Almost as soon as ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ had been sent out to our eager subscribers new information came to light about William Gibb Clarke. We would have loved to include it in the book but … too late. It’s what historians know by the technical term ‘sod’s law’.
Willie’s football career started in Scotland in 1895 and continued in England with Bristol Rovers (1900/01), Aston Villa (1901/02 to 1904/05), Bradford City (1905/06 to 1908/09) and Lincoln City (1909/10 to 1910/11), before he finished his career with non-league Croydon Common in 1911. He was the first black player at Bristol, Bradford and Aston Villa but not at Lincoln where John Walker preceded him.
Born in 1878, Willie was 33 in 1911. Football was nothing like as well paid in those days as it is now and there were few opportunities for players to set aside money for their post-football life and so they had to find a different line of work. The evidence suggests that Willie became an upholsterer – that’s the occupation shown on his 1914 marriage certificate.
But one thing looms very large in the second decade of the 20th Century and that, of course, is what we now know as the First World War. When war broke out, Willie was 36. There was no conscription when the War started, so young men like Willie were under no obligation to enlist. Many chose to sign up anyway and had a variety of motives for doing so. Patriotism would have been high up the list for many men, a yearning for adventure away from mundane lives in a factory or down a mine would have influenced others and, money, may have motivated some – the Army paid relatively well. At the time, the popular belief was that it would be ‘over by Christmas’ (but which Christmas?). If they had known what we know now how many would have enlisted anyway? A rhetorical question, we can never know the answer of course.
When we researched ‘Pioneers’ we suspected that Willie may have served in some capacity during the War but Clarke is, let’s face it, a common name and it was difficult to establish whether he did.
But then a descendent of Willie’s made contact on 10th September to say that a cousin had two medals from the First World War that he had inherited, they turned out to be Willie’s medals from the War.
The service records of many First World War soldiers were destroyed when a German bomb struck the building where the files were kept during the Second World War. Around two thirds of the records were either destroyed by fire or irreparably damaged by the water used to extinguish the flames. Whether a soldier’s records have survived is pretty much down to pot luck – Walter Tull’s records survive, those of Willie Clarke do not. But the cards recording what medals soldiers were entitled to were stored in a different place, most survive and they contain useful information. This is Willie’s medal card:
This tells us that Willie was among the first to enlist, 11th August 1914. He joined the Middlesex Regiment and was given the service number L/11025. It is tempting to think that he served in the Football Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment alongside Walter Tull but that unit wasn’t formed until December 1914 and Walter didn’t enlist until 21st of that month. Possibly they did serve together but in the absence of Willie’s service records it is almost impossible to prove that they did.
We know that Willie was straight into the action because the record shows that he was entitled to receive the 1914 Star, a medal awarded to those who saw active service in France or Belgium between 5 August and 22 November 1914. Willie could have been involved in the Battle of Mons (from 23rd August 1914), the Battle of the Marne (6th – 12th September 1914), and/or the First Battle of Ypres (19th October to 22nd November), or any one of many smaller confrontations. Willie was lucky to survive, many didn’t, after the War one estimate put British losses from 14 October to 30 November alone at 58,155.
Willie later transferred to the Royal Engineers where he was a sapper. Further research might yield more information about Willie’s war record but we already know that he received the full complement of British Medal, Victory medal and 1914 Star. Willie survived the War, dying in 1949 at the age of seventy.
1914 Star
British Medal
Victory Medal
As well as being a football pioneer William Gibb Clarke was clearly also a very brave man.
Tony Collins – first black manager of an English Football League club
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.”
Tony’s 3rd home game in charge was a local derby, the fans must have been ecstatic after a 3-0 win
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.
Appearing on the Outside Write podcast gave us a rare opportunity to both speak about ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ as the interview was pre-recorded and then edited. Chris Lee has done a great job of stitching our contributions together so that it sounds seamless. You can listen here: https://outsidewrite.co.uk/podcast-black-pioneers-of-the-football-league/
We aren’t sure how we will go down with regular listeners to the podcast as a discussion of first black players in the EFL seems positively mainstream compared to some of the topics discussed, as you will see if you check out the link. If you have time to listen to some of the other interviews you may well be amazed by some of the stories that will definitely broaden your horizons!
Space limitations meant that there are many great stories we weren’t able to include in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’. One such story concerns Albert Charles Payne who made his debut for Tranmere Rovers on 31st August 1946. Before you ask, no, the picture above is not of Albert!
Albert was born in Liverpool on 11th November 1923, the son of Albert Ernest Payne and Lily May Payne (nee Tranter). So, what is the connection between Tranmere’s first black player and the distinguished looking gentleman in the picture?
On 1st November 1853, on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Joseph Stanley Payne (pictured above) was born. As a young man Joseph took to the sea and, as so many seamen did, eventually made Liverpool his home port. It was here that he married a local white girl, Sarah Ann Mansfield, in 1880. On 28th June 1884 Joseph and Sarah had a son, Albert Ernest, who joined the growing ranks of Liverpool’s mixed heritage community.
On 12th February 1920, Albert Ernest married Lilian May Tranter and Tranmere’s first black player was born three years later.
Albert Charles Payne made only ten appearances in the Football League (more than enough to earn him a place in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’), but his cousin, George Payne, made a total of 467 between the sticks for Rovers in a career that started in 1947 and ended in 1961. We don’t have a photo of Albert in his playing days but his cousin George is seen here (back row, third from the left).
You may think that George ‘doesn’t look black’but he and Albert were directly descended from the man pictured at the top of the page, he was their grandfather. This illustrates the point that the black contribution to British history is not always readily apparent, all the more reason to explore this hidden history.
Neville Chamberlain, first black player at Newport and Port Vale, who can trace his ancestry back to the plantations of Jamaica and the days of slavery
Bill Hern made such an impression on BBC Radio Leeds that he was invited back for a discussion on their Sunday evening show. The presenter made some perceptive points: ‘your book comes in a timely fashion given everything that’s being discussed … Empire has played a huge role in shaping quite literally the world that we live in but also the country that we live in. I for one think it’s a travesty that it isn’t taught, warts and all, in the school curriculum to help young children understand why the world looks the way that it does and why England and the UK looks the way that it does.’ Amen to that. As someone else has commented elsewhere ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ is a book that every school should have!
Bill spoke about his chat with Neville Chamberlain, part of the Chamberlain footballing dynasty that includes England internationals Mark Chamberlain and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Neville told Bill that managers would often ask him to switch wings towards the end of games so that he would be near the players’ tunnel at the final whistle, enabling a quick exit before opposing fans could invade the pitch to spit at him. Just one of the shocking stories in the book.
William Gibb Clarke, first black player to score in the English Football League
Bill Hern continued his virtual journey around the radio stations of Yorkshire when he spoke about ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ on Radio Leeds.
Understandably the interview focused on the clubs likely to be of particular interest to the audience: Leeds; Huddersfield and the two Bradford clubs. Although the catchment area may sound relatively small, Bill was able to draw South Africa, Jamaica and Sierra Leone into the discussion. Football in England really does owe an enormous amount to players who were born overseas. Scotland, Wales and Ireland all got a mention too.
You can listen to the interview here:
‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ will be published in less than two weeks, on 31st August.
Today we take the opportunity to welcome Barrow AFC back to the Football League after an absence of 48 years.
Why today in particular?
Dave Busby, Barrow AFC’s first black player
Because on 18th August 1979, Dave Busby, the club’s first black player, made his debut. The game was a 2-0 win at home to Yeovil. This was Barrow’s first game in the newly formed Alliance Premier League, a game described by one fan as ‘a massive standout moment after ten years of decline and general uselessness.’
Steve Stacey is just the sort of character we wanted to celebrate when we first had the idea for our book ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’. Steve is hardly a household name and yet he was an important pioneer in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was the first black player at three clubs who are still in the English Football League (Charlton, Ipswich and Exeter City), he also played for Bristol City, Wrexham and Chester (the latter two were in the League at the time) but wasn’t the first black player at any of them.
Exeter City were Steve’s last League club and he made 64 appearances in all competitions over the course of the 1971/72 and 1972/73 seasons, scoring one goal (in a 1st round FA Cup game away at Walton & Hersham).
In a career that was hampered by injuries he nevertheless made a total of 192 appearances for the six clubs he represented from when he first signed as a professional with Bristol City in 1961 until his final appearance for Exeter City on 24th March 1973.
Now is an opportune time to celebrate Steve’s contribution because he made his Exeter debut 49 years ago today on 14th August 1971.
Calvin Symonds (being tackled), Rochdale’s first black player, back home in Bermuda
Two of the pioneers who appear in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ have featured in an article about the book in The Royal Gazette. The Gazette was founded in 1828 and is Bermuda’s only daily newspaper, the paper claims to reach 97 per cent of the adult population of the island.
‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ will feature three footballers who were born in Jamaica and at least another ten with Jamaican heritage.
Pictured below are six of our Jamaican footballing pioneers. Only one of them was born in Jamaica, but do you know which one? Two of them would help their teams reach the final of the European Cup (forerunner of the Champions League) during their illustrious careers, but do you know which two?
The answers to these questions and many, many more will be in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ which will be published on 31sr August. Oh, and one of the players pictured has contributed a foreword to ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’!
During the four years it took to research ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ we have met and spoken to many wonderful people, players themselves and family members. Few have been more supportive than Alicia and Yvonne, the daughters of Albert Johanneson. Although Albert wasn’t the first black player at Leeds United it would have been impossible to write the book without referring to him. He was one of those pioneers who played during the most difficult years and was on the receiving end of the most vile racist abuse. His experiences undoubtedly contributed to his sad early death.
Albert Johanneson – Not the first black player at Leeds United
On 30th July, Bill Hern continued his (virtual) tour of the nation’s radio stations when he was interviewed by Jules Bellerby on BBC Radio York. Unsurprisingly the interview focused on Yorkshire clubs with Jules’ team, Leeds United, first up for discussion. The pair also talked about the chances of Harrogate Town making it into the book. Harrogate play Notts County in the play-off final on Sunday 2nd August, three days after the interview and Bill explained that chapters have been written covering each of the teams.
You can listen to the interview here:
If you want to find out who was the first black player at Leeds United (and 91 other clubs!) why not pre-order a copy of ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ here:
Roland Butcher was interviewed recently on Channel DDX in Barbados where he is now a highly respected sports administrator. Cricket fans will probably know that Roland was England’s first black test cricketer and the first black captain of Middlesex, but how many football fans will know that he was the first black player for Stevenage? He was, and this is why Roland will feature in Football’s Black Pioneers, due to be published on 31st August.
During a wide ranging interview Roland was kind enough to mention the book:
Many of the pioneers who feature in Football’s Black Pioneers experienced racism during their time in the game, Paul Canoville faced more than most. The fans at many clubs could overlook the colour of a player’s skin if he was wearing the shirt of the team they supported. This didn’t stop them abusing black players on opposing teams in the vilest terms. Chelsea fans were unusual, if not quite unique, in the abuse they heaped on one of their own.
Paul made his Chelsea debut on 12th April 1982 and I was in the crowd that day. Football Shorts have now published the story and you can read it here:
