Racism and black footballers.

Racism and black footballers.

In Channel Four's fascinating programme about the emergence of black footballers in British football we were reminded harshly of the dreadfully appalling advent of violent racism in English football and how it came to deface and disfigure the game for most of the 1970s and, quite certainly, the 1980s. For some of us it began to look like a nasty epidemic that refused to go away and couldn't be stamped out however much society and the FA did their utmost to 'Kick Out Racism', now very much a symbolic attempt to remove this vile stench.

Back in the early 1970s my team West Ham United unveiled one of the first black players in the modern era to tread the old First Division boards. Clyde Best, although apparently barrel chested and stocky, became one of the most popular and much loved of players ever to join the East London club.

Of course he looked big but there was always something of the muscular boxing heavyweight about Best that instantly endeared himself to the Upton Park crowd. Best was tireless, always chasing lost causes and could always be relied on to score a considerable number of goals. Best was always in the right place and the right time to pick up the loose ends and could hit the target with some frequency.

Sadly though, Best would also become the unwitting victim of ugly racism and prejudice, a player now victimised, laughed at and ridiculed because of the colour of his skin. There were the familiar banana skins, the disgraceful monkey noises and the constant shadow of hatred and intolerance. Best was though bigger than that and rose above the moronic chants, allowing both his head and feet to do all the talking for him.

Over the last two nights Channel Four have endeavoured to show in some graphic detail some of those ghastly images, sights and sounds which provided an almost humiliating backdrop to Britain's back street and inner city culture during the 1970s. Introduced by prolific and former Arsenal striker Ian Wright, some of the many black players who so illuminated the old First Division and then, more recently the Premier League, were wonderfully highlighted, players with genuine talent, an eloquent turn of phrase and a lightning burst of pace.

In the first programme Paul Canoville, the old Chelsea striker came under the spotlight. Canoville could never be compared to some of his illustrious predecessors such as Jimmy Greaves, ironically a Chelsea favourite at the start of his career. Nor was Canoville a Tommy Lawton, Dixie Dean nor a Gary Lineker. But he did know where the goal was and scored quite regularly for Chelsea, eventually winning over the racists, cynics and those who were never entirely sure about Canoville.

Perhaps the most disturbing commentary behind Canoville's debut was the one that the Chelsea fans had reserved for him on his Chelsea debut. Booed viciously and vilified senselessly by the Stamford Bridge Canoville must have felt like a pariah or some alien with green horns sticking out of his head.

Later on in the programme there was Vince Hilaire, unquestionably one of the cleverest, most original and elusive wingers in the English old First Division. In the red and blue stripes of Crystal Palace was an overnight sensation, a player of blistering pace, incomparable ball control and a player with the capacity to bring the Palace crowd to life. Hilaire was fast, direct, always demanding the ball rather like the kid in the playground and always running, darting, weaving and turning in equal measure.

When the then manager Malcolm Allison first saw Hilaire he knew that the boy would wear an England shirt. The only obstacle though that Hilaire would have to overcome was the ever present racism still poisoning the English game. And yet coming as he did from the West Ham catchment area Hilaire knew that even the West Ham supporters could instantly recognise an outstanding player when they saw one and Hilaire ticked all the right boxes.

At Nottingham Forest Brian Clough was assembling one of the most meticulously crafted teams in the top flight and then there was Viv Anderson. Anderson was leggy, athletic, adventurous, confident and black. Soon Anderson would reach the very pinnacle of the game with promotion to the England side. Anderson was assured, always galloping into space, gobbling up the ground in long, purposeful strides and never afraid to try his luck with a goal or shot or two.

Almost immediately, the Forest fans the City ground fell in love with Anderson's hugely progressive style. Anderson told the amusing story of  the time when, after some of the less desirable of the away fans had pelted him with oranges, bananas, apples and pears, Clough had ordered Anderson to get him some fruit for him. When Anderson made his England debut, a whole nation greeted him with all the warmth and adulation that was long overdue.

Throughout both episodes of Out of the Skin, one player featured most prominently and tragically. Cyrille Regis, a West Bronwich Albion player through and through affectionately became known as one of the Three Degrees, a reference to the all girl, black soul group from the 1970s. Regis who died most prematurely, was a broad shouldered, powerful, thick thighed, bustling, barging and vastly intelligent striker who had everything in his CV. Regis was another cruiserweight who could well have given Mike Tyson a run for his money had he felt so inclined.

In one incredible First Division match toward the end of the 1970s Regis was just one of the three stormtroopers who would eventually destroy and embarrass Manchester United at a mud bath of a pitch at Old Trafford. Alongside the equally as talented, fleet of feet and twinkle toed Laurie Cunningham, a superlative winger of frightening speed, Brenda Batson mopping up unfussily at the back for West Brom and Regis bearing down on the United goal like a wrecking ball, West Brom came through with a stunningly comfortable 5-3 victory. It was Regis at his most fluent and lethal. None would ever forget it.

Last night it was Paul Ince's to explain what it meant to be the first black England captain, a notable accolade and honour that Ince was at pains to emphasise. Ince who began at West Ham and then moved onto a big money signing at Manchester United, pointed out how good it must have felt to not only pull on the England shirt but bring up his children in a society that had now fully accepted him. Ince was seen playing football with his son in the family and it must have represented, you felt sure, the ultimate recognition and a deeply satisfying moment in his career.

Then of course during the 1980's there was John Barnes, a magnificent and supremely well balanced winger who, for a number of years through that decade, became untouchable, unplayable and unfathomable if only because helpless defenders had not a clue where Barnes was going. Barnes drifted over the muck and brass that was an old English pitch like a floating cloud in the sky, carrying the ball for what seemed a lifetime and then swotting aside players as if they were still in the dressing room.

John Barnes was a footballing academic, full of footballing degrees, Bachelor of Arts degrees, Bachelor of Science degrees and the most learned of graduates. Barnes was born to be a footballer, a player of slinky movement, lovely body swerve, cultured feet and glorious originality. Barnes glided, danced and then finished off  those damaging runs with goals to remember. There was an air of footballing deception about Barnes, a secretive, stealthy manner that none could quite figure out.

In 1984, Barnes was single handedly responsible for breaking into a Brazilian defence in the old Maracana Stadium and completing surely one of the best goals ever scored by an Englishman in Brazil. This was a friendly match but for Barnes this was a goal par excellence, a magnum opus of a goal, a goal picked from the most expensive jewellery box of English international football.

Picking the ball up from way out on the touchline, Barnes moved onto the ball before executing some of the most elegant waltzes ever encountered in an England shirt. In fact Strauss would have been enormously flattered had he seen it. Barnes, slowly gathering pace and momentum, stepped in and out of trailing legs, dribbling with unreasonable ease, then jinking in between the yellow Brazilian shirts, rounding the goalkeeper and slotting the ball into the net as if he'd practised the same move every day in training.

Two years later Barnes was this time very much the life and soul of the party, the catalyst, the engine room, the sparking plug who would entertain, excite and then electrify the English fans. In the 1986 World Cup held in Mexico Barnes, accompanied bravely by Peter Reid, Trevor Stephen, Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley, came on as a substitute against Argentina when it may have been too late. Barnes cross to the far post was converted but Argentina, who had led through a criminally illegal goal from Diego Maradona and a brilliant second, won the game narrowly.

So it was that in more recent times that Ashley Cole would become one of the most consistently safe and dependable of England full backs. Capped 100 times Cole, who began his career with Arsenal, was rightly or wrongly accused of becoming greedy, obsessed with the tag of being one of the wealthiest players in the Premier League, a player only concerned with feathering his own nest and disregarding the rest.

After winning three Premier League titles with Chelsea and a Champions League medal or two as well as the FA Cup, Cole would be forgiven for feeling very smug and vindicated. Cole now lives in America and the citizens in Los Angeles who supported him as an LA Galaxy can only be grateful that a heavily capped England player was in their ranks.

For those who were brought up in the era when black footballers gave so much enthusiasm and energy to the game, Channel Four's Out of Their Skin underlined again the sterling contributions they have made to English football. Talking of which the end of the programme was devoted to one Raheem Sterling, a delightful touch player if perhaps given to clumsy blunders and clod hopping aberrations.

 When Sterling was also hounded out by the boo boys the gun tattoo on his ankle was rightly misinterpreted. But the Liverpool player was just one of the many impressive players to have shone so brightly in this year's World Cup in Russia. They say black is beautiful and how true that statement is.