We debated long and hard whether we could include Bury in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’, in the end the conclusion, reached with a heavy heart, was that we could not. In many ways the demise of the club, who joined the Football League in 1894, sums up much of what is wrong with football today. A club in financial difficulties, an ‘investor’ who failed to match actions to words and careless and unsympathetic administrators who failed in their duties. And so a club, established in 1885, went to the wall.
But a book is one thing, a blog quite another, here is the story of Bury’s first black player.
Stephen (Steve) Anthony Johnson was born in Liverpool on 23 June 1957. He went on to play for 6 League teams and in 1977, according to the extremely helpful contributors to the Bury FC Message Board, became the first Black player to appear for Bury.
Steve’s father, Eric Emmanuel Johnson, was a ship’s cook and baker in the merchant navy and his mother, Christina Johnson nee Murphy a coil winding machinist with a telephone maker. Eric’s father, William Johnson was also a merchant seaman whereas Christina’s father worked as a dock labourer. Steve was born in Mill Road Hospital, Everton, Liverpool and the family lived in Carlingford Street, Liverpool.
Originally a work house, Mill Road Hospital was hit by German bombs on 3 May 1941 killing at least 78 people. The Hospital was demolished in the 1990s.
Carlingford Street was in the Toxteth area of Liverpool where race riots took place in 1981. Toxteth had one of the highest unemployment rates in Britain and relations between mainly, but not exclusively, black people and the police were strained. Things came to a head on 3 July 1981 when the police arrested a black man called Leroy Alphonse Cooper in a, for those days, typically heavy-handed manner. Riots exploded across the area and gas grenades were used for the first time outside of Northern Ireland to quell the unrest. Nevertheless, it was 9 days before any semblance of peace was restored.
By 1981 Steve had already left Liverpool and signed for Bury in 1977. However, racism was rife in Britain of the 1970s and Bury was no exception. Indeed in 1977 the relatively newly-formed Rock Against Racism campaign group held a gig at Crystals Night Club in Bury featuring Ed Banger and The Nosebleeds (later to briefly feature Morrissey of The Smiths fame) and the poet John Cooper Clarke.
Rock Against Racism had been set up in 1976 largely in response to comments Eric Clapton had made at a concert in Birmingham declaring his support for Enoch Powell. Clapton thought there we too many foreigners and Black people in the country. Many in the music industry were appalled and responded with the creation of Rock Against Racism involving a series of concerts with an anti-racist theme.
Perhaps the highest profile event Rock Against Racism organised was in 1978 when 100,000 people marched from Trafalgar Square to the East End of London for an open-air festival at Victoria Park in Hackney and to show their opposition to the growing wave of racism in the United Kingdom. The need for the current Black Lives Matter campaign sadly suggests that things have not progressed as much as we would wish.
At 6 feet tall and weighing 12 stones 9lbs Steve was a powerful centre forward, strong in the air and known during his Chester days as the Mean Machine.
Steve had spells with Bangor City and Altrincham before joining 3rd Division Bury in November 1977.
He didn’t have long to wait for his debut appearing at inside right in a 2-1 defeat at Bradford City on 12 November 1977. Steve was substituted by the experienced Alan Suddick in that game and didn’t reappear until a 1-1 home draw with Colchester on 27 December 1977.
His first goal came along on 2 January 1978 – the 3rd in a 3-0 win at Rotherham.
Steve played 11 league games (2 as substitute) that season. He didn’t add to his goal at Rotherham. Bury finished the season in 15th position winning only one of their last 14 games and drawing an incredible 13 times in 23 home games.
Although Steve didn’t feature in any of the games, Bury reached the Quarter Final of the League Cup that year where they were beaten 3-0 at home by Nottingham Forest the eventual winners and reigning League Champions. A crowd of 21,500 watched the match. In contrast, the highest home crowd of the season in the League was only 9,783 and for Bury’s final home game of the season the crowd had fallen to 2,536.
The 1978/79 season was a huge disappointment for Steve. Even in a struggling Bury side he started only 3 league games plus 5 substitute appearances. He saw no first team action until coming on as substitute in a 1-0 home win against Hull City on 28 October 1978 and didn’t start a game until 27 March 1978 in a 1-0 home defeat against Swindon Town. His only goal came in Bury’s last away game of the season, a 4-0 win at Lincoln which all but banished Bury’s relegation worries. Bury finished in 19th position avoiding relegation by only 6 points (2 points for a win).
Still only 22 years old, Steve made his big breakthrough in the 1979/80 season, although he didn’t feature in the first 13 league games of the season. Bury were at that stage 2nd from bottom in the 3rd Division. After coming on as substitute in a 2-1 home defeat against Sheffield United, Steve started the next 8 games scoring 4 goals. He was one of four players dropped after an 8-0 defeat at Swindon Town on 8 December 1979 which seems a little harsh to say the least!
By the end of the 1979/80 season Steve had played 25 league games plus 2 as substitute scoring 9 goals making him second top scorer behind Craig Madden. He scored all 4 of Bury’s goals in their last 3 league games in the space of 7 days, earning them 4 points but it wasn’t enough to prevent them being relegated by a single point.
Steve made his FA Cup debut in 1979/80, a season in which Bury reached the 5th round before losing 2-0 at Liverpool in front of a crowd of 43,769. Steve played in that game as well as making 5 other FA Cup appearances (including 1 as substitute) scoring 2 goals. Bury held Liverpool for 64 minutes before Liverpool substitute David Fairclough broke the deadlock on 64 minutes. Fairclough added a second on 81 minutes and Bury’s brave effort was over.
By 1980/81 Steve was one of the first names on the team sheet. Bury found 4th Division football a little easier but could finish only 12th. Steve played 42 League games plus one as a substitute scoring 18 goals. He scored his first hat trick on 21 March 1981 in a 3-1 home win against local rivals Rochdale. He scored 6 penalties that season 2 of which came in his hat trick. Steve also 3 League Cup goals in 3 games, his 21 goals making him the joint 5th top scorer in Division 4. He also made 5 FA Cup appearances without scoring.
1981/82 was another good season for Steve who scored 13 goals in his first 20 League games although he didn’t score a single League goal in the 11 League games he played after 30 January 1982. His striking partner Craig Madden scored an incredible 35 goals but despite this prolific pairing Bury could finish only 9th in Division 4. Madden scored a further 7 goals in the FA and League Cup making him the top scorer in Division 4. Steve scored 2 FA Cup goals in 4 games and one League Cup goal in 2 games.
There was to be no repeat of Craig Madden and Steve’s scoring feats in 1982/83 but Bury did improve immensely, topping the League going into the New Year and being in the 4th promotion spot going into their last game of the season.
Bury could have all but clinched promotion with a win in their penultimate game of the season but only drew at Tranmere on 7 May 1983. All was far from lost and a win in the last game of the season at home to Wimbledon would be enough to see Bury back in Division 3. Wimbledon had already clinched the title and Bury’s highest gate of the season, some 6,760, were hoping to celebrate promotion. Wimbledon clearly didn’t sit back and relax, going 2-0 up by half time and eventually winning 3-1. Bury would still go up if Scunthorpe lost their last game at Chester. However, Scunthorpe won 2-1 and Bury having been in a promotion position since September missed out on promotion.
Bury had been 7 points ahead of Scunthorpe with only 2 games to play but crucially Scunthorpe still had to play 4 games. Bury gained only one point while Scunthorpe got 10.
Steve ended the season with 10 goals from 29 League games plus 5 as substitute. He also played one League Cup game but failed to score.
The Wimbledon game proved to be Steve’s last in a Bury shirt. In the close season he joined Division 4 side Rochdale where in 1983/84 he played 19 games including 2 as sub scoring 7 goals. He also played 1 League Cup game without scoring and scored 2 goals in his sole FA Cup appearance. Despite this decent strike rate Rochdale allowed Steve to join Division 3 Wigan Athletic in February 1984. Where, almost 7 years after becoming Bury’s first Black player, he gained the same distinction at Wigan.
Steve retired from the game in 1993. He made a total of 476 appearances for six Football League teams during his career, scoring a total of 150 goals.
There is a postscript to the story of Bury FC as a new club, Bury AFC, has risen from the ashes. The club, run by the fans, for the fans, has a place in the North West Counties League First Division North and, as their website proudly proclaims, they are ‘bringing football back to the town of Bury.’ Their opening league fixture ended in a 3-2 win against Steeton AFC and the long climb up the football pyramid had started.
Bury AFC’s first black player in the League? The honour goes jointly to Liam MacDevitt and Arthur Feudjio who both came on as substitutes in the 71st minute against Steeton.
We wish Bury AFC the best of luck for the future.
