For some of our earlier pioneers we know that there is very little chance of ever getting hold of a programme from their debut (or, indeed, any other) game – Jack Leslie at Plymouth Argyle is a case in point. Jack made his debut in a home game against Merthyr Tydfil on 19th November 1921. Programmes (most likely not much more than a single sheet team list) would have been sold that day but finding one now is a more or less impossible task. Argyle are however justly proud of Jack’s time at the club, ‘legend’ scarcely does him justice, and for their home game against Accrington Stanley on 8th October 2022 they produced a special Jack Leslie souvenir programme – that is what we feature here.
It was 2016 when Bill Hern first had the idea of writing about the first black player at each of the ninety two Football League clubs. I (David Gleave) quickly saw what a great idea it was and together we set about doing our research. The idea of writing a book didn’t take long to take hold. For a long time the working title was simply ‘First Black Players’ or ‘FBP’ for short. We were lucky that the publisher, ‘Conker’, recognised the book’s potential and it was with them, in a pub in Leicester, that the title ‘Football’s Black Pioneers – The stories of the First Black Players to represent the 92 League clubs’ was agreed (after lots of discussion about whether it should include ‘English Football’!).
The front cover of the souvenir programme (above) consists of a collage of images featuring Jack from his time with Plymouth.
Bill and I each wrote ‘chapters’ for the book. I would like to claim that we approached this in a systematic way but that would be a lie. In truth, with a few notable exceptions (Bill wrote the Sunderland chapter and I wrote about Crystal Palace as these are the teams we support), there was little rhyme or reason to our selection. Bill wrote the Plymouth Argyle chapter because he got there before me and because he unearthed a fascinating story – a story that, to begin with, he thought was simply too incredible to be true. At that time, 2016 or 2017, very few people knew the story of Jack Leslie’s call up for England, now it is widely known. Football’s Black Pioneers can take some credit for that but the lion’s share goes to the people behind The Jack Leslie Campaign, in particular Matt Tiller and Greg Foxsmith, both diehard Argyle fans.
The souvenir programme contains many tributes to Jack, this one salutes his record of 137 goals in 400 appearances for Argyle over a career that started in 1921 and finished on 29th December 1934, a 3-1 home win against Fulham – fittingly Jack was one of Argyle’s scorers that day.
The story that so shocked Bill when he researched Jack’s story concerned his call up to the England squad in 1925. That he was called up is beyond dispute – it was in all the papers and Jack himself would later describe how he was called into manager Bob Jack’s office and given the news. What is also beyond dispute is that Jack, called up as a travelling reserve for England’s match in Belfast on 24th October, did not play in Belfast nor even travel there (this in spite of the fact that a member of the original team had withdrawn due to injury). There were no doubts about Jack’s fitness, he played for Plymouth on 24th and in fact scored twice for them in a home game against Bournemouth. The only possible explanation is that Jack was ‘unselected’ because the selectors suddenly realised he had black heritage or they were leant on because the powers-that-be could not stomach the thought of a black man representing England. Jack was in no doubt about the reason ‘they found out I was a darkie and I suppose that was like finding out I was foreign.’
In 2022, almost 100 years after his disgraceful treatment, the Football Association finally awarded Jack an honorary posthumous cap, the cap he had been so cruelly denied in 1923. Jack’s granddaughters comment in the programme that ‘Grandad would be as proud as we are that his story is being used to teach people that racism should play no part in the game he loved and society as a whole.’
The programme contains a number of articles about Jack and includes tributes from many notable ex-players including, among others: Sir Trevor Brooking; Viv Anderson (who became the first black player to win a full England cap in 1978); and Clyde Best (who experienced repeated racist abuse during his own playing career).
You should still be able to get a copy of the souvenir programme from the Jack Lesley campaign, it is well worth £10 of anyone’s money:
https://jack-leslie.sumupstore.com/product/jack-leslie-souvenir-match-programme
On 7th October 2022, the day before the game against Accrington Stanley, a statue of Jack was unveiled outside Plymouth’s Home Park ground. Bill Hern was among those present but, through a piece of exceptionally bad planning, I was 10,000 miles away. Bill and I are both very proud that our names are among those of other supporters of the Jack Lesley campaign whose names appear on the plinth.
