There are players featured in Football’s Black Pioneers who played in several hundred games, all the way up to the man with the most appearances of any outfield player, Tony Ford, who clocked up a scarcely believable 1,081 appearances in Football League and Cup games.
At the other end of the scale we have players like Calvin Symonds who played just one game for Rochdale in 1955, and Alf Charles who, similarly, appeared just once for Southampton in 1937.
Wolverhampton Wanderers’ first black player, Charles Donald (Don) Gardner, is only slightly ahead of Alf and Calvin – although he too made just one League start, he also appeared twice as a substitute.
He made his debut in a home game against Luton Town on 31st March 1975.
It came as no great surprise to us that Don’s name does not appear in the programme, this is often the way with young players making their debut.
Don came on to replace Steve Kindon after 62 minutes. Luton were struggling at the time this game was played, they were 21st (out of 22) in the League (Wolves were 15th); the teams sandwiched between them were Birmingham 16th, Arsenal 17th, Leicester 18th, Chelsea 19th and Tottenham 20th. The result, a 5-2 win for Wolves, did nothing to help Luton’s cause and even a run of three wins and a draw in their last four fixtures wasn’t enough to save them from relegation (Carlisle and Chelsea went down with them).
Don must have done enough against Luton to justify a place in the starting XI for the next fixture, away at QPR on 5th April. Wolves lost 2-0 (this turned out to be his only start) and then he was back on the bench for the next game, away at Derby County (Wolves lost this one 1-0). Against Derby he clocked up his third appearance when he replaced Steve Daley.
And that was it, his Football League career was over.
We can speculate as to why some players make it and some don’t, there are countless examples of players, white and black, whose careers are similarly brief. In Don’s case, was it that, although a good player, he just wasn’t quite good enough? Or was there some other factor that prevented his career from blossoming?
Two years after Don Gardner’s last appearance, on 7th May 1977 another black player, nineteen year-old George Berry, made his Wolves debut. George would go on to play well over 150 games for Wolves and, eventually, made almost 500 League and Cup appearances in a long career.
The following season another black player, Bob Hazell, made his debut on 17th December 1977 at Newcastle, a notoriously hostile ground for players like Bob. He went on to make 36 League and Cup appearances for Wanderers before moving on. He made well over 300 appearances in a career that finished a decade after it started.
George and Bob were both uncompromising centre backs and it wasn’t just their play that was ‘uncompromising’, neither was afraid to confront the racism they experienced. George Berry has commented that his attitude stemmed in part from the treatment he saw meted out to Don Gardner by some of his own team mates and a determination not to be bullied in the same way.
If we take George Berry’s comments at face value then it becomes clear that Don Gardner’s influence went beyond what his limited minutes on the pitch might suggest. It was lonely for pioneers like Don but they blazed a trail that arguably made it easier for those who came after them.
You can read more about Wolves’ trailblazer, Don Gardner, in Football’s Black Pioneers.
Given the brevity of his career we were lucky to find a photo of Don playing in the game in which he made history as Wolverhampton Wanderers first black player.
