Many people believe that Laurie Cunningham is the greatest black footballer this country
has ever produced.
Arsenal great Ian Wright says of him “ Laurie had the skills, but most importantly he had
the swagger.
It was all about freedom and enjoyment and celebrating
what you could do.
Laurie was the first to bring that to professional football and he was like a magnet.
I was absolutely transfixed by everything he did.”
A supremely talented, free roaming winger with devastating pace, Cunningham was also
a self-styled dandy and soul boy who loved dancing in bespoke
suits.
'Different Class' is not just a football book it is also the story
of London in the 1970's when race relations were the most divisive social issue of the
day.
Cunningham was a leading light of a generation of black teenagers
who found an identity in the nightclubs and dance contests of
the London soul scene.
Born in March 1956, the son of Jamaican parents, he grew up in working-class Islington.
At fourteen he was spotted by local club Arsenal.
At this time many managements dismissed black footballers as naive and
temperamental.
A friend of Cunningham recalls the coaching they received at Highbury: “ we don't want
any of that flashy football.
We want 'give and go'” . Two years later Cunningham was released after being told he
was “not the right material”.
His Sunday league coach found him a trial at Leyton Orient and under the wise management
of George Petchey the disorganised teenager was transformed
in to one of the best young players in the country.
His maverick personality was reflected in the
way he dressed.
Team mate Booby Fisher recalls a youth team match
at Southend United in 1973 when the pair disembarked from the team bus “ I came off with a sparkly
jacket, silk trousers and high platform boots and
a big Afro.
You could see the Southend boys going “What's this?
The circus has arrived.”And then Laurie came off with a gangster suit, shirt and tie,two-tone
shoes, fedora hat and a cane, and it was like “Oh, man.
What's happening here?...it was just part of him.”.
In March 1977, he signed for West Bromwich Albion for £110,000 and a month later became
the first black footballer to represent England at any level
when he played for the under -21's against Scotland and scored the
winning goal.
The Guardian newspaper noted that “someone special had come amongst us”, At Albion,
he rose to national prominence as part of the
'Three Degrees' , the trio of black footballers (the other two were
Cyrille Regis and Brendon Batson) who brought glamour and swagger to the First Division
with their swashbuckling style.
Their impact cannot be overstated at a time when racist chants and bananas thrown from
the terraces were seen as part of the game.
In his best display for the club against Valencia in the UEFA Cup in
November 1978, Cunningham was unstoppable as he destroyed one of the best teams in Europe,
who included World Cup winner Mario Kempes in their ranks.
The Daily Mirror gleefully reported that Kempes, supposedly
the world's best, was 'made to look a second-rate selling player by the silky skills of a skinny
black kid from London”
The match sold him to Real Madrid who paid a club record of £950,000 for him in July
1979.He was the first Englishman to sign for the club and only the
second ever black player.
In his first season he won the League and Cup Double and scored twelve goals.
Then, in February 1980 in an el clasico match away to Barcelona he dazzled
the Camp Nou in a two-nil victory and received repeated
ovations from the Catalan crowd as his team-mates mocked the Barcelona defenders from the bench,
shouting out “we'll get you a photograph of him if
you like!
Maybe then you'll see what his face looks like!
Maybe at the end of the game he'll let you get near enough
to shake his hand!”.
But later that season a vicious stamp on his foot broke his big toe.
In May 1981, after months out of action and clearly unfit, he was instructed by club directors
to play in the European Cup Final against Liverpool in Paris.
​ It was Real's biggest game in over a decade,
but he made little impact.
They lost 1-0 and Cunningham, their most expensive player,was made the scapegoat.
A knee injury followed soon after and, after a series of failed
operations, he became ostracised.
He was loaned to Manchester United for a short spell, and after leaving Real
Madrid in 1983, made a cameo appearance for Wimbledon in their unlikely FA Cup victory
in 1988.In his career he played for ten clubs in four countries.
By 1989 he was back in the Spanish capital at Rayo Vallecano,
Madrid's third team, whom he helped gain promotion to La Liga.
On 15 July 1989 he was killed in a car crash at the age of thirty three.
There is a growing awareness about the importance of Laurie Cunningham.
In September 2016 an English Heritage blue plaque was unveiled outside
his childhood home in Finsbury Park.
He is one of only two players to receive such an honour: the other is Bobby
Moore, England's World Cup winning captain from 1966.
He showed through his talent and temperament
that black players were professional and could succeed at the
highest level.