THE QUEEN SENT A TELEGRAM TO ME... BUT I JUST WANTED TO PLAY
Viv Anderson on becoming England’s first black player 40 years ago this week
VIV ANDERSON is done. In time he will recall an important day of new beginnings, but for now he wants to talk about an ending.
‘It was a couple of weeks back,’ he tells Sportsmail. ‘The grand, glorious comeback, that’s what it was. A mate had asked if I could play five-a-side with him in Bolton and I hadn’t played in ages so I’ve turned up for a game.
‘Not sure what I was thinking at 62 years old, you know. Anyway, 20 minutes in and I just know my calf is about to go pop. I’m too old to be tearing muscles so I called it quits there and then and came off. That’s me finished . . . No more football for me.’ And with that one of the most significant names in the story of English football lets out a loud laugh.
‘I’m walking away,’ he says. ‘Or limping, maybe.’ Walking or limping, he won’t get far — his place in the game and its history is too embedded, whether he wants it that way or not. His name will always echo because that is what happens with pioneers and few reverberate quite like Anderson, who 40 years ago this month became the first black player to win a full England cap.
In Anderson’s words, the particular details of November 29, 1978 — 40 years ago on Thursday — are ‘not that special’. His historic moment came in a friendly against Czechoslovakia at Wembley, 92,000 through the gate, 1-0 win, Steve Coppell got the goal.
‘It was a largely forgettable game,’ Anderson says. ‘And by that, I mean I have largely forgotten about it, which is something when you think how often I am asked about it.’ And yet the context here — the scale of racism in football at the time — means his appearance will never be forgotten, even if Anderson, for his part, has often appeared a little embarrassed to be seen as a figurehead for race issues. His way has typically been to deflect credit to others, usually in the direction of Laurie Cunningham and the late Cyrille Regis, whose call-up four years later was followed by a bullet in the post.
‘They had it worse than me,’ he says. ‘Flamboyant players always had it worse. I was just a skinny defender from Nottingham Forest who kicked people.’
But he knew full well what it was to face the disgusting abuse of the era. Anderson’s anecdote of choice features his warm-up away at Carlisle for Brian Clough’s Forest in the mid-Seventies. After being pelted by apples, bananas and pears, he ran for the dug-out. As Anderson tells it, Clough ordered him back out. ‘ He told me I had to show them I wouldn’t be intimidated — and to fetch him two pears and a banana.’
It’s a story told often and with a chuckle, but it was also a desperately sad snapshot in time. And it was against such a backdrop that Anderson, a 22-year-old defender in the Forest side that had just won the First Division, was called up by England manager Ron Greenwood, who declared: ‘ Yellow, purple or black — if they’re good enough, I’ll pick them.’
Predictably, the decision drew major attention. ‘It’s funny, you don’t get any media training for something like that,’ he says. ‘You’re thrown into the pit and told to get on with it. Ron himself said very little to me. A letter was sent to the club that said I was chosen and I turned up. The ones who helped me were Kevin Keegan and Bob Latchford. They said, “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have the ability”.
‘I remember getting this telegram from the Queen and one from Elton John in the dressing room so it was obviously a big thing for people, but I just wanted to go and play.
‘I would love to say I knew there and then that I would be visible and important for other black kids, just as (West Ham’s) Clyde Best had been for me. But at that point, I was mostly just concerned with getting in the team and the game.
‘The funny thing in that is that I now spend all this time talking about what the game meant and I have almost no recollection of the game itself. Some people say I had a hand in the goal and even that I’m not really sure of.’ IT IS one of those inevitabilities that Anderson’s place in football has been defined by one game, even if that does somewhat overlook a stunning career in which he played at Forest, Arsenal and Manchester United, among others, as well as winning 30 England caps, one league title, two European Cups, two League Cups and the European Super Cup.
He was also Sir Alex Ferguson’s first signing at United, playermanager at Barnsley briefly and was Bryan Robson’s No 2 at Middlesbrough when they made three cup finals in the mid-Nineties.
‘I don’t want to bang the drum about race every two minutes,’ he says. ‘I never said I wanted to be always known as the first black footballer for England, even though I am very proud of it. But I will speak out about race if I think I’m relevant to a conversation and that people might listen because I think there’s still work to be done.’
With that comes the regret that greater change has not occurred in football in the past 40 years.
‘It is a bit depressing that some of the same issues exist today,’ he says. ‘Black players are accepted now, obviously — look at this England squad. But it is the other side of it with managers where we have the problem.
‘How many are there? I was a manager at Barnsley 25-odd years ago and so was Keith Alexander and it was seen as the start of a revolution. That never materialised, so there is something lacking from owners. They are talking about the Rooney Rule and I think they need to try something, anything, because 20 years on we are not much further forward. How many great black players have there been? Paul Ince, Rio Ferdinand, Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Sol Campbell — we are not utilising their knowledge and they might be put off management because they see black people do not get the opportunity. What a crying shame that is.’
These days, Anderson’s involvement in football centres on his 12-year-old son, Freddie, who is on the books at Manchester City — ‘for my sins’ — and his Altrincham-based company, Play On, which supports ex-pros with their transition out of the game.
‘Did you know the stats say if you earn £40k a week today, within five years you will be bankrupt? The other one is once a player retires, within a year 75 per cent are divorced. We try to help find something for them to do, to give them a purpose. That purpose in life,’ he says, ‘it’s what you really need.’
He’s rarely lacked it. From playing football to being a face for racial equality to raising £1million for Prostate Cancer UK on his bike over the years. ‘I’m not done yet,’ he says. ‘Except for playing football. That’s definitely done.’
‘Yellow, purple or black — if they’re good enough, I’ll pick them’ ‘I was pelted with fruit. Clough told me to fetch him two pears and a banana’