A Book Of Eli: (Part 4) Racism

“We were so well grounded thanks to mum,” said Roger (more bacon and eggs at the Potting Shed café). We had this big glass fronted cabinet and anything we got went into it, Easter Eggs, sweets, chocolates… and they were locked away. So then we had to share everything and if it was Easter she would take just the one egg out. We could never get in this cabinet until…
 
     “There was one day that me and my brother were rolling round on the floor wrestling and being awful. Mum never had any hesitation in giving us the slipper or the shoe if we had misbehaved. She could throw it and hit a sixpence from 20 yards away. Except this time she threw the shoe and it didn’t hit the sixpence it hit the glass cabinet door and smashed the glass. After that there wasn’t much point locking it. ”

     I’d looked up Dominica (memo; must book a cruise that calls in there). One interesting thing that I read up on was that the original inhabitants of the West Indian islands were the Caribs. They were there when Columbus bumped into the place. What followed over the next few centuries was the influx of imported African slaves to work the plantations. It seems that many pure Caribs still live in Dominica, some of whom are the descendants of those who fled there to escape the colonisation that engulfed their own islands. Being so mountainous Dominica was unsuitable for the worst of the large plantations that developed. So – Roger’s family and roots – true Caribs or of African origin; we’d both like to research this and find out more.

      “We may easily forget that racism, casual or concerted, malicious or just thoughtless, was previously so taken for granted in every corner of football culture that it was not even acknowledged, let alone debated and identified as worthy of corrective action. Throughout most of the 70s the sons of immigrant families from, in most cases the Carribean, learned as they became established at Loftus Road, Molineux, White Hart Lane, Kennilworth Road, Old Trafford, The Hawthorns, the City Ground and elsewhere that they just had to learn to live with the spit and bananas that rained down on them every time they took a throw-in or a corner, and the low, loathing, collective boo that rose up against them every time they touched the ball in open play. What else could they do? The only course of action available to them was to show by their deeds that they would not be driven out of football, just as their families would not be driven out of Britain.” (Dave Hill, Out of his Skin, WSC Books, 2001)

     We talked for a while about racism and some of the great black players who had led the way. Albert Johannesen was the one who got the plaudits at Leeds in the 60s because he was the one who really came to the attention of the public and gained real prominence. But in fact there was a guy before him, also a South African – Gerry Francis. The trickle of black players into the game before the war had seemingly come to an end after 1945 even though the number of Commonwealth immigrants was rising. But in 1957 Francis arrived at Leeds from Johannesburg. Until 1961 he only managed 46 League games until Revie packed him off to York City. He could dazzle one game and disappear in the next. He would vanish into the reserves, get back to form, reappear in the First Team again, and then vanish again.
 
     So it was Johanneson who became the torch-bearer though in the end it became too much for him. He made his debut four games into Revie’s reign and for the next six years provided the flair in a team of rough, rugged, physically combative players that was designed to hustle and prevent the opposition playing. It took just two training sessions for Revie to see the potential. He played for the next six years and became known as “The Black Flash.” Bagchi and Rogerson in their Leeds book “The Unforgiven” wrote that eventually he succumbed to self-doubt and big-match nerves. His feelings of inadequacy were always there to undermine his confidence on the football field and in his private life. But Leeds fans took to him. He was the icing on the cake; quick, strong, full of flair and pace with a strike rate of one goal in three games, a ratio that some centre-forwards would have been proud of.
 
     It was a schoolteacher back home in Johannesburg who wrote to Leeds and for the price of an air ticket Leeds had a player that today would be in £10million bracket. Maybe Ashley Young might be the nearest comparison. He came for a three-month trail, settled in well once he had adjusted to a world where he could sit on a bus in any seat he chose with white people. If he was abused he rarely mentioned it or complained. Only once did he tell Revie that an Everton player had called him a “black b@stard.” Revie’s advice was short and to the point. “Well call him a white b@stard back next time.”

     With Leeds he won promotion, and stood out as an entertainer in a team that didn’t have that many. He was joint top scorer in the promotion season of ‘63/64. Alongside him was the diminutive Scot Bobby Collins. Collins’ small frame was solid muscle, grit and aggression. He was the player that Leeds revolved round when he arrived and Johannesen was a beneficiary. “Albert could fly,” he said. “I could put the ball on the spot for him and when he was in his stride there weren’t many who could catch him.”
  
     The watershed of his career came in 1964/65. Chris Watson a longstanding Burnley supporter, as a kid went to Elland Road and saw Johannesen rip Burnley to pieces when Leeds won 5 - 1. Standing on a steeply banked high terrace he remembers the pace and skill and the runs he made time and again. “I was a Willie Morgan fan and could recognise brilliance in a winger, and needless to say he was the only black player on the pitch and stood out even more in that all-white strip. Very sad to read of his wretched demise; I hope he’s now in a football heaven.”
 
     Manchester United pipped Leeds to the title that season. Liverpool beat them at Wembley in a game where Johannesen had little impact. It was as though his brittle self belief had taken one knock too many and he was never the same after that. Niggling injuries and the emergence of Eddie Gray made him more and more peripheral.

     He joined York City in the summer of 1970 and enjoying a brief Indian summer helped them win promotion. But injuries contined to affect him again and he retired in 1971.

      Roger and I met the publisher Karl Waddicor again, chewed a few things over, confirmed a few others, one of them certainly being football books don’t make anyone a millionaire. We tied down the themes we’d be pursuing; the emergence of black players, the bravery of the early guys, the countless broken dreams of football; the fact that for a majority of players it isn’t all glamour.There’ll be a fair amount of Leeds material in it and Wolves. For every player who makes the bigtime there’s a whole lot more who don’t and in the 80s in Roger’s day struggled on poor wages. You could apply the question “Whatever happened to Roger Eli” to so many more players who left the game and you wonder “where are they now.”
 
    And it’s a small world: The Ces Podd story was typical. “Yes I know Ces,” Roger blurted out quite excitedly when I mentioned the odd way in which I’d met him at one of his Salsa Dance classes in Leeds. It was while tallking and reading about Ces Podd that the reasons emerged why more black players didn’t enter pro football at the same time as he did. Clearly Podd was the tip of the iceberg in terms of talented black players, so why not more of them through the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It seems the answer was that many were reluctant to face public abuse; but more simply, getting a trial at a football club was far from easy with racism entrenched in more than a few boardrooms, and managers and coaches were stricken by stereotype views that black footballers lacked toughness, application and stamina – oh and they didn’t like the cold was another one. 
    

   By the time Roger came to prominence at Burnley, albeit briefly, in the early 90s, black players were beginning to assume a higher profile. John Barnes was simply dazzling at Liverpool in the late 80s. Liverpool in fact assembled several others – Mark Walters, Michael Thomas, David James and Phil Babb. James in particular was high profile. Arsenal were developing their own black players but the signing of Ian Wright was a significant event. Wright was generally in the news for one thing or another. Viv Anderson and Paul Ince moved to Manchester United. Leeds United had the Wallace brothers, and Tony Yeboah. Not that any of this meant that racism was truly over. Far from it but Race Relations legislation did mean that action could be taken when and where necessary. Today, the Football Supporters’ Association, The PFA, the Commission for Racial Equality, The Football Trust, the clubs themselves and the ‘Kicking Out Racism in Football’ campaign have made enormous contributions to the eradication of both hooligan and racist behaviour at football stadiums.

     A guy I have emailed several times, Brian Belton down at West Ham, based one of his books on the story of the emergence of black players at West Ham. It’s forgotten that they were such a pioneering club in the early 70s with players like John Charles, Clyde Best, Ade Coker and Clive Charles. Yet, ironically West Ham supporters were amongst the most racist of the period when it came to greeting the black players of other clubs. ‘East End Heroes, Stateside Kings’ is a superb book, wonderfully researched about the impact of Best, Coker and Clive Charles, all of whom went on to have distinguished careers in football after they hung up their boots. Ron Atkinson and his “Three Degrees” (Cunningham, Regis and Batson) are the ones often quoted as being the groundbreakers, but West Ham were there first and were the first club to have three black players in their line-up.
 

    Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis were two of Roger’s earliest heroes. Maybe Clyde Best is up there with Ces Podd in terms of importance although Podd had the longer career in the English game. Best, however, being a Division One player had the national profile and became a familiar figure on Match of the Day programmes. Because of this, he above all others became a symbol of what was possible.
 

    Clyde Best came along at the same time that Muhammed Ali and Pele became known around the world, at a time when television was beginning to influence the world. The films of fights and football matches featuring these two idols demonstrated that black sportsmen could not only succeed but become superstars. They provided motivation and encouragement to a generation that followed.
   

   Roger, though he would never say so, was one of that early pioneering group in the 80s that came into the game against all the odds. It probably won’t have occurred to him but the Walcotts, Defoes, Johnsons, Ferdinands; Coles et al, owe him and others like him from that era a huge debt.