careless and unsympathetic administrators who failed in their duties. And so a club, established in 1885, went to the wall.

But a book is one thing, a blog quite another, here is the story of Bury’s first black player.

Stephen (Steve) Anthony Johnson was born in Liverpool on 23 June 1957. He went on to play for 6 League teams and in 1977, according to the extremely helpful contributors to the Bury FC Message Board, became the first Black player to appear for Bury.

Steve’s father, Eric Emmanuel Johnson, was a ship’s cook and baker in the merchant navy and his mother, Christina Johnson nee Murphy a coil winding machinist with a telephone maker. Eric’s father, William Johnson was also a merchant seaman whereas Christina’s father worked as a dock labourer. Steve was born in Mill Road Hospital, Everton, Liverpool and the family lived in Carlingford Street, Liverpool.

Originally a work house, Mill Road Hospital was hit by German bombs on 3 May 1941 killing at least 78 people. The Hospital was demolished in the 1990s.

Carlingford Street was in the Toxteth area of Liverpool where race riots took place in 1981. Toxteth had one of the highest unemployment rates in Britain and relations between mainly, but not exclusively, black people and the police were strained. Things came to a head on 3 July 1981 when the police arrested a black man called Leroy Alphonse Cooper in a, for those days, typically heavy-handed manner. Riots exploded across the area and gas grenades were used for the first time outside of Northern Ireland to quell the unrest. Nevertheless, it was 9 days before any semblance of peace was restored.

By 1981 Steve had already left Liverpool and signed for Bury in 1977. However, racism was rife in Britain of the 1970s and Bury was no exception. Indeed in 1977 the relatively newly-formed Rock Against Racism campaign group held a gig at Crystals Night Club in Bury featuring Ed Banger and The Nosebleeds (later to briefly feature Morrissey of The Smiths fame) and the poet John Cooper Clarke.

Rock Against Racism had been set up in 1976 largely in response to comments Eric Clapton had made at a concert in Birmingham declaring his support for Enoch Powell. Clapton thought there we too many foreigners and Black people in the country. Many in the music industry were appalled and responded with the creation of Rock Against Racism involving a series of concerts with an anti-racist theme.

Perhaps the highest profile event Rock Against Racism organised was in 1978 when 100,000 people marched from Trafalgar Square to the East End of London for an open-air festival at Victoria Park in Hackney and to show their opposition to the growing wave of racism in the United Kingdom. The need for the current Black Lives Matter campaign sadly suggests that things have not progressed as much as we would wish.

At 6 feet tall and weighing 12 stones 9lbs Steve was a powerful centre forward, strong in the air and known during his Chester days as the Mean Machine.

Steve had spells with Bangor City and Altrincham before joining 3^rd Division Bury in November 1977.

He didn’t have long to wait for his debut appearing at inside right in a 2-1 defeat at Bradford City on 12 November 1977. Steve was substituted by the experienced Alan Suddick in that game and didn’t reappear until a 1-1 home draw with Colchester on 27 December 1977.

His first goal came along on 2 January 1978 – the 3^rd in a 3-0 win at Rotherham.

Steve played 11 league games (2 as substitute) that season. He didn’t add to his goal at Rotherham. Bury finished the season in 15^th position winning only one of their last 14 games and drawing an incredible 13 times in 23 home games.

Although Steve didn’t feature in any of the games, Bury reached the Quarter Final of the League Cup that year where they were beaten 3-0 at home by Nottingham Forest the eventual winners and reigning League Champions. A crowd of 21,500 watched the match. In contrast, the highest home crowd of the season in the League was only 9,783 and for Bury’s final home game of the season the crowd had fallen to 2,536.

The 1978/79 season was a huge disappointment for Steve. Even in a struggling Bury side he started only 3 league games plus 5 substitute appearances. He saw no first team action until coming on as substitute in a 1-0 home win against Hull City on 28 October 1978 and didn’t start a game until 27 March 1978 in a 1-0 home defeat against Swindon Town. His only goal came in Bury’s last away game of the season, a 4-0 win at Lincoln which all but banished Bury’s relegation worries. Bury finished in 19^th position avoiding relegation by only 6 points (2 points for a win).

Still only 22 years old, Steve made his big breakthrough in the 1979/80 season, although he didn’t feature in the first 13 league games of the season. Bury were at that stage 2^nd from bottom in the 3^rd Division. After coming on as substitute in a 2-1 home defeat against Sheffield United, Steve started the next 8 games scoring 4 goals. He was one of four players dropped after an 8-0 defeat at Swindon Town on 8 December 1979 which seems a little harsh to say the least!

By the end of the 1979/80 season Steve had played 25 league games plus 2 as substitute scoring 9 goals making him second top scorer behind Craig Madden. He scored all 4 of Bury’s goals in their last 3 league games in the space of 7 days, earning them 4 points but it wasn’t enough to prevent them being relegated by a single point.

Steve made his FA Cup debut in 1979/80, a season in which Bury reached the 5^th round before losing 2-0 at Liverpool in front of a crowd of 43,769. Steve played in that game as well as making 5 other FA Cup appearances (including 1 as substitute) scoring 2 goals. Bury held Liverpool for 64 minutes before Liverpool substitute David Fairclough broke the deadlock on 64 minutes. Fairclough added a second on 81 minutes and Bury’s brave effort was over.

By 1980/81 Steve was one of the first names on the team sheet. Bury found 4^th Division football a little easier but could finish only 12^th. Steve played 42 League games plus one as a substitute scoring 18 goals. He scored his first hat trick on 21 March 1981 in a 3-1 home win against local rivals Rochdale. He scored 6 penalties that season 2 of which came in his hat trick. Steve also 3 League Cup goals in 3 games, his 21 goals making him the joint 5^th top scorer in Division 4. He also made 5 FA Cup appearances without scoring.

1981/82 was another good season for Steve who scored 13 goals in his first 20 League games although he didn’t score a single League goal in the 11 League games he played after 30 January 1982. His striking partner Craig Madden scored an incredible 35 goals but despite this prolific pairing Bury could finish only 9^th in Division 4. Madden scored a further 7 goals in the FA and League Cup making him the top scorer in Division 4. Steve scored 2 FA Cup goals in 4 games and one League Cup goal in 2 games.

There was to be no repeat of Craig Madden and Steve’s scoring feats in 1982/83 but Bury did improve immensely, topping the League going into the New Year and being in the 4^th promotion spot going into their last game of the season.

Bury could have all but clinched promotion with a win in their penultimate game of the season but only drew at Tranmere on 7 May 1983. All was far from lost and a win in the last game of the season at home to Wimbledon would be enough to see Bury back in Division 3. Wimbledon had already clinched the title and Bury’s highest gate of the season, some 6,760, were hoping to celebrate promotion. Wimbledon clearly didn’t sit back and relax, going 2-0 up by half time and eventually winning 3-1. Bury would still go up if Scunthorpe lost their last game at Chester. However, Scunthorpe won 2-1 and Bury having been in a promotion position since September missed out on promotion.

Bury had been 7 points ahead of Scunthorpe with only 2 games to play but crucially Scunthorpe still had to play 4 games. Bury gained only one point while Scunthorpe got 10.

Steve ended the season with 10 goals from 29 League games plus 5 as substitute. He also played one League Cup game but failed to score.

The Wimbledon game proved to be Steve’s last in a Bury shirt. In the close season he joined Division 4 side Rochdale where in 1983/84 he played 19 games including 2 as sub scoring 7 goals. He also played 1 League Cup game without scoring and scored 2 goals in his sole FA Cup appearance. Despite this decent strike rate Rochdale allowed Steve to join Division 3 Wigan Athletic in February 1984. Where, almost 7 years after becoming Bury’s first Black player, he gained the same distinction at Wigan.

Steve retired from the game in 1993. He made a total of 476 appearances for six Football League teams during his career, scoring a total of 150 goals.

There is a postscript to the story of Bury FC as a new club, Bury AFC, has risen from the ashes. The club, run by the fans, for the fans, has a place in the North West Counties League First Division North and, as their website proudly proclaims, they are ‘bringing football back to the town of Bury.’ Their opening league fixture ended in a 3-2 win against Steeton AFC and the long climb up the football pyramid had started.

The winning goal followed ‘an almighty goalmouth scramble’ (image by Richard Tomlinson)

Bury AFC’s first black player in the League? The honour goes jointly to Liam MacDevitt and Arthur Feudjio who both came on as substitutes in the 71st minute against Steeton.

We wish Bury AFC the best of luck for the future.

Clyde Best – Football Icon

So much material is aired during Black History Month that it is easy to miss good things, the short film about Clyde Best that we feature here had slipped through our net. This does rather beg the question why black history only gets talked about for one month of the year, for us, the black contribution to British society (not just football) is something we should celebrate all year round.

Clyde was not the first black player at West Ham but it would have been impossible to write ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ without discussing his experiences.

We are so grateful to JeanMaire Symonds, daughter of Rochdale’s first black player, Calvin Symonds, for sharing this film with us. Clyde and Calvin both still live in Bermuda where their sporting contributions are remembered with pride.

We are proud that our book has received many positive reviews, you can read some of the comments here: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/must-read-reviews/

Walter Tull honoured

As part of Black History Month celebrations, the Post Office have painted four of their post boxes in the UK black. Each one celebrates the contribution of a black person to British society. We can debate whether this is tokenism of the worst sort (four? In the whole of the UK?) or whether we should accept that even a token gesture is better than nothing. We can also debate whether the ‘right’ four people have been chosen to represent the contribution black people have been making in Britain for centuries. But let’s leave those questions aside for now and express our pleasure that one of ‘Football’s Back Pioneers’ is among the chosen four.

Walter Tull was the first black player at Tottenham Hotspur (his career there spanned the years 1909 to 1911) and Northampton Town (1911 to 1914) and, according to the press release that accompanied the story, he was also Glasgow Rangers’ first black player. As far as we know Walter never played a competitive game for Rangers but at least one source states that he signed for them in February 1917 whilst in Scotland on his officer training course with the intention of playing for them after the war. Regardless of his status as a Rangers player, what is beyond doubt is that Walter was an important figure not just as a footballer but also as a soldier.

Walter served in the Army from 1914 until his death in France in 1918. He was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant at a time when Army Regulations specifically excluded anyone with non-white heritage from holding an officer rank (Walter’s grandfather had been an enslaved man on Barbados). The powers that be had a range of excuses for discriminating against soldiers of black or mixed heritage, one was that white troops would object to being led by a black officer. It’s surely worth mentioning that a number of the men Walter commanded risked their lives trying to retrieve his body from no-man’s land where he fell. His body never was recovered and so he has no known final resting place, but he is commemorated on the war memorial at Arras, one of 34,785 men remembered there who have no known grave. He is also named on the memorial in his home town of Folkestone and on the one in nearby Dover. At Northampton Town’s ground his memory is honoured with the words:

“Through his actions, W. D. J. Tull ridiculed the barriers of ignorance that tried to deny people of colour equality with their contemporaries. His life stands testament to a determination to confront those people and those obstacles that sought to diminish him and the world in which he lived. It reveals a man, though rendered breathless in his prime, whose strong heart still beats loudly”

Walter Tull deserves to be remembered and we are glad that ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ is playing a small part in that.

Football’s Black Pioneers – A Timeline

The material in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ is presented in alphabetical order by club (Accrington Stanley to Wycombe Wanderers). We did discuss presenting the stories in a different way, chronological order by date of debut. Had we done so the book would have opened with Arthur Wharton, who made his debut for Preston North End in 1886, and continued through to new arrivals in the League like Salford and Harrogate Town. This would have given the book a very different flavour, turning it much more explicitly into a book about 130+ years of the black British experience. There are stories within the book that reflect many aspects of that history.

Arthur Wharton was sent to England from his home in what is now Ghana by his middle class parents to be educated in British schools. Their hope was that he would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Methodist minister. Sadly from their point of view his undoubted ability as a sportsman distracted him from the career path they had chosen for him and the rest is, well, history.

The second black player came from a very tough working class area of Scotland, Leith, where disease was rife. His father was from ‘West Indiea’ [sic]. John Walker was lucky to survive beyond childhood, many of his contemporaries didn’t, and he enjoyed a brief but successful career as a professional footballer. He died tragically young, succumbing, probably to tuberculosis, at the age of just 22.

Another black ‘pioneer’, Willie Clarke, was the grandson of a member of British Guiana’s (now Guyana) plantocracy. His father, Alexander Clarke, was sent to Britain to be educated, in this case, in Scotland. After featuring as the first black player at three clubs in the English Football League, Willie served in the Army during World War One, which he survived, dying at the age of 70 in Tunbridge Wells in 1949.

Walter Tull was another who would have featured in the early chapters of the book. Walter was the grandson of an enslaved man on Barbados. Walter’s father made his way to England where he settled in Folkestone and married a local white girl. Walter was the first black player at two clubs and also served as an officer in World War One. He was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant even though Army regulations at the time specifically excluded anyone who wasn’t white from being an officer.

So already in these four stories we have links to West Africa, two British colonies in the Caribbean (Guiana and Barbados) and the slums of working class Scotland. These stories alone demonstrate the diversity of British society that pre-dates the Windrush generation by up to 60 years.

Of course there are many other stories and the players featured in the book came from (i.e. were born in) at least fourteen different countries, the net is cast even wider if you take into account where players’ parents were born.

If you have already bought a copy of the book and would like to follow the stories chronologically you can download the timeline here:

FOOTBALLS-BLACK-PIONEERS-ANNEX-1 Download

If you haven’t yet got your copy the obvious question is why not?! The book can be bought from Amazon (the cheapest option), is available in some main branches of Waterstones (and can be ordered from any other branch) or, if you would like to support your local independent book shop, they can order you a copy. Finally, you can get the book from the publishers: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/product/footballs-black-pioneers-subscriber-copies-for-pre-order/ – although you will pay the full price they do still have signed copies and they will also send you a free limited edition A5 size print to go with the book.

Pedro Richards – Notts County’s First Black Player

We started work on ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ in the autumn of 2016 and each May we mourned the loss of two teams from our contents’ list and started work on two new chapters. Sometimes work we had done that we feared was wasted effort turned out not to have been wasted after all – Leyton Orient were in, then they were out, then they were back in again. We kept our fingers crossed for Notts County in the 2020 play offs as we had already written about their first black player, Pedro Richards. Sadly it was not to be and so we set to work writing about Barrow and Harrogate Town instead. But, although a book has a finite number of pages, this blog is under no such constraints and so here is the story of Pedro Richards.

Pedro was born in the North Middlesex Hospital, Edmonton, London on 11^th November 1956. His birth certificate shows his name as Peter Richards but, probably thanks to his Spanish mother, he is forever remembered as Pedro.

He spent his childhood up to the age of 11 in Spain and when he came to Nottingham as a young boy he could hardly speak English. Indeed in his book Diary of a Football Nobody, his team mate David McVay irreverently refers to “Pedro, whose grasp of the written English is on a par with his attempts at the spoken word…”

Early press reports about young Pedro almost invariably described him, incorrectly, as West Indian born.

As a young professional Pedro impressed greatly and in 1974 spent two days training at Lilleshall as one of the 50 top under-18 year old footballers in England.

He had played for Nottingham Boys along with St Kitts-born Tristan Benjamin who also joined Notts County. It was always going to be a close run race to see who would be the first to reach the first team. Pedro won that honour when he made his debut on 23^rd November 1974 at left back in a 3-0 defeat at Sunderland who were flying high in the old Second Division at the time.

Despite the occasional transfer request, Pedro was a one-club man and over 12 seasons played almost 500 games for Notts County, scoring six goals.

Tragically he died, aged only 45, on 23rd December 2001.

Pedro is still fondly remembered by many County fans and it is our pleasure to honour him here.