ENGLAND'S FIRST BLACK INTERNATIONAL PLAYER: "YELLOW, PURPLE or black - if they're good enough, I'll pick them," Ron Greenwood declared in the build-up to England's match against Czechoslovakia on November 29th 1978, and in the absence of any yellow and purple players in the Football League the meaning was fairly clear. That night, 11 men wearing England shirts lined up on the Wembley turf, 10 of them white and one of them black. It was, as Greenwood put it, "a little bit of history".
England won 1-0 but, in the grand scheme of things, the game will be remembered for only one thing, the presence of a 22-year-old Nottingham Forest footballer by the name of Viv Anderson. Anderson, or "Spider" as he was known to team-mates because of his long legs, duly became the first black footballer to play for England and that is why his name will be remembered long after other internationals from that era have been forgotten.
Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary and Anderson, now based in Cheshire where he runs an events company, still looks the same as in his playing days with Forest, Arsenal and Manchester United. He has always been embarrassed to be described as a history-maker, but, as an active ambassador for Kick It Out, football's anti-racism campaign, he is also aware of the significance of the occasion.
"It was a really big thing at the time," he says. "There were no black faces on the football field. Okay, there was Brendon Batson and Clyde Best and a few others. But to be the first black player to pull on an England shirt in a full international - I can see why people made a bit of a fuss."
Kick It Out did not exist in those days and Anderson routinely played at grounds where the National Front would be handing out leaflets. In one game at Carlisle United, a rival player started whispering racist insults in his ear. Brian Clough was quickly out of his dug-out, telling him to kick his opponent and "call him a white bastard".
Things have moved on. Yet Anderson fondly remembers the 92,000 fans at Wembley giving him an appreciative round of applause. "I had a hand in the goal and we won 1-0," he says. "I remember Bob Latchford telling me I'd remember it forever and he was right. It was a very positive reaction from the terraces. To them, it was all about the football."
Three decades later it is a measure of the changing times that England had seven black players making an appearance in their last game against Germany.
"Many of today's younger England fans will take for granted the black faces in Fabio Capello's team," says Piara Powar, the Kick it Out director. "But in 1978 it was a rarity to see a young black man achieving so highly, both on the football pitch and society in general. This is a milestone for Viv, and gives the rest of us an opportunity to take stock of a significant turning point for sport in this country."
Anderson, however, is a modest hero. "I never had it that bad," he says. "It was a lot easier for me than, say Laurie Cunningham or Cyrille Regis. They were flamboyant forwards so they were identified much more. Cyrille got a bullet through the post with the message: 'This one's for you if you play for England'. I never got anything like that because I was just a defender who used to boot people."
Modest and affable, Anderson now features on the 100 Great Black Britons website. He was awarded the MBE in 2000 and was inducted into the National Football Museum's hall of fame in 2004. He has also taken part in football workshops in Soweto as a goodwill ambassador for the English FA and, going back to 1978, still has the telegrams he received "from everyone from Laurie Cunningham's mum to Elton John and the Queen".
It is, he says, a proud moment. "I played in an age where it wasn't the norm for a black man to represent his country so to do it not just once, but 30 times, is more than I could've ever asked for." Guardian Service
ENGLAND (v Czechoslovakia, Wembley, Nov 29th, 1978): Peter Shilton, Viv Anderson, Trevor Cherry, Phil Thompson, Dave Watson, Ray Wilkins, Tony Currie, Kevin Keegan, Tony Woodcock, Peter Barnes, Steve Coppell. Sub: Bob Latchford for Woodcock (41 mins). Goal: Coppell (69 mins). Attendance: 92,000.
