Scunthorpe - Football's Black Pioneers

Chesterfield – Peter Foley MBE

In a career that spanned six seasons he never had a black team mate or saw a black player on any opposing team

Peter Foley joined Chesterfield just before the start of the 1969/70 season. He had previously been Scunthorpe’s first black player and on 9th August 1969 he achieved the same status at Chesterfield. Before Scunthorpe he had played in 80 games for Workington (in the League in those days) between 13^th February 1965 (his debut) and his last game for them on 13^th May 1967 – in a nice piece of symmetry both games were against Reading.

Peter in his Scunthorpe days (we haven’t yet located a photo of Peter in Chesterfield’s strip)

Peter’s Chesterfield debut took place at Swansea’s Vetch Field and ended in a goalless draw before 7,939 people. He played on the right wing. As we shall see, the Nottingham Football Post’s pre-season prediction that “the coloured winger signed from Scunthorpe has shown signs that might well be usefully channelled on the right wing” was to prove over optimistic.

It had been almost 12 months since Peter’s last League game and he had joined Chesterfield on a three-month trial basis. He seemed to have proved his fitness by starting four games in the space of 11 days in August 1969. This included his first home game for Chesterfield, a 1-0 defeat against Port Vale. Sadly, it also included his last ever game as a full-time professional, another 1-0 defeat, this time at home to Bradford City in a First Round League Cup replay. In that final game he suffered a serious injury and was replaced by Ernie Moss who would go on to become a Chesterfield legend.

Having only just avoided having to apply for re-election in 1968/69, Chesterfield went on to win the Division Four title in 1969/70 but Peter wasn’t around to share that glory. At only 25 years of age his League career was over. It was a career that spanned six seasons during which he made a total of 104 appearances and scored 21 goals, a respectable return for someone who played most of his games on the wing,

Peter has commented that at no time did he play in a team with a black team mate, nor did he ever see another black player in any opposition team.

While Chesterfield were celebrating their title success, Peter was plying his trade at Bacup Borough in the Lancashire Combination League. He had signed for the non-league club in November 1969. Incidentally, he was also Bacup’s first black player.

Peter also played for non-league clubs such as Netherfield, Morecambe and Rossendale after leaving League football. In addition, he had a spell managing Workington after they had dropped out of the Football League. Football management is a precarious career and with a family to support it was probably just as well that he found a new career working with the Windscale Nuclear Power Station, known as Sellafield since 1981.

But his greatest and most lasting impact was through the work he performed to fight racism. Peter was particularly active as a Trades Union representative and held senior positions with the General Municipal Boilermakers’ Union (GMB) including chairing the GMB Northern Region Race Committee, being president of the Union’s National Race Committee, being a member of the GMB and TUC’s National Race Committees and playing a crucial role in developing the Union’s equality and diversity policies.

In 1998, he received an award from the Professional Footballers’ Association for being a Pioneer of Black British Football.

In the New Year’s Honour’s list 2003 he was awarded the MBE for his anti-racism work both through the Union and the Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football campaign.

He also worked for Show Racism the Red Card and was admitted to their Hall of Fame on 9th October 2013.

On the occasion of Peter’s inclusion in the Hall of Fame, Tommy Brennan, the GMB Regional Secretary, said: “Peter has been a fantastic ambassador for GMB over his many years of service gaining the respect of all concerned in the battle against racism generally and in football particularly.”

Although Peter retired from full-time employment, his valuable anti-racism work continues and he is chair of AWAZ Community Interest Company an organisation which helps Black and Minority Ethnic groups in Cumbria where he lives.

In case you wondered, AWAZ is not an acronym but a word that means ‘voice’ in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages.

Peter was indeed a pioneer. It is said he was one of only five black players in the English Football League when he made his debut for Workington in 1965. Fast forward 50 years and quite possibly every individual Football League club has at least five black players on its books. He was the first black player for Workington, Scunthorpe, Chesterfield and Bacup and has continued to use what he experienced to improve the lives of other minority groups fully earning the accolades he may not have achieved as a footballer but he has earned as a strong and caring defender of the community.

You can read more about Peter, including the remarkable story of his long lost brother, in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ where he features in the Scunthorpe chapter.

Belated Happy Birthday to Peter Foley, MBE

Peter Foley was born in Edinburgh on 28th June 1944, the son of a white mother and a black Ghanaian father. He was one of the very few black players in League football in the 1960s and was the first black player at Workington and Chesterfield (when both were still Football League clubs), as well as Scunthorpe. He will feature in in Football’s Black Pioneers as Scunthorpe’s first black player.

Peter suffered his first football-related racist abuse while playing for Workington at Queen’s Park Rangers’ Loftus Road ground on 5th April 1965. The crowd was only 4,642 but Peter recalls that during the warm up he could hear chants of “Zulu, Zulu, Zulu.” He quickly realised those chants were aimed at him as the only black player on the pitch.

Aged just 20, the impact on Peter was traumatic. When he saw that the first fixture for the following season was a return to London and an away game with Millwall he was so concerned about the abuse he might have to suffer, particularly given the reputation of the Millwall crowd, that he feigned injury so he would not have to travel to the capital.

This was a seminal moment in Peter’s life. He realised he had let himself and his team down and allowed the racists to win. He never feigned injury again and he vowed he would never again hide from racism but would fight it wherever he came across it. That he did so is amply demonstrated by his MBE, awarded in 2003, for his anti-racism work both through his Trade Union and the Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football campaign.

There is much more to Peter’s story, including his unexpected discovery of a brother he didn’t know he had. You can read it in Football’s Black Pioneers which will be published on 31st August 2020 and can be pre-ordered here: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/2020/06/05/footballs-black-pioneers-pub-date-moved-forward-to-august-available-now-for-preorder/

Football’s Windrush Generation

Members of the Windrush Generation have contributed so much to so many aspects of British Society, in few places is this more visible than on football pitches up and down the country.

There have been black players in British football from the start of the game as an organised professional sport. A mixed heritage player called Arthur Wharton made his First Division debut in goal for Sheffield United in the League on 23^rd February 1895, just seven years after the competition started in 1888.

There were 92 Football League clubs at the start of the 2019/20 season, 18 of them had fielded a black player before the outbreak of World War Two but, for a further 29, their first black player was a member of the Windrush Generation.

There were boxers on the Empire Windrush when it docked at Tilbury on 22^nd June 1948 but no professional footballers. However, some came later having been born in the Caribbean. One of them was Brendon Batson. Born in Grenada in 1953, he came to England with his parents as a nine year old and went on to become the first black player in Arsenal’s 1^st team in 1972. Roland Butcher, born in Barbados, was the first black footballer to play for Stevenage but is better known as England’s first black international cricketer.

More were born in the UK, the sons of parents who made the journey from the Caribbean in the 1950s or 1960s. Some achieved notable successes in their football career.

London born Laurie Cunningham first played for Leyton Orient before transferring to West Bromwich Albion where, in 1977, he was the first black player to make it into Albion’s 1^st eleven. Laurie subsequently moved to Spain where he won a European Cup winner’s medal with the mighty Real Madrid.

Others had long and successful careers for clubs in lower divisions. Tony Ford, Grimsby Town’s first black player, made 1081 League and Cup appearances over a career that spanned 27 seasons from 1975 to 2001. This remains the highest number of appearances for any outfield player (only goalkeeper, Peter Shilton, played more). Tony’s father was from Barbados, in the UK he met Bradford-born, Jean Ford and Tony was born in 1959.

Not all were as successful. Lloyd Maitland’s father arrived from Jamaica in 1951 and Lloyd was born on 21^st March 1957. Lloyd only made only 39 appearances in the League for Huddersfield and a further 71 for Darlington before his career was brought to a premature end when he was run over by a car driven by one of his own team mates.

One thing they had in common was that they faced racist abuse of varying degrees of vitriol. Peter Foley, Scunthorpe’s first black player, once feigned injury to avoid playing at Millwall’s notorious ground. This was a seminal moment in Peter’s life as he vowed he would never again hide from racism but would fight it with all his might – he was later awarded the MBE for his work to combat racism.

But none of the Windrush Generation of football pioneers achieved more than Viv Anderson.

Viv’s father, Audley Anderson, sailed from Jamaica on board the SS Auriga. He left behind his young bride, Myrtle. Like so many men of the time he recognised the need to make sacrifices to achieve a better future for himself and his family. Audley arrived at Plymouth on 12^th October 1954. Five months later, Myrtle followed him, also travelling on the Auriga to Plymouth.

Myrtle was a qualified teacher but, as so many in her position found, her qualifications didn’t satisfy the UK authorities. She found a job as a school dinner lady but later qualified as a nurse, becoming one of the many thousands of nurses from the Caribbean who helped make the Health Service such a success.

The Andersons had set up home in Nottingham and that is where Vivian Alexander Anderson was born on 29^th July 1956. Viv went on to be a key part of the team that won the First Division title (what would now be the Premiership) and the European Cup (forerunner of the Champions League) twice with Nottingham Forest. He was Forest’s first black player and, in 1978, also the first to win a full England cap.

All these players and many more are included in a book, Football’s Black Pioneers, that will be published later this year, it will include the stories of the first black player at each of the 92 EFL (English Football League) and Premier League clubs. The book is available for pre-order here: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/2020/06/05/footballs-black-pioneers-pub-date-moved-forward-to-august-available-now-for-preorder/