On the morning of 6th October 1925 Jack Leslie was called into the office of Plymouth Argyle manager Bob Jack and given the great news that the International Selection Committee had met the previous day and chosen him for the England squad to take on Northern Ireland in Belfast on 24th October. He wasn’t in the starting eleven but was named as a travelling reserve. In their excitement it is unlikely either man gave a second thought to the fact that Jack was on the verge of becoming the first black player to represent England.
The selection of a Third Division player was unusual enough to attract comment regardless of his colour and so there was a lot about Jack’s call up in the local and national press. The Northern Whig, for instance, commented “Leslie who has scored plenty of goals for the Argyle, is an inside forward of great ability and will soon work his way into representative matches.”
But it wasn’t to be. On the day he should have been in Belfast he actually played for Plymouth, scoring twice in a 7-2 home win over Bournemouth. He had been dropped from the England squad.
No explanation was ever given, indeed, in a move Donald Trump would have been proud of, the FA even denied he had ever been selected. In Jack’s own words , “I did hear, roundabout like, that the FA had come to have another look at me. Not at me football but at me face. They asked, and found they’d made a ricket. Found out about me daddy, and that was it. Me mum was English but me daddy was black as the Ace of Spades. They found out I was a darkie and I suppose that was like finding out I was foreign.”
Jack Lesley’s de-selection must rank as one of the most shameful incidents in the long and far from blemish-free history of the FA.
Shocking though it is, that story shouldn’t be all Jack is remembered for. He had a very successful club career and you will be able to read about it in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’.
A group of fans are setting up a campaign to have a statue erected at Argyle’s ground, Home Park, and you can read about their plans here https://jackleslie.co.uk/