7th February is Independence Day in Grenada. A British colony until 1974, Grenada became a fully independent country on 7th February that year. Grenada is known as ‘the spice island’ and the image on the left hand part of the flag represents a nutmeg, a major source of export revenue.
Brendon Batson is the only one of the first black players in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ to have been born on the tiny Caribbean island, current population around 113,000. You can see where Brendon and our other pioneering footballers came from here: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/about/footballs-black-pioneers-where-were-they-born/
Brendon became Arsenal’s first black player when he made his debut on 11th March 1972 in an away game against Newcastle United. He went on to play for Cambridge United before famously becoming one of the so called ‘Three Degrees’ at West Bromwich Albion along with Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham. He made a total of 409 1st team appearances for those three clubs.
