We had a game of blacks versus whites. It sounds odd now but it wasn’t then. We wouldn’t give two hoots if you were pink, blue or green as long as you could play
FOOTBALL STAR ON MATCH THAT WOULD ONLY BE ACCEPTABLE IN THE 70s
May 16, 1979, and two football teams line up for a match on a training ground.
The way the teams were selected would be unthinkable in the modern game because the sides were divided strictly on grounds of race – 11 white players versus 11 black.
It may sound like something out of apartheid- era South Africa but it was, in fact, a testimonial match for long- serving West Bromwich Albion player Len Cantello at the Midlands club’s ground The Hawthorns.
It is not a game which could, or would, take place now without a public outcry.
Then, however, it passed without moral or political recourse beyond a whisper of dissenting voices.
Ally Robertson, West Brom’s no- nonsense Scottish defender, was at the ground that day.
He couldn’t play because of injury but he was in the dressing room before the bounce game and in the stands to cheer on his teammates, both white and black.
The 64 - year - old played with the historymaking trio of Laurie Cunningham, Brendon Batson and Cyr i l le Regis, who played for the club in the late 70s. They were dubbed the “Three Degrees” after a trio of black singers by boss Ron Atkinson.
When they played together in 1978, it was the first time a top-flight club had regularly fielded three black players.
The testimonial, far from being something to be ashamed of, was seen as progressive for being able to bring together a team of black players who until then had been very much a minority and attract black fans to the ground. Ally said: “I didn’t play in the game because I was injured but I remember going up to the dressing room and the music was playing and there were a lot of young black lads, kids, and I thought it will be a big night for them because some of them have never played against a big team like West Brom.
“As for black against white, it meant nothing to me. I was in the stand. It was no different to any other testimonial at the time – there was no really hard tackles and it was a friendly match.
“People try to make it an issue but it was just some young black kids playing against white kids. We did it in training every week so, to us, it was no different.
“At that time in training, it used be ‘scum against the cream’. The scum were the Scots, Welsh, Irish and the blacks. The cream were the English lads.
“The games were brilliant. It was like Scotland against England. We laughed about it and it was fun.
“The attitude of everyone was brilliant. Nobody ever thought anything of it. So when they came up with the idea of black versus white, it was exactly the same – nobody thought anything of it.
“It is not until years after that you think it probably didn’t sound great but to us, at the time, it didn’t mean one iota of anything.”
The game, which finished 3-2 to the black team, has been brought into focus by broadcaster Adrian Chiles, who presents the documentary Whites Vs Blacks: How Football Changed a Nation on BBC2 at 9pm tonight.
He looks at the game and brings together some of the players from both sides, including Ally, Regis and Batson.
They also testify to how it was a novelty idea, a bit of fun, which they only recognised as a historical moment later. It is not a reunion because the former
Our dressing room was like a family and it was colour blind. We had such a great team spirit
teammates remain great friends. Ally, who after 18 years at West Brom spent a further four at their Black Country rivals Wolves, remained in the Midlands when his football career ended.
But the documentary has given him a new insight into the experience of black players. While the West Brom dressing room remained colour blind, black players and their families were under pressure from all directions.
In the late 70s, the National Front were causing unrest on the streets and racist abuse was spewing forth from the terraces.
Former Leicester and Wolves players Bob Hazell and George Berry, who played in the testimonial, speak about feeling isolated in the dressing room and being abused by their own fans.
Ally said: “For us at West Brom, we had no problems at all with the black players or anything about race. If Laurie, Cyrille or Brendon weren’t good enough, they wouldn’t be in our team. Whether they be pink, black, green, blue, white, whatever, we wouldn’t give two hoots.
“They were in our dressing room and they were the same as us – we were there to play football. We got on great, went out together, l ived round the corner from each other and our families went out together. We never had a problem.
“Then to see how other lads had problems, that opened my eyes. I couldn’t believe some were saying from within their own club they had problems.
“Our dressing room was like a family and it was colour blind. We had such a great team spirit.” When Ally joined West Brom aged 15, having grown up in the West Lothian vil lage of Philipstoun, he had never seen a person of colour in the f lesh. But he revelled in the melting pot culture.
He said: “I had never seen a black person except on TV. When I first came down, my digs were in Handsworth, which was full of Afro- Caribbeans.
“There were no problems at all. It was so different from my own village back home in Scotland but it was fascinating.
“When they heard me speak in my broad teenage Scottish accent, they were looking at me probably in the same way I was looking at them.”
Humour is also a great weapon against prejudice, as Ally reminded his teammates when they played his boyhood team Rangers.
He said: “After the game, we all went out. I said to Brendon and Cyrille, ‘By the way, don’t worry about being black. Just don’t mention you’re Catholics because we’re going to a Protestant pub.’ They couldn’t stop laughing.”