Football League clubs and their first black players
The theme for Black History Month 2024 is ‘reclaiming the narrative’. We found ourselves wondering exactly what that meant and whether Football’s Black Pioneers could play a small part in shifting the dial. Click on the book cover to hear a short presentation on why we think the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ (and don’t forget to to click on the little forward arrow button to get it started!):
Here are two contrasting team photos from the 1973/74 season. In the first we see the West Ham United squad.[1]Courtesy of The West Ham Years, an absolute must read for any West Ham fan, for more information contact: Tim Crane (timcranetwhy(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com) Reflecting the ethnic diversity of London even in those days, the photo includes at least eight Black or mixed heritage players (four of whom played in the first team at some point in their West Ham career).
Meanwhile in Nottingham, the team photo for the. same year showed future England international, Viv Anderson, as the lone Black player among the forty faces who lined up for the pre-season team photo. Nottingham had hosted a small but vibrant Caribbean community for many years but at the time of the 1971 census it was still a predominantly white city with just five per cent of the population coming from an ethnic minority.
There is no doubt which of these two photos is the more typical of the period. Being a Black professional footballer in the 1970s could be a lonely experience, if there was racist abuse (and there was) a player had to deal with it alone.
Viv Anderson commented to Bill Hern, co-author of Football’s Black Pioneers, that:
I put up with the abuse because I had no choice. I wanted to be a footballer more than anything in the world and if I had let racism affect my play I would have been dropped. Walking off was never an option.
References
| ↑1 | Courtesy of The West Ham Years, an absolute must read for any West Ham fan, for more information contact: Tim Crane (timcranetwhy(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com) |
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Albert Payne was twenty years old when the landing craft he was packed into along with his mates approached the Normandy beach, it was 6th June 1944.
During several preceding days of stormy weather tensions had been high among the men, gearing themselves up for action and then being told the mission had been delayed. It had been an unbearable period of waiting so there had been relief when they were told that today was the day, relief mingled with a fear that resided deep within a man’s guts.
During the days of waiting Albert had spent a lot of time remembering incidents from his short life. Singing Jerusalem, solo, in public at the age of thirteen had been scary, but he knew he was a good singer and felt confident in spite of the butterflies. There had been a letter of commendation from the Commissioner of the Toxteth Boy Scouts Association addressed to ‘Scout Payne’ which congratulated him on ‘the very nice way you sang.’ and ‘Keep it up, there are several more songs I want you to sing in the future.’ Albert now found himself wondering about ‘the future’ and how much of it there might be.
He also wondered about his football career. He was on the books of local club Tranmere Rovers and was doing well for them but without yet having played for the first team. His cousin, George, was with Tranmere too. George was a goalkeeper, Albert, a tenacious midfielder. They both hoped for careers in the game.
The worst of the stormy weather may have abated but the short trip across the English Channel had still been a rough one and the wind was blowing hard. When the front gate of the landing craft crashed open Albert was shocked to see how far from the beach they were and how very exposed they would be to German fire. There was no time to hesitate, the men ahead were leaping into the water and the men behind were pressing forward. Albert followed and, holding his rifle above his head, waded to the shore ahead. He saw men in front of him and on either side, fall. Now, it wasn’t just the wind that was cutting into them, German machine gun bullets were tearing into sea and flesh indiscriminately.
Reaching the beach, Albert stumbled a few yards and flung himself down behind a bank of shingle. He could almost pretend he was safe here. But staying was not an option. The Officers were urging them forward and men around him reluctantly raised themselves up. Albert did too but felt something smash into his shoulder, after a moment’s shock the pain followed almost immediately. He collapsed onto the shingle and noted dispassionately the blood soaking into his uniform, ‘should have kept your head down you daft bugger’ he thought as he lay bleeding. Fortunately, help was soon at hand and he found himself being half carried, half dragged back towards the sea.
If you discount the months of training, Albert’s active service could be measured in hours.
Once he had recovered, Albert was transferred to the Army Physical Training Corps where his background in football served him well. He was based in Hereford and, while there, he met a girl, Ethel, they married in 1947 and stayed together until she died in 2003.
Football? Albert did play for Tranmere Rovers. He got some good reviews, ‘Payne was the most successful of the two newcomers in the side … good in defence and attack.’ He didn’t shirk the physical side of the game, perhaps he should have done, as his career was hampered at least once by a fractured leg. Football in those post-War years was neither glamourous nor well paid and he retired from the game in 1953 having played only ten times for the first team (cousin George played 467).
Life after football included time spent as a lift operator at London’s Dorchester hotel, he also worked at the nearby Café de Paris in Piccadilly. He kept up with his singing, occasionally performing in dance halls around the city.
His last job before retiring was working for John Aspinall at the Claremont club in Berkeley Square (Aspinall made a fortune hosting private gaming parties and managed to stay, just, on the right side of the law). Albert regularly received generous tips from the club’s wealthy patrons, including one of £7,000 (as a footballer he would have earned no more than £15 a week). He retired in about 2000 but continued to do driving jobs. A regular assignment was to pick George Best up from the Chelsea Brasserie, a favourite watering hole of the Irish legend. In spite of their very different career paths, they swapped stories about their time in football. Albert drank orange juice, he was driving after all, George did not.
Albert died in London in 2008 after a long an interesting life.
Albert was the grandson of a Black man from Barbados (and almost certainly had enslaved forebears) and this earnt him a place representing Tranmere Rovers in Football’s Black Pioneers – The stories of the first Black players at each of the 92 League Clubs. You can find more about Albert here:
https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/tranmere-rovers-1946-47/
Calvin Symonds became the first Black player to represent Rochdale AFC when he played for them in 1955. He is now 92 years young and living in Bermuda where he was born in 1932. It was our great privilege to meet him and his wife Valerie when we visited Bermuda recently.
Calvin is still something of a celebrity on the island, remembered as much if not more for his exploits as a cricketer.
A few days after the above photo was taken Calvin was interviewed for a local cable TV channel along with another Bermudian football legend, Clyde Best. It was our pleasure to be in the studio with them while they exchanged reminisces. Calvin’s memory is razor sharp and he was able to vividly describe goals he scored over fifty years ago.
Clyde, who also played cricket before leaving the island for a football career with West Ham, still refers to Calvin as ‘captain’ and acknowledges him as a true pioneer. Two true gentlemen!
We were shocked and saddened to hear of Benjamin Zephaniah’s death at the age of just 65. We have long been admirers of his poetry and his activism but he had many strings to his bow and others may remember him as Jeremiah ‘Jimmy’ Jesus from Peaky Blinders. We remember him particularly for his support of Football’s Black Pioneers and we were thrilled and honoured when he attended our launch event.
Later, it was our pleasure to help in a small way with the documentary he presented ‘Standing Firm – Football’s Windrush Story’. It is a mark of his generosity of spirit that our book was mentioned in the credits, he didn’t have to do that and many wouldn’t have done so. The documentary was excellent and is well worth watching, sadly it is now behind a pay wall but keep your eyes open, hopefully there will be a repeat:
https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/standing-firm-footballs-windrush-story/
Benjamin was a towering figure and we mourn his loss.
The City of Cardiff is one of several British cities that can trace a significant Black population back to the 19th century. Many people of African or Caribbean descent lived in the area known as Tiger Bay, an area which included within it Butetown and the Cardiff docks.
The relationship between the Black residents of the area and other areas of the city with a predominantly White population was often uneasy. In 1919 so called ‘race riots’ broke out in several British cities and Cardiff was prominent among them. Organisations the Black population might have looked to for support and protections were often among the worst culprits or, at the very least, stood aside and did nothing. The National Union of Seamen was active in supporting the interests of seamen against Government attacks – but only if they were White seamen. Shockingly, the police were also culpable, arresting Black people for defending themselves but generally not their White attackers who almost invariably had instigated the trouble. Three men died during the ‘riots’ in Cardiff, one of a fractured skull, allegedly, as a result of a blow to the head administered by a policeman.
But Tommy Best, Cardiff City’s first Black player, was not from Cardiff. For a Cardiff-born Black pioneer you need look no further than Bob Delgado. Bob’s family had certainly been affected by the 1919 ‘riots’, his grandfather had escaped through a skylight when his house was attacked by a White mob.
Bob was born three months after Tommy made his Cardiff debut on 30th October 1948. Tommy’s birthplace, Milford Haven, is about 100 miles to the west of Cardiff, it was (and still is) an area with an almost exclusively White population. Tommy and his four siblings would certainly have been very noticeable in the small town.
Tommy served in the Royal Navy during World War Two and it was while his ship was docked in Belfast for repairs that Tommy achieved the first of several career milestones. He appeared as a guest player for Drumcondra in a cup tie against Belfast Celtic, he scored and impressed the Belfast team so much that they offered him a contract. Tommy thus became, we believe, the first Black player to play professionally in the top tier of Irish football. Tommy’s military service subsequently saw him posted to Queensland, Australia, where he played for Thistle FC. Tommy’s post-War career in football is covered in the Cardiff City and Queens Park Rangers chapters of Football’s Black Pioneers.
In October 2023 Bill Hern, co-author of ‘Pioneers’, contributed to a BBC Wales programme commemorating the 75th anniversary of Tommy’s Cardiff debut:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67255682
We like to feature programmes from games that our Pioneers featured in but, so far, although a small number of Cardiff programmes for 1948/49 and 1949/50 (the two season Tommy featured in the Cardiff team) are available to buy, none are from games Tommy actually played in. We will keep looking!
Our Black History Month series of podcasts with These Football Times concluded with this episode featuring special guest Dave Busby. Dave was the first Black player at Brighton and Barrow. Dave talked frankly about his, not altogether positive, recollections of Brian Clough whose path he crossed at Derby and Brighton, along with many other entertaining stories of his time in football.
https://audioboom.com/posts/8392022-football-s-black-pioneers-episode-5-dave-busby
Dave is still fondly remembered at Brighton (and he clearly has some good memories of his time there) and featured in a post on the supporters’ forum commemorating the 50th anniversary of his debut for their first team in October 1973:
https://bhasc.com/wp/2023/10/20/albions-first-black-player-50-years-ago/
Earlier episodes of the podcast series are still available including a great interview with Roland Butcher (first Black player at Stevenage). Best known as a cricketer, our chat with Roland ranged freely across both sports. In another episode we were joined by Brenton Phillips. Brenton’s name may be less well known but, a child of Windrush generation parents, he spoke fascinatingly about his experiences as player, manager and chief executive within the game.
Well done to the West Ham Years team[1]Find out more about the West Ham Years here:https://thewesthamyears.com/ for producing a fantastic tribute to Jack Leslie. Although Jack never played for the Hammers, he was an East End boy and he worked for many years in the boot room at Upton Park and many players who knew him have contributed their memories of Jack. A truly fitting tribute that hopefully will be enjoyed not just by West Ham fans. You can read it by clicking on the link here:
References
| ↑1 | Find out more about the West Ham Years here:https://thewesthamyears.com/ |
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7th October 2022 was a special day, Plymouth Argyle defeated Accrington 3-0 at home to consolidate their place at the top of League One. But it was a special weekend even before the match kicked off. Most Argyle fans would surely agree that the unveiling of a statue to Plymouth hero, Jack Leslie, was of longer lasting significance than the result of a single game. Which was the icing and which was the cake – a 3-0 win or a statue that will stand as a lasting and fitting tribute to someone who was scarcely heard of outside Plymouth until a couple of years ago? We know what we think!
Jack’s story is well known, now – called up to the England squad in 1925 but mysteriously uncalled up just days later when the selectors discovered he was black or, more likely, were heavily leant on by the powers that be who felt a black man could not represent England.
Bill Hern, co-author of Football’s Black Pioneers, attended the unveiling ceremony and it was an emotional day for all those who worked to secure justice for Jack.
It is such a privilege that our names, as authors of Football’s Black Pioneers and supporters of the campaign for the statue, appear on the plinth.
The Jack Leslie Campaign, who worked tirelessly to bring the statue about, have produced a video to celebrate the event:
Copies of the souvenir match day programme are still available but, in that time-honoured phrase, ‘hurry while stocks last’.
The unveiling secured considerable national publicity and the Football Association finally righted a long-standing wrong when they awarded Jack a posthumous cap:
“[Leslie] faced adversity because of the colour of his skin; he was deselected and never played for our country, so we’re delighted to award him with a posthumous honorary cap to recognise his career, his contribution to our game and wider society, and to right this historical wrong.” (FA statement)
There are now many footballers of Caribbean heritage playing in the English Football League but of course it was not always that way. Hull City for example did not field a single black player until 1986 but when they did so that pioneering first black player was Ray Daniel the son of St Lucian parents who spent much of his childhood on the island.
Ray features in Football’s Black Pioneers – the Stories of the First Black Players to Represent the 92 League Clubs. Bill Hern talked to Ray about his memories and feelings for the island of his parents’ birth.
His parents Joseph and Cecily Daniel nee President were born in St Lucia and came to London in 1960 seeking a better future for themselves. Finding the cost of living in London too high they moved 35 miles north to Luton where they settled. Ray was born there on 10th December 1964.
Joseph and Cecily felt that Ray and his brother would fare better if they were brought up with Cecily’s parents in St Lucia so Ray was sent there and spent much of his childhood with his grandparents, returning to England in 1972.
Ray recalled fond memories of his time on the island, “it was safe, free and uncomplicated” and “just how a child should be brought up. We looked after each other as a community.”
Educated at Belvidere School, Ray enjoyed his schooldays and recalls the excitement of going to the dock when ocean liners arrived. All in all it was an idyllic childhood but after seven years on the island, Ray’s parents decided it was time for him to return to England. Any disappointment he felt about leaving his grandparents and the freedom and sunshine of St Lucia were overcome by his excitement at seeing his parents after so long apart.
Ray settled quickly in Luton and immersed himself in his new environment. One of his most significant discoveries was football and he soon found that he excelled at the game. In St Lucia he had played cricket, so football was a new activity to him.
He shone for a local boys club to the extent that Luton Town signed him as a full-time professional when he was 18 years old.
Luton were in the top Division (what is now the Premier League) when Ray was selected as substitute in a crucial game at home to fellow relegation strugglers Sunderland. He got onto the pitch as a replacement for Wayne Turner but the match was a disaster for Luton who lost by three goals to one.
Ray made his full debut in Luton’s penultimate game of the season on 9th May 1983. It could not have been a tougher baptism, against second-placed Manchester United in front of 34, 213 people at Old Trafford. Luton lost 3-0 but won their remaining game to secure their First Division status.
The following season saw Ray spending time on loan with Third Division Gillingham before returning to Luton where he performed well but could never hold down a regular place in the team and in June 1986 he joined Hull City then in the Second Division (now known as the Championship).
Thus it was that on 23rd August 1986 Hull City, 82 years after it was formed, fielded a black player for the first time. Ray had a very happy debut as the ‘Tigers’ beat West Bromwich Albion 2-0.
Ray played 61 times for Hull before joining Cardiff City where his manager Len Ashurst described him as a “model professional.” In November 1990 Ray joined Portsmouth where he had perhaps his greatest success, an appearance in the FA Cup semi-final against the mighty Liverpool in front of over 40,000 fans at Villa Park, Birmingham. So near yet so far, Portsmouth held Liverpool to a goalless draw only to lose the tie on penalties.
Ray’s last game in the Football league was for Walsall in January 1997. In a career spanning 15 seasons Ray played 334 games and scored 13 goals. No St Lucian has come anywhere near this sort of record either before or since and Ray can lay claim to being St Lucia’s most successful ever footballer.
Had football been the world-wide game that it is nowadays there is no doubt that Ray would have been selected for the land of his parents’ birth. When asked if he would have liked to have played for St Lucia he unhesitatingly replied, “without a doubt.” He said he would even overcome his fear of flying in order to wear the St Lucian shirt.
Given the length of his career Ray would almost certainly have made a record number of appearances for St Lucia and would have also knocked in a few goals.
Ray has only been back to St Lucia once since 1974 and that was a sad occasion because his father died before he could get there. He has very few remaining relatives in St Lucia and found the island very different from the place he remembered but that might be because he saw it through the eyes of a man rather than a carefree child who enjoyed the safety and freedom of an idyllic childhood.
When asked how it felt to be the first St Lucian to make an impact in English football Ray admitted modestly that he had not realised he holds a special place in black British football history as the first black player for Hull but it makes him very proud to have put St Lucia on the football map.
Given the current parlous state of the St Lucia national team it is good to remember that the island once produced a player like Ray Daniel.[1]You can see more about Ray here: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/hull-city-1986-87/ and he gets a fleeting mention here too: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/chelsea-1981-82/
References
| ↑1 | You can see more about Ray here: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/hull-city-1986-87/ and he gets a fleeting mention here too: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/chelsea-1981-82/ |
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It was a privilege to be invited to attend the unveiling of the plaque commemorating Jack Leslie at the site of his childhood home in Gerald Road, Canning Town.
Councillor Terence Paul did the honours and West Ham United TV were on hand to capture the moment:
Very much looking forward to visiting Plymouth next year for the unveiling of his statue at Argyle’s Home Park ground.
There are plans for a book about Jack and his life story would make a pretty good film too!
When we had finished writing Football’s Black Pioneers it soon became clear to us that the stories we had uncovered, almost by accident, spoke volumes about the black British experience over the past 130 years. The book garnered many favourable reviews but this is one that reflected much of what we felt we had achieved:
‘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’
The Independent
We felt many of the stories had tremendous educational value and, when we floated the idea to teachers, their response was overwhelmingly positive.
But the stories, good as they are, were buried in the various chapters of the book. We know that teachers are incredibly busy and so, if they were to make use of the material, we would have to present it in a way that could be easily used in the teaching environment.
We had stories we wanted to ‘get out there’ but no clear idea of how to do that. Quite by chance we stumbled across an organisation called Sporting Heritage at just the time when they were on the lookout for sports-based educational resources. It was a marriage made in heaven and, together, we have developed a teacher resource pack based on the story of Viv Anderson.
We chose to focus on Viv initially because his story, and that of his family, is a great illustration of the history of the Windrush generation. If teachers are looking for a way of talking about changes to British society since the Second World War then this is a great way to do it.
I am not a teacher but I found myself presenting sessions to Year 4 children recently. ‘Hands up if you are interested in history’ I asked. Hands went up, perhaps a little reluctantly with people looking around to see who else had their hand up. ‘Now, hands up if you are interested in football.’ The reaction was immediate and enthusiastic, the energy levels shot up. So, naturally, we spent the next hour talking about history (!), using footballers’ stories to illustrate a wide range of topics. Although we covered a lot of history there was some Geography and even some maths thrown in too; I believe that a ‘proper’ teacher (i.e. not me) could have brought out even more.
The Viv Anderson resource is aimed at Key Stage 3-5 (secondary school) but could be easily adapted for use with younger children.
The full pack can be downloaded for free from the Sporting Heritage site (and there are plenty of other resources to check out while you are there):
If you use the resource do let us know how you get on, you can use the contact page of this site or email us at historycalroots(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com
It was a great pleasure to support Neandra Etienne when she put on an exhibition celebrating some of the black footballers who are strongly connected with the London Borough of Newham. Staged as part of Newham’s Black History Month activity, Neandra worked tirelessly to pull together an exhibition of photos and other artefacts. Hosted by the Canning Gallery (special thanks to Rachel Hollington) the exhibition attracted some high profile visitors as well as three classes of Year 4 children from a local school.
The exhibition has finished now but it seems a shame not to have a permanent record of a small part of what was on display. The main focus of the exhibition was on three of Football’s Black Pioneers.
That Walter played for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town is well-known, no obvious Newham link there! But before joining Spurs Walter played for top amateur club Clapton.
Clapton FC (now Clapton Community FC) still exist and had kindly shared their Walter Tull banner with Neandra for the exhibition.
Other exhibits included an entire wall of school work about Walter. When we first saw this we assumed it was the work of a whole class but, no, it was the work of one ten year-old girl, Halima.
Immensely impressive!
Neandra had also arranged for author, Phil Vasili, a leading authority on Walter and his family, to give a talk at the launch event.
The second player to feature prominently in the exhibition was Jack Leslie. Eighteen months ago Jack’s story was known to a relatively small number of, mostly, Plymouth Argyle supporters. Thanks to the outstanding work of the Jack Leslie Foundation his story is becoming increasingly mainstream as recent mentions on Coronation Street and the Antiques Road Trip demonstrate!
The exhibition had a plaque on display that is to be put up at the address where Jack was living when he signed for Plymouth Argyle.
Getting permission for a plaque is no easy matter and so Neandra deserves great credit for having brought this about.
Greg Foxsmith and Matt Tiller from The Jack Leslie Campaign played a prominent role and Matt performed his ‘Ballad of Jack Leslie’ live. Although they had worked together on the project this was also the first time Greg and Matt had met Jack’s granddaughters.
West Ham United did a very nice piece about Jack that was filmed at the exhibition:
John Charles is one of English football’s forgotten heroes – but we are doing all we can to change the ‘forgotten’ bit of that. As son Mitch commented, his dad is becoming ‘the best known unknown player’!
We have documented elsewhere on this site John Charles achievements but they bear repeating:
And that’s just the main ones! Why is his name not known by all football fans?
The exhibition featured a wall devoted to ‘Charlo’ with his brother Clive, who could boast many achievements of his own, particularly after he moved to America, facing him from the wall opposite.
The gallery hosted an event dedicated to Charlo and it was a delight to meet so many of his family (sons, daughter, grandson).
Charlo’s son, Mitch, entertained us with many stories about his father while Bill Hern, co-author of Football’s Black Pioneers, talked about Charlo’s many achievements on the football field.
West Ham legend, Brian Dear also attended. Brian read from Charlo’s funeral eulogy and was visibly moved as he recalled a dear friend and team mate.
John’s brother, Clive, also had a prominent place in the exhibition. Clive made only fifteen appearances for West Ham but had a successful spell at Cardiff City where he made 92 appearances. He had even more success in America, initially as a player and subsequently as a coach in both the women’s and men’s games. In 1998 he was assistant coach to the USA team at the 1994 World Cup in France.
Clive was one of the three black West Ham players who made history on 1st April 1972 when they played against Tottenham Hotspur, pre-dating West Bromwich Albion’s ‘Three Degrees’ (Laurie Cunningham, Brendon Batson and Cyrille Regis) by several years.
It always seems a pity when an exhibition is taken down at the end of its run, this was a splendid effort by Neandra and we look forward to the unveiling of the Jack Leslie plaque.
I’m sure fans at many clubs will have a chant along the following lines (amended slightly for the sake of propriety!):
He’s here, he’s there, he’s every bloomin’ where, Roger Hoy, Roger Hoy
That’s the first version of it I remember singing lustily from the terraces of Selhurst Park. Roger Hoy was with Palace for just two seasons (1968-69 and 1969-70) before moving on to Luton Town – he played 62 games and scored 7 goals for us. Not the longest of spells but clearly he was someone we took to our hearts, albeit briefly.
A player with a more illustrious record than Roger was Jack Leslie. Jack played 400 games for Plymouth Argyle (1921-1934) and scored 137 goals. Infamously, he was called up to the England squad in 1925 but was then ‘un-called up’ when the powers that be decided the world wasn’t yet ready for a black England international.
Jack is finally getting the recognition he deserves and a statue of him is to be erected at Argyle’s ground in 2022. You can read the full story here:
But, while we wait for the unveiling, Jack is popping up every [bloomin’] where. He was mentioned on the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip (at 9 minutes 25 seconds):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010bxx/antiques-road-trip-series-23-episode-25
And on Coronation Street:
Anyone would think it was Black History Month!
Thirty three years after his death we can still say:
He’s here, he’s there, he’s every bloomin’ where, Jack Leslie, Jack Leslie!
You may have seen the film ‘Standing firm – football’s Windrush story’ when it was first broadcast on BT Sport or when it was repeated.
Presented by the brilliant Benjamin Zephaniah it has so much to say about subjects we are passionate about.
Standing Firm: Football’s Windrush Story is a 90-minute history lesson as damning and necessary as David Olusoga’s book ‘Black and British’, tracing a mazy run through black experience since the Windrush docked at Tilbury in June 1948.
The Guardian, 29th September 2021
We urge you to watch it and, if you enjoy it, please tell everyone you know about it (and people you don’t!). No spoilers, you really should just watch it:
An important film, not just for Black History Month but every day of the year, well done to BT Sport for airing it and congratulations to all those involved in making it.