HOW NERVES & SHEER DETERMINATION HELPED BLISSETT BECOME A LEGEND

LUTHER BLISSETT can still remember the tingle of excitement he felt in the minutes before he would become a legend.

It preceded the Wembley hat-trick – on December 15, 1982 – that would make him the first black footballer to score for England’s senior team. “It was that fear when your stomach starts churning over,” he told Mirror Sport. “It was exciting and a bit daunting and all those feelings you get before you do something for the first time.

“I was starting the game, it was a European Championship qualifier and it was at Wembley – three miles from where I used to live.”

Blissett (right) would find the net in the 44th, 62nd and 86th minutes of a 9-0 win over Luxembourg. He’d continued inspiring a generation for whom racial prejudice was a part of life.

Ben Odeje, Laurie Cunningham, Viv Anderson and Cyrille Regis had broken the glass ceiling before him. Blissett, now 60, took things to another level.

“My view was, ‘These guys did this. So can I’,” he said. “These guys had been out there and suffered everything they had to pave the way.

“They’d done it to make it that little bit easier for the rest of us to come along. To be the first is always difficult. There is always resistance. Nobody believes it is the right thing to do. It’s not the norm.

“So you got out there and applied yourself as much as was needed to get the job done. I hadn’t spoken to any of them by then. We were spread out all over the country. It wasn’t as it is now with mobiles and communication so simple. You had to find a phone box that was working!”

An avalanche of goals saw Blissett help Watford from the Third Division to the First, where he

finished the 1982-83 season as the top flight’s leading scorer with 27 goals. He’d earned a move to AC Milan by letting his feet do the talking.

“I’d seen other black players react in a more violent way,” he said. “I saw scuffles and that sort of thing. But instead of hearing abuse when I was on the pitch, my goals meant all I could hear was defenders telling each other to pick me up because they knew I’d find the net. That was the way to make my point.

“When I got to Italy it was pretty much the same as in England. Racism is racism wherever you are. But I tended to shut it out.

“There were times early in my career when I did feel very much alone. I’d walk out with all my team-mates into a stadium and there was not another black face to be seen. You’d walk out and people would pick you out because of your colour. You’d almost have to go through how you would deal with it all prior to walking onto the pitch. So that you knew how to handle it.

“But my overriding feeling when I look back is an immense, overwhelming pride. I’d walked out at Wembley with the

Three Lions on my chest and a crowd wanting the team you were playing for to do well.

“Nobody could take that away from me.”