Aston Villa - Football's Black Pioneers

Independent Pioneers

‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ was featured in The Independent in November 2020. If you missed it, you can read the full article by Colin Drury here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/first-black-footballers-book-arthur-wharton-b1722698.html

Colin’s article opened with the story of Jack Leslie of Plymouth Argyle which we have featured on this site before. As a Barnsley fan Colin, understandably, also wrote about Steve Mokone, Barnsley’s first black player. If there were to be an award for the least pleasant of our Pioneers then Mokone would surely be a front runner!

“Also here … is Steve Mokone, the self-proclaimed Pele of South Africa who arrived at Barnsley in 1961, played one game, and caused so much (unspecified) disruption the club terminated his contract within five days. He later served 12 years in a US prison for assault. A character, as they say.”

Colin continues “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. Here, writ large in often agonising detail, is racism, prejudice, isolation and the loneliness of going where others have not yet been.”

“‘We started writing a book about football,’ says Gleave today. ‘But as we progressed, we found we were uncovering more and more stories that made us realise, actually, these lives offered a real sense of a wider black British history; they touch on so many issues that members of the black community – whatever their job or position – have faced down the years.'”

But, Colin adds “Yet this is by no means a bleak read. The lives here are shot through with triumph, defiance against stacked odds and genuine, real-life heroism. There are moments of levity here too. In a chapter on Willie Clarke – who, on Christmas Day 1901, became the first black player to score a league goal while playing for Aston Villa – it is noted that his marriage to a white girl was disapproved of by her father. Ada Higginbottom’s dad was not, it is hinted, overly-concerned about Clarke’s Guyanese heritage but was none too keen on his daughter marrying a footballer.”

Colin also probed our reasons for writing the book: “Gleave is 68, white and a retired civil servant by trade. But in 1981 – the year of the Brixton riots – he married Roxanne, a Guyanese teacher, with who he has three mixed-race children, all now grown-up. ‘As a couple, we knew from first-hand experience there was very little black history taught in school so we decided very early that we would have to teach this part of their heritage,’ he says today. ‘We were always keen to stress that having this mixed heritage gives you not just one culture to draw on, but two. It is far more interesting and exciting.’”

Colin continued “Thus, began a three-decade journey into black history which has seen him produce books and online packs about everything from slave campaigner Olaudah Equiano to composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Then, four years ago, as he and Hern concluded an educational project on black soldiers who fought in World War One, the latter suggested the idea that would become this new book.

Hern is 64, also white and a retired civil servant. His passion for history had led him to focusing on black issues, he says, ‘because it is an area that is so rich but so often overlooked.'”

Colin explored how we set about the research for the book “That work included speaking to clubs (‘mainly useless’), sifting through old newspapers and programmes, chatting with local historians and going through more birth, death and marriage certificates than either man can count.

Online fan forums proved hugely useful – although not always. ‘On several occasions we had people saying to us something like, ‘Oh yes, we had an Egyptian prince play for us in the Twenties and he always played in bare foot. There are various stories of that sort doing the rounds, although sorry to say we never found any Egyptian princes.’

They interviewed about 20 of the pioneers, with Hern – a Sunderland fan now living in Yorkshire – speaking to Viv Anderson and Chris Kamara. The latter – today a semi-legendary pundit – had no idea he had been a trailblazer with Swindon, despite it being splashed all over the local newspaper at the time. ‘I also interviewed Yeovil Town’s,’ says Gleave, ruefully. ‘Then they dropped out of the football league so we couldn’t include it.'”

“If the book has a central message … it may be that work still needs to be done on tackling prejudice – in football and beyond. It points out that there remains, even in 2020, few black managers in the game.”

Quoting author Gleave again Colin wrote: “‘I think it’s quite easy for white liberal people to say things are getting better but actually, I think if you’re involved with the black community, it’s fairly obvious that things aren’t altogether better,’ he says. ‘My wife and I were abused on the street only a year ago for no reason so these things are still happening. Are things getting better? I don’t know, maybe. But what I am sure of is it’s easy to exaggerate how much better they are, and that is not a trap we should fall into. There is still a huge amount of work to be done.’”

* Football’s Black Pioneers is published by Conker Editions.

William Gibb Clarke – Football Pioneer and Soldier

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.

As well as being a football pioneer William Gibb Clarke was clearly also a very brave man.

Football’s Black Pioneers on Radio Leeds

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.