Three West Bromwich Albion footballers credited with inspiring a generation of black professional players in the UK are to be honoured with a statue. Laurie Cunningham, Brendon Batson and Cyrille Regis played for the club in the late 1970s and were dubbed the Three Degrees 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. They endured racist abuse from fans when starring for West Brom during the 1978-79 season, in which the club finished third and beat Manchester United 5-3 at Old Trafford. Their success has been hailed as helping other aspiring young black players become professionals in the 1980s. These role models would have been proud of last nights performance of West Brom who fielded 10 black outfield players and played great to watch brand of exciting football, although loosing 1-0 away at Leeds, and made me a bit proud of this country tbh that we have come so far in such a short space of time.
They were an awful lot more of them 30 years ago, thankfully attitudes are changing, slowly but surely.
It's absolutely amazing looking back just what we all accepted as 'typical' behaviour. We might have thought racism was wrong, but it was almost like racism was an opinion to be aired at will. What passed for normal on the terraces and TV then would be called out within minutes today.
True, when I was in my teens the majority of my own family held and espoused racial prejudice, and they would not recognise Sunderland to-day if they were still around. The world has changed irrevocably, and its a much better place for it imo. a bit like 606 if you think about it.
Rubbish . Sunderland fans are not a racist /hooligan bunch even when it was the done thing .Back in the 80's when it was tolerated to a certain degree I can't reminder any racist **** from us but a bit from other supporters .On a similiar subject I remember clubs inc the mags and boro having the perimeter fencing up but not us . Generally we are a sensible group and always have been since I followed safc as a kid .
Jemaine defoe, Darren bent, Benno, Maja , Sammy davis junior, Richard prior, all heroes for me and would have a night out with them anytime.
Despite what some people think, there really isn’t a racism issue in this country. Sure, there are pockets of places full of idiots but on the whole, we’ve massively moved forward!
