London (AFP) – West Brom’s Laurie Cunningham blazed a trail for black footballers in England in the late 1970s, facing vicious abuse from the terraces and on the streets.
At a time when racism is firmly back in the spotlight, the England international’s battle against prejudice has been brought vividly to life in a play that tells the story of his life.
Cunningham was part of a trio of black footballers at West Brom labelled “The Three Degrees” by then-manager Ron Atkinson, along with Cyrille Regis and Brendon Batson.
Named after the American female vocal group, they have since been immortalised in a statue in West Bromwich, in the English Midlands.
Cunningham was just 33 years old when he was killed in a car crash in Madrid in 1989 while Regis died from a heart attack in 2018, leaving Batson as the only surviving member.
The stage play, “Getting The Third Degree”, was commissioned by Kick it Out to mark the 25th anniversary of the organisation’s battle against discrimination in football.
Written by Dougie Blaxland, a nom-de-plume of playwright James Graham-Brown,it tells the story of Cunningham’s rise to stardom and explores how he and his two teammates faced racial abuse and physical threats often orchestrated by the extreme right-wing group the National Front.
Cunningham, just the second black player to represent England, played for West Brom from 1977 to 1979 before moving to mighty Real Madrid.
But his high profile did not protect him from prejudice.
Graham-Brown tells the bizarre story of how Cunningham was leaving a nightclub with his white girlfriend Nikki Brown when they were subjected to abuse by a group of men.
“He (Cunningham) flattened two of them before she (Nikki) said ‘Laurie let’s go’. Then one of them had the gall to ask ‘are you Laurie Cunningham?” he told AFP.
“He replied in the affirmative and he said ‘wow, we love you’ and, adding insult to injury, asked if he had any tickets for the West Brom v Valencia game the following week.”
– Bullet in the post –
Powerful striker Regis was also at the receiving end of chilling abuse, getting a bullet in the post after he was selected to play for England.
More than four decades later, racism still casts a shadow over English and European football, with Manchester City star Raheem Sterling among the players to speak out on the issue.
Graham-Brown says despite the current problems blighting the game, racism was “more explicit” in the late 1970s.
from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/2Tixxam
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