Viv Anderson - Cloughie taught me to stand up to racists

VIV Anderson has revealed how his former manager Brian Clough told him to deal with racists when he was being pelted with bananas and apples by opposition fans.

In new ITV4 documentary series Out Of Their Skin, which starts tonight and marks 40 years since Viv’s call-up to the England team as the first black player to win a cap, he tells presenter Ian Wright how then-Nottingham Forest boss ‘Cloughie’ taught him to deal with abuse.

Speaking to the Arsenal legend at Wembley, Viv says:

"I remember going to Carlisle, something happened and I'm sat down within five minutes. And he said, ‘I thought I told you to warm up.’ I said, ‘Well they’re throwing apples and pears and bananas at me.’ He said, ‘Go back out there and get me two pears and a banana.’"

"Right, so this is a true story and then in the dressing room he pulls me and says, ‘I did that for a reason, you know - because if you let them dictate to you, you aren’t going to make a good career and I think you can play. Don't let them influence you in any way.’"

Ian says: "That's brilliant, Cloughie. I love him even more now."

The new two-part series features contributions from Ashley Cole, Les Ferdinand and Paul Ince, charting the rise of black footballers in Britain through individual players’ stories, combining fresh interviews with rare archive footage to provide a unique insight into how English sporting heritage and social culture has changed.

Ian Wright says: "Growing up at the end of the 1970s, I was football-mad. It was all I wanted to do but if you said come and watch England at Wembley, as a black teenager I would have said no chance."

Starting in the 1970s when Anderson and his contemporaries burst on to the scene, Out of Their Skin tells in depth the story of the progress made by ethnic minority footballers across five decades up to today with a look at the challenges still being faced in 2018.

It focuses on some of English football’s black heroes and pioneers – with vivid and often emotional recollections of their personal experiences from Chelsea’s first black player Paul Canoville, who was abused by his own fans, as well as John Barnes and Paul Ince, who have both said being black can hinder a manager's ability to get a job - and the way their stories changed the ‘beautiful game’ in this country for good.

Also featured are contemporary players Rhian Brewster and Raheem Sterling, who reflect on the impact their heroes had on the game, and the challenge football still faces to overcome racism today.

In the first episode, Viv Anderson describes being called up to the England squad and the reaction to him being the first black footballer to play for the Three Lions. He says: "Back in the day we got the news last... [Nottingham Forest boss] Cloughy pulls me and says you've been chosen for the up and coming game: Czechoslovakia. At home. At Wembley.”

Journalist Darren Lewis recalls the profound impact Viv's landmark call up had in the context of a sport and a society that was markedly different to the modern era.

He says: "There were very few black players at that point. The abuse they were getting was as extreme as you would imagine. N*****, c***, d*****, w**. Obviously, people recoil at the very mention of those words now, but they tripped off your tongue."

Viv’s call-up was a signifier of the change taking place in English football. At West Brom, three talented black footballers emerged in the late 1970s - striker Cyrille Regis, winger Laurie Cunningham and defender Brendon Batson - dubbed ‘The Three Degrees’ by their boss Ron Atkinson. While their performances - and those of emerging Crystal Palace midfielder Vince Hilaire among others - inspired black youngsters, they faced mass racist abuse from fans on the terraces.

Brendan Batson says: “What do you do when you can't make out faces as such, but you can hear this wall of noise coming towards you? That crowd baiting black players, bananas being thrown at you."

Cyrille Regis, West Brom’s free-scoring striker, received a bullet in the post when he was called up by England.

His daughter Julia says: “I do remember him saying that for the one person that sent that bullet there were hundreds of others that were supportive and were excited about him going out onto that pitch. That’s how he rationalised it.”

Paul Canoville, the first black player to turn out for Chelsea, says he was even racially abused by his own fans as he prepared to make his debut as a substitute at Selhurst Park.

He says: “I was like. ‘What? They don't want a black or a n***** to be playing for their club’. It was like, ‘Wow, you've not even seen me.’ All that joy in me, that excitement in me was taken away just like that.’"

Yet things began to change, says Ian Wright, after a picture was taken of Liverpool and England winger John Barnes flicking a banana out of play artfully with his foot after it was thrown at him during a match in 1988. Ian tells the programme how the picture and other developments led to fans putting pressure on clubs to deal with racists.

He says: "I do not believe that anybody could have come up with what John Barnes did there. Defiance with beauty and dignity. And that photo went worldwide. And it changed things."

In the second episode, Ian Wright recalls his treatment at the start of his professional career: "When I first signed for Palace, I got abuse in the changing room. It was just an accepted thing to do that.”

He goes on to examine how football changed as it moved into the 1990s and beyond, describing how attitudes begun to change in the years that followed his Palace debut.

Paul Ince explains how it felt when he became the first black captain of the England team in 1993. "You do have dreams don't you? About playing in FA Cup finals, playing for your country. You know, and they're the same dreams that we both had. But I never dreamed for one minute that I'd ever captain my country."

Arsenal and Chelsea legend Ashley Cole, who was part of England’s so-called ‘Golden Generation’ which followed the era of Ince, Wright and Ferdinand, talks about how he became the only black footballer to achieve 100 caps for England. While he says he faced taunts at school, he says, that didn’t stop him becoming one of the country’s best left backs.

He says: "I used to get it in school. The ‘N’ word. Your instinct is to fight someone if they called you that. The older you get of course you understand that sometimes it's not the kid’s fault.”

Yet while nowadays black players are fixtures at clubs around the country, Les Ferdinand, who became England’s first black director of football at QPR after a successful career as a striker, says a lack of management opportunities for black former players is something the game still needs to deal with. He says: “You look at all the levels through the England set-up at the moment. You look at the players on the pitch, 40 to 50 percent ethnic minority. But you look to the benches - what does that tell you? All I'm asking is how? Why?"

Brendon Batson, who became deputy chief executive of the PFA and a prominent campaigner for the anti-racism initiative Kick It Out, reflects on how things have changed.

He says: "We're just footballers. I've never heard anyone refer to Pele as a black footballer. He was just Pele. We know we've arrived at a good place when we can stop referring to us as black players."