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!
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)
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.
Bill Hern and I first came across Calvin Symonds’ story when we were researching our book ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ about the first black player to represent each of the 92 Football League clubs. We were surprised to find that a 23 year-old born in Bermuda on 29th March 1932 was the first black player for Rochdale AFC. He secured that honour in September 1955 in an away game at Barrow. There are probably more romantic places to launch a career! Calvin’s time in the Football League was cut short by a knee injury that two operations could not fix. He returned to Bermuda in 1956.
For such a small place, Bermuda is smaller than the Isle of Wight and has a population of around 62,000, it has certainly produced more than its share of top sportsmen. Although Calvin never played football at the highest level in England, his countryman, Clyde Best did and a number of other Bermudians have made it in the professional game.
Although Calvin continued to play football after returning to Bermuda it was as a cricketer that he truly made his mark. Indeed, when we approached Stephen Wright, the Sports Editor of Bermuda’s leading newspaper, the Royal Gazette, he only knew of Calvin as a cricketer, the two years Calvin spent in England playing football came as a surprise to him. But Stephen was very well aware of Calvin’s exploits on the cricket field as he is one of Bermuda’s most successful cricketers of all time.
In this article, originally published in The Nightwatchman (the quarterly magazine of the famous Wisden almanac) we offer a few snapshots from Calvin’s career. The Nightwatchman article did not include any photos an omission we rectify here. Yes, this is a football blog but we are unapologetic about including an article about cricket.
In years past there have been players who excelled at both cricket and football. Denis Compton, for instance, won 78 caps for England at cricket and was also a member of Arsenal’s team that won the Football League title in 1937/38, again in 1947/48 and the FA Cup in 1950. More recently, Ian Botham played professional football for Yeovil and Scunthorpe before deciding to focus on cricket. There have been many other examples of sportsmen who did well in both sports, Calvin Symonds is one of them.
Born in 1932, Calvin played his first ‘senior’ game at the age of just 14. It was in a cup match. Calvin’s team, Western Stars, had a long day in the field but when it was their turn to bat the opposing team’s captain suddenly objected to Calvin’s presence on the grounds that he was under age even though the rules of the competition did not specify a lower age limit. The captain refused to budge, as Calvin later commented “I guess he knew I was a good bat.” He made the short walk home shedding tears of disappointment. As it happened there was a friendly game between the same two teams the following Sunday, this time Calvin did get to bat – watched by his proud father, he scored 118. He had made his point, even though he had to wait two more years before playing in official league matches.
As soon as he was old enough he established himself as a regular in the St George’s team and he made his Cup Match debut for them in 1950 at the age of eighteen (we will return to ‘Cup Match’ later). Nerves got the better of him when he went in to bat. Facing his first ball, “I saw him [the bowler] coming in, I thought I had sighted the ball but I missed it. I immediately went into the shakes. I settled a little, but not enough as I made only two runs before getting out.” As we will see, he more than made up for this disappointment later in his career.
In December 1953 the MCC tourists stopped off in Bermuda on their way to that winter’s tour of the Caribbean. Strategically placed roughly three quarters of the way from England to Jamaica where the tour proper would start, Bermuda was the perfect place to break the journey, stretch legs and play some cricket. Three games were scheduled and Calvin played in two of them.
Calvin says “Normally we didn’t play any cricket in December but we accepted the challenge.”
The first game, played over the 16th and 17th December, was the one he missed and it proved controversial with a couple of doubtful umpiring decisions going against the visitors. The wicket was matting laid over concrete, a surface the tourists were less used to than their hosts, but none of that stopped them from winning by an innings, with spinners Wardle and Laker doing the damage.
The second game, played on 21st-23rd December, proved far more closely fought. Another spinner, Tony Lock this time, did the damage for the MCC with figures of 8 for 54 in Bermuda’s first innings. But MCC were caught unawares by the fearsome pace of Eugene Woods. Calvin says “Eugene was the quickest bowler I ever saw in Bermuda. He spent a couple of years in England as a pro. He was good to watch, a calm bowler who used to jump to the wicket just like a horse on a track. He was free in his movements and when he came to bowl, he could be devastating.”
He was certainly devastating in his opening spell against the MCC who had cruised to 90 without loss in their 1st innings and looked set to bat all day. But Eugene Woods had other ideas. He ripped through England’s top order, dismissing Len Hutton, Ken Suttle and Tom Graveney in the space of four balls and finishing with 5 for 49. Calvin chipped in with the vital breakthrough wicket of Denis Compton and later picked up the wickets of Laker, Lock and Trueman to finish with figures of 14-3-29-4. Eugene is still alive and living in Bermuda, even now he and Calvin chat about the MCC games when they get the chance to meet up.
Calvin made a significant contribution in the second innings too, clean bowling Tom Graveney. When Bermuda batted they were on the ropes until Calvin played his part in a determined seventh wicket partnership with McDonald Simmonds. His 11 not out was enough to steer Bermuda to 90 for 6 and a draw at close of play on the final day.
The third game was scheduled for 23rd, 24th and 26th December but MCC had brought the English weather with them and rain washed out the second and third day’s play. But not before another impressive bowling performance by Tony Lock (7-35) – Calvin was one of his victims, out for six.
Apart from Calvin and Eugene Woods, there can’t be many players alive who can claim to have taken the wickets of Denis Compton and Tom Graveney in a competitive match, we can think of one (maybe there are others) Guyanese off-spinner Lance Gibbs, good company to be in!
The England players were a sociable bunch and everyone got on well off the pitch. Calvin comments that “Denis Compton, he was a laugh, he enjoyed a little drink, he was a nice guy. Peter May was good too. When I was in England to play football with Rochdale I remember seeing Denis make a century against the South Africans at Old Trafford. He was good. As batsmen I would rate Compton and Graveney as on a par with each other, they both had the full range of shots.”
Calvin remembers Fred Trueman and Brian Statham as the two fastest bowlers he faced. Playing on the hard concrete pitches in Bermuda he said “they were quick, the ball would bounce over your head. The grounds aren’t big so the wicket keeper was well back towards the sightscreen when those two were bowling. No helmets in those days, you just had to hope they wouldn’t knock your head off!”
Calvin describes his own style as “I bowled right arm medium pace, not quick but I put the ball on the wicket and let the batsman make the mistake. I bowled just outside the off stick and tried to move the ball into you and hit your off stump or get you lbw, line and length and just enough movement to beat the bat or find an edge. Dattu Phadkar, the Indian professional at Rochdale, taught me that when I was in England playing football.”
County teams visited Bermuda regularly, Yorkshire came twice. Calvin played in one match featuring the likes of Ray Illingworth, Brian Close and Geoff Boycott, the latter “batted all day” as none of the Bermuda bowlers could shift him. Calvin described Boycott as “a little bit stuffy, he didn’t want to talk.” Gloucestershire also visited. Tom Graveney loved playing in Bermuda and Calvin remembers he got a double century not out on one visit.
Calvin made many overseas tours with Bermuda teams, the very first was to Canada and the US as a callow seventeen year-old, as Calvin said “the grass was higher than I was, that was disastrous.” He has fonder memories of his two trips to England in 1960 and 1962 with a mixed team, the Bermuda Wanderers.
The tour included a reception in the Long Room at Lords. The English organisers of the tour had under-estimated the strength of the Bermuda team and the Wanderers did very well, the club teams they were up against were not strong enough. Calvin remembers that Ealing was one of the teams they played and the Spencer cricket club, based in South West London, was another. The Wanderers won all but one of their eight fixtures, often with ease. The scoreboard below tells its own story, Calvin and Nigel ‘Chopper’ Hazell both made centuries.
The fact that the team included black and white players is worth noting. In 1948 when the Empire Windrush ship stopped at Bermuda on its historic voyage to Tilbury in England, the passengers from the Caribbean on their way to new lives in the UK, were shocked by the level of racism they observed on the island. Being expected to sit in segregated seating in the cinema for instance went down badly as did the ‘no coloureds’ signs they saw. Although a British Overseas Territory, Bermuda is far closer to the United States of America than it is to the UK and so it is regrettable but perhaps not surprising that some of the American attitudes towards its black people had become part of island life. The presence of an American naval base on the island clearly contributed.
When Calvin started playing football in Bermuda there were two separate leagues, a white league and a black league, change came about gradually and eventually, in the 1960s, the two leagues became one. Even on the 1960 tour to England, Calvin says the black players in the team were “teased” by white team mates. ‘We were not thinking like them,” Calvin said “we just wanted to advance Bermuda cricket.” Calvin had been referred to as ‘darkie’ while in England and his general comment about how to respond to adverse comments from the crowd, apply to more than just sport “sometimes people in the crowd will try to get to you. Let it go in one ear and out the other. You must be strong.”
The Wanderers returned to England in 1962 and this time they were pitted against County 2nd XI teams who included a number of future England players in their sides. Games were far more closely contested. Calvin much preferred this second tour “I always wanted to play against people a little better than myself to gain experience and improve my game.” This tour was shorter, there were games against Essex, Middlesex and Surrey. The Wanderers lost to Middlesex but drew against Surrey at Guildford even though the Surrey team included the likes of a young Geoff Arnold who would go on to take 115 wickets for England in 34 Tests. The Wanderers were able to see England playing Pakistan who were touring that year, only the second time they had visited. While he was in England, Calvin also took the chance to revisit Rochdale and meet up with some of his friends from the time he played football there.
As well as touring England, Calvin remembers a tour of Jamaica in 1958. “I remember one game in particular from that tour, a little village game about two hours outside of Kingston. When we got there it had been raining so much, we looked at the pitch and I said ‘we can’t play on that.’ One of the groundsmen said ‘oh yes you can,’ the guy put kerosene on the wicket and lit it to dry the wicket out. We played. They bowled us out for 51, the ball was jumping and spitting all over the place. They made 52 for 9 to win the game. That was an experience!” I’d like to see anyone try that at Lords!
The annual highlight of the calendar in Bermuda is ‘Cup Match’, think FA Cup Final and Notting Hill carnival rolled into one and you would be getting close to the spirit of Cup Match. Played to coincide with Emancipation Day, the anniversary of the emancipation of Bermuda’s enslaved population, it is much more than just a cricket match. Played between teams representing Somerset and St George’s it is a tradition that dates back to 1901. The annual game is a highlight of island life. It must be one of the few cricket matches around the world where an entire country shuts down while the game is played.
Calvin is pictured above at the time of his Cup Match debut in 1950. He would later captain the St George’s team for nine consecutive matches from 1961 to 1969, a sequence that saw St George’s win eight of the nine games (the only exception was a draw in 1963).
The 1964 match was perhaps the most memorable for Calvin, it was certainly the tightest finish and Calvin was instrumental in securing victory for St George’s. Somerset batted first and scored a respectable 199 all out. When St George’s had their first innings they reached 178-4 at the end of the first day’s play. On day 2 they run up a massive total of 338. Calvin scored 96. “That was the nearest I got to a Cup Match century” he said, “I should have made it having got that close but the excitement got to me. I was trying for a big hit but skied the ball and was caught at mid-wicket.”
When Somerset batted again, 139 runs adrift, it looked for a long time as though they were heading for an innings defeat, but a ninth wicket stand of 68 took them past St George’s total and the innings closed at 188 all out, leaving St George’s needing 50 to win.
Calvin recalls “We had to score 50 to win in 38 minutes. I re-arranged our batting order so that it was all right handers, that way we wouldn’t lose time while Somerset changed their fielders’ positions. It came down to the last over. We had seven wickets in hand but needed 10 to win. Sheridan Raynor, the Somerset captain, took responsibility for bowling the last six deliveries. Instead of his usual left arm spin he opted to bowl at medium pace, pushing the ball through. Dennis Wainwright was at the crease with me, he took a single to give me the strike. There were three balls left and we still needed eight to win. I pulled the next two balls to the mid-wicket boundary – we were home with one ball left. As the winning shot hit the boundary fence the whole crowd erupted and ran out onto the field. I got my mouth split as overjoyed fans lifted Dennis Wainwright and myself into the air to carry us off the field. It was utter chaos. I lost my bat and gloves and somebody took my pads off. I never did get any of them back. I suppose somebody kept them as souvenir.”
“You have to understand, Cup Match is like a festival. Most of the time people are walking about. But in the last half hour of this game nobody moved a muscle. You could hear a pin drop. They were all glued to the action, not missing a ball, not missing a run. Nine thousand spectators were packed into the ground and the tension in the closing stages was unbelievable.”
Calvin’s overall Cup Match record with the bat was a total of 624 runs at an average of 24, this included five half centuries. With the ball he took 30 wickets at 14.27 apiece. There were 24 catches too.
Ironically, Calvin, who was born and spent the early years of his life living in Somerset parish, had dearly wanted to play for them. A family move to St George’s parish ‘across the bridge’ (“the smallest bridge in the world”), and a strict Somerset policy of only using players resident in the area, drove him into the St George’s camp. Somerset certainly lived to regret that policy!
Summing up his time as captain Calvin commented “my philosophy as a captain was to try to play attractive cricket, and always give the other team a chance.” It was clearly an approach that paid dividends.
Another match that brings back fond memories for Calvin is the visit of an International XI to Bermuda in 1965. Played at the end of September, the visiting team was captained by England off-spinner Fred Titmus and included Ken Barrington, Fred Trueman, the Bajan-born Roy Marshall and the great Garfield (later Sir Garfield) Sobers.
Calvin was captain of the Bermuda XI and takes up the story. “This was a two day match. The international team won the toss and sent us in to bat. We didn’t do too well in our first innings and were bowled out for 75 of which I managed to score 25. But when it was our turn to bowl we skittled the visitors out for just 42! Clarence Parfitt, a brilliant left arm medium paced bowler, had the magnificent figures of 7 wickets for 12 runs, including the wicket of Garfield Sobers, clean bowled for a duck. Clarence was ably supported by Lee Raynor, another great Bermudian bowler who took 3 wickets for 29 runs. In our second innings we made a very respectable 147, setting the visitors 181 to win. In the International team’s second innings Parfitt picked up 4 more wickets for 22 runs, Joe Bailey took 4 for 37 runs, while Lee Raynor and myself chipped in with one wicket each. I picked up the prize wicket of Sir Garfield Sobers in the second innings, he was on 28 at the time. Bermuda won the two day match by 32 runs. Garfield was a great player, you didn’t know where to put the ball when you bowled to him. I played against him many times and we are good friends to this day.”
Calvin believes Clarence Parfitt was the best bowler Bermuda ever produced, a view widely shared by those in a position to know. He represented Bermuda in their inaugural 1st class match, taking five New Zealand wickets in their only innings. He went on to represent Scotland after he moved there in 1975 and still lives in Scotland. I asked Calvin how Clarence compared to Eugene Woods “Clarence was better, Eugene was quicker but Clarence was the better bowler, clever.”
When his playing career ended Calvin took on a coaching role in Bermuda, passing on his experience to a new generation. In 1968, Calvin was awarded the MBE for distinguished service to sport in Bermuda.
I asked Calvin about Bermuda cricket today and he said the standard has definitely declined and football has taken over as the main sport on the island. He did however mention one young cricketer, Delray Rawlins, Bermuda born, who is now playing his cricket with Sussex. Delray has a long way to go before he can emulate Calvin’s achievements in the game but, at 23, time is on his side.
Summing up Calvin’s career , the Bermudian journalist, Tommy Aitchison, said “there’s no doubt in my mind that Calvin Symonds should have had a career as a professional cricketer. He possessed the natural talent, temperament and leadership, even as a youngster, to be a successful professional.” Another accolade from Calvin’s coach ,’Champ’ Hunt, described him as “one of the finest athletes the island has produced.”
Calvin recently celebrated his 89th birthday, he still looks remarkably trim and enjoys living quietly with his wife and daughter JeanMaire. “Life” he concludes “has been good to me.”
The postman has been busy delivering interesting old programmes to the home of Football’s Black Pioneers. Over the course of the coming days we will be adding new articles featuring historic Arsenal and Crystal Palace pioneers but West Ham are first up.
We feature John Charles debut for West Ham here: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/about/west-ham-united-1962-63/
A decade later West Ham made history by fielding three black players in the same team, you can read about it here: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/about/west-ham-united-1971-72/
Do keep an eye out for further additions.