Viv Anderson was 22 when he became the first Black footballer to play for England. It was 29 November 1978. The opponent was Czechoslovakia. The game was at Wembley. England won 1-0. The result was forgotten within a week. The name was not.
He was born in Clifton, Nottingham, on 29 July 1956. His parents were from Jamaica. His father Audley arrived in England on the SS Auriga at Plymouth on 12 October 1954. His mother Myrtle arrived on the same ship on 24 March 1955. She was a qualified teacher in Jamaica but in England she worked as a dinner lady. Later she trained to be a nurse. She worked for the NHS.
Anderson spent a year as a schoolboy at Manchester United. They released him. He went back to Nottingham, passed three CSEs, and worked for three weeks as a silkscreen printer. He called it “a glorified tea boy really.”
He joined Nottingham Forest as an apprentice. At 18, on 21 September 1974, he made his first team debut against Sheffield Wednesday. Brian Clough arrived as manager a few months later, and Anderson became his right back.
What followed was one of the great runs in English club football. Forest won promotion to the First Division in 1977. The next season, 1977-78, they won the league title. They won the League Cup the same year. Then came the European Cup. Forest beat Malmö 1-0 in Munich in 1979. They beat Hamburg 1-0 in Madrid in 1980. Anderson played both finals. He was the first Black player to win the European Cup. The first Black player to play in a European Cup final. Two different records. Same man.
He moved to Arsenal in 1984 for £250,000. He won the League Cup in 1987, scoring in the semi final against Tottenham. He then became Alex Ferguson’s first signing at Manchester United in July 1987. Ferguson had taken over in November 1986. The tribunal set the fee at £250,000. Anderson played three and a half seasons at Old Trafford, making 54 league appearances and scoring 3 goals.
He finished his playing career at Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley (as player-manager), and Middlesbrough (where he played two games during an injury crisis). He then became Bryan Robson’s assistant at Middlesbrough, staying until 2001.
His international career spanned a decade. 30 caps. 2 goals. His first goal came in an 8-0 win against Turkey in 1984. His second came against Yugoslavia in a Euro 88 qualifier. He was selected for four major tournaments: Euro 1980, the 1982 World Cup, the 1986 World Cup, and Euro 1988. He did not play a single minute in any of them.
The MBE came in the 2000 New Year Honours. He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2004. He has worked as an FA goodwill ambassador and as a pundit on Manchester United’s official television channel.
Viv Anderson did not ask to be the first. He just played his position, held the line, and let the record stand. It has stood for nearly 50 years. It is not going anywhere.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Viv Anderson”
Football’s Black Pioneers, “Player Profile — Viv Anderson”
National Football Museum, “Viv Anderson: England’s First Black Player”
England Football, “Viv Anderson ‘proud and privileged’ to be England first Black player” (October 2024)
BBC Sport, “Viv Anderson: ‘To be the first at anything is an unbelievable honour'”
The Guardian, “Viv Anderson: the phenomenal Black footballer who changed England” (July 2023)
CNN, “‘It was a massive thing’ to be England’s first Black football player” (October 2024)
Transfermarkt, Viv Anderson profile
Sporting-Heroes, Viv Anderson records
