When Laurie Cunningham played for England in an under-21s match against Scotland in 1977, he became the first black footballer to represent England professionally. Two years later, he would become the first Englishman to play for Real Madrid. In a time when racist chants flew from the stands, Cunningham's success challenged how black players were perceived, paving the way for future generations.
But Cunningham was more than an exceptional footballer who could play like a dream. He was a dandy with a love of funk music and bespoke suits, as easily graceful on the dance floor as he was on the pitch.
Different Class is a portrait of an important but unsung figure who brought glamour to the game at a particularly dark point in its history. Many know Laurie Cunningham’s name but not his story; now they will know both.
When Laurie Cunningham played for England in an under-21s match against Scotland in 1977, he became the first black footballer to represent England professionally. Two years later, he would become the first Englishman to play for Real Madrid. In a time when racist chants flew from the stands, Cunningham's success challenged how black players were perceived, paving the way for future generations.
But Cunningham was more than an exceptional footballer who could play like a dream. He was a dandy with a love of funk music and bespoke suits, as easily graceful on the dance floor as he was on the pitch.
Different Class is a portrait of an important but unsung figure who brought glamour to the game at a particularly dark point in its history. Many know Laurie Cunningham’s name but not his story; now they will know both.
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Overview
When Laurie Cunningham played for England in an under-21s match against Scotland in 1977, he became the first black footballer to represent England professionally. Two years later, he would become the first Englishman to play for Real Madrid. In a time when racist chants flew from the stands, Cunningham's success challenged how black players were perceived, paving the way for future generations.
But Cunningham was more than an exceptional footballer who could play like a dream. He was a dandy with a love of funk music and bespoke suits, as easily graceful on the dance floor as he was on the pitch.
Different Class is a portrait of an important but unsung figure who brought glamour to the game at a particularly dark point in its history. Many know Laurie Cunningham’s name but not his story; now they will know both.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783523788 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Unbound |
| Publication date: | 07/13/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 7 MB |
About the Author
Dermot Kavanagh is the Sports Picture Editor of the Sunday Times. Over the past twenty-five years he has worked for various newspapers, magazines and picture agencies. He has published articles in the Sunday Times, the football magazine When Saturday Comes and Howler. He is also a contributor to the literary website London Fictions. He lives in London with his wife and three sons. Different Class is his first book.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
'NOTHING SEEMED TO FAZE HIM'
The popular myth that modern multicultural Britain was born with the arrival of the transport ship HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury in Essex in June 1948 is a potent one. Memorable footage caught by dockside film cameramen – with some reporters perched on car rooftops waiting for the historic moment of landing – did not, however, record a pioneering event. Caribbean immigrants had lived in Britain for many years and served in both World Wars. In the First World War, 16,000 had volunteered to fight as part of the British West Indies Regiment – the first contingent of all black soldiers in the British Army – which was established in 1915. In the Second World War 10,000 West Indians volunteered for the services and thousands more served in the Merchant Navy or worked in the factories of the industrial north. Officially Windrush carried 492 passengers (plus eight stowaways), the majority of whom were exservice-men or semi-skilled workers able to afford the £28 10s fare. Their average age was twenty-four. Newspaper advertisements placed around the Caribbean invited them to come to Britain and work for London Transport, British Rail and the health service, amongst others – to help the mother country after six years of war. A photo caption from Planet News, one of the main news agencies of the day, reads: 'They sailed for Britain when they could not find work in their homeland. Fifty-two of them will volunteer for the Services, over two hundred have friends who can give them prospects of employment, and most of the remainder are to seek work in Britain after interviews with the Ministry of Labour. Among the party were a number of boxers, with their manager.' The last sentence is interesting. Jamaica, with the largest population of all the colonial islands in the Caribbean, supplied the greatest number of migrants to Britain. Many West Indians from smaller islands went on to settle in innercity areas where Jamaicans had established themselves first, not because they particularly liked them, but because their presence provided a sense of security. Jamaicans had a nononsense reputation within the wider community and such truculence was seen as one of their best, or worst, qualities, depending on your point of view. The most forthright had the confidence to walk into a place as if they owned it, and that was one reason why many Jamaican men found employment as doormen and bouncers at West End nightclubs in the years immediately after the War.
After the dispersal of those who had arrived on the Windrush, there was no immediate rush of migrants in their wake. In the five years following barely a thousand crossed the Atlantic to Britain. The bulk of Caribbean migration took place in the following decade, during the late 1950s and early 1960s. During this time a quarter of a million arrived in Britain within a period of seven years, primarily as a result of two events: one in the USA and the other in Great Britain. In 1952 the US Congress passed laws that restricted immigrant numbers. Up to that point America had operated a broadly open-door policy towards migrants from the Caribbean, and Florida with its abundant fruit farms proved a cheap and popular destination for many. In Britain, the Notting Hill race riots of 1958 started a national debate about immigration and its effects on society which prompted calls for tighter border controls. When word got back to the islands that curbs were to be introduced by the British government, this stiffened the resolve and large numbers applied before the shutters were finally brought down with the passing of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1962, limiting entry into Britain.
Mavis Iona Trout and Elias Cunningham met when they were teenagers in the early 1950s. She was one of four daughters of Stanford Laurence Trout, a public works foreman from St Mary's Parish north of Kingston in Jamaica. Cunningham came from Caymanas Park, the horse-racing district of the island, and was training to be a jockey. He weighed just over seven stone when the couple first met. Together they made an attractive match: he dapper and athletic, she pretty and ebullient with a beaming smile. By the age of seventeen, Mavis was pregnant and gave birth to a son, named Keith. With poor prospects in Jamaica the couple decided to book Mavis a passage to London where she had an aunt living in Islington, north London, who could help her to find work. Leaving Keith with her sisters, and with Elias determined to make a go of it as a jockey, Mavis sailed on a ship bound for Italy in 1955, accompanied by one extra undeclared passenger – she was pregnant again with the due date in the spring of the following year. Upon reaching Italy she crossed Europe by train and arrived in Southampton knowing little of what to expect of life in England.
The baby arrived on 8 March 1956 at Whittington Hospital in Archway, and was named Laurence Paul Cunningham. Mavis was living in a shared house at 3 Brookside Place, an unprepossessing cut-through that joins Holloway Road and Junction Road – just a stone's throw from the stark Victorian hospital buildings. The Jamaican community had not yet established itself to any great degree in this part of London but with female relatives nearby – in both Holloway and on Caledonian Road – Mavis could count on support. After the winners had dried up at Caymanas Park, Elias brought Keith over with him in 1958 and the family were fully reunited when the couple finally married. By the next decade the surrounding areas to the north, especially Finsbury Park and Tottenham, had become the heart of the black community in north London (there were also sizable Irish and Greek communities), and in all the years that the Cunningham family lived in London, including several changes of address, they never moved far – choosing to remain in the close- knit, working-class north London streets. For whatever reason Laurence's birth was not registered until February 1961, nearly five years after the event, perhaps because the infant Cunningham was due to start primary school and it simply had not been attended to earlier by his parents. The birth certificate is signed by Elias in a spidery, loping hand with the home address given as 30 Queen's Drive, Finsbury Park, indicating the family had moved on from the shared accommodation in Archway. Both parents were employed in manual labour. Elias's occupation is given as paint sprayer and engraver and he worked for a company based in Amwell Street, Islington. Mavis first found work at the Bristol Laundry on Holloway Road then moved on to a job at the Eagle Pencil factory in Tottenham – at the time the largest of its kind in Europe – as a packer on the production line.
By 1962 the Cunninghams had bought their first house at 6 Trinder Road off Crouch Hill in Hornsey. Leaving the pencil factory, Mavis found work at a local garment manufacturer, Classic Fabrication, where she stayed for ten years, eventually becoming a supervisor. Unusually for a black woman she owned and drove a car, indicating an aspirational and independent side to her personality. Of the two parents Elias appears the more introverted and reserved. Eustus Isiae, a school friend of eldest son Keith, who was also born in in 1954, recalls visiting the home regularly and describes the atmosphere there: 'He was just a quiet man, you'd go round the house and he was sitting there listening to his music, the old woman might be watching telly in another room, he was just a hard-working man, so most of his life was based around going to work.' The domestic setting was typically Jamaican, with a front room that was hardly used from day to day but kept instead for 'best', and was out of bounds for children. Isiae continues: 'Although it was called a living room we hardly ever went in there. We would go straight through the house and we would go to the bit next to the kitchen. The living room was a special room; at Christmas time you can go in there but most of the time you are not allowed – in there it's always immaculate.' The décor was typically Jamaican too with walls covered in a variety of contrasting wallpaper, patterned carpet, and numerous family photographs. A large reproduction painting of gondolas in Venice bought by Elias took pride of place in the living room, above vases of flowers and a collection of ornaments and decorative plates that were supplemented in later years with Laurie's trophies and medals.
Cunningham had a similar character to his father. Softly spoken and introverted as a young boy, he was a natural when it came to any sporting activity. At Pooles Park Primary School he excelled at running – both sprinting and longer distance – and was singled out as an exceptional hurdler by his games teacher. His natural fitness and native ability gave him a self-belief that he wore lightly. Mavis recalls his easy-going way and lack of arrogance when it came to his athletic talent, which he never exploited in the playground: 'He wasn't the kind of person that really go around showing up these things,' she reflects. A sensitive and imaginative boy, he possessed artistic skill which he expressed in differing ways. Mavis recalls with pride a painting he brought home one day from primary school: 'Drawing was something that he loved. I remember he'd drawn an old man and his teacher asked him, "Who is it?" and he said, "I don't know, I just draw this old man." It was really good, I've still got it hung up in my house.' Years later in a cover article for the Sunday Times Magazine in 1976, the doyen of football writers, Brian Glanville – a man not easily impressed – commented on the picture on display in the family home, 'On the Cunninghams' wall there hangs a strikingly well-observed portrait of an old man, painted by Laurie.'
He liked music too and had an affinity with the piano, which he taught himself to play at an early age. As in most Jamaican households music was an integral part of daily life and an essential element at social gatherings such as wedding parties, christenings and birthdays. And where there was music, there was dancing. Given his propensities it is not hard to imagine the young Cunningham, with his casual grace, thriving in such a creative domestic environment. Mavis recalls: 'He loved dancing, he loved music. I bought him two pianos you know. I bought him one that was electrical when he was younger, then when he was older, I bought him a very big one, a stand-up one.' Returning to the theme of his love of all things sporty she adds, 'He was really good at swimming. I didn't really know he was so good at football until his teacher wrote to me and asked me to come and see. He kept telling me how good he was at football and swimming, if it wasn't football, I think it would be swimming.' It is interesting to note this relaxed versatility was apparent at such an early age, and it continued to be a character trait throughout his later life. Even as a young boy he found great pleasure in a variety of pursuits, all of which he mastered quite naturally without the need for much instruction from the adults around him.
The Cunningham brothers although close throughout their lives went in different directions early on. Keith the eldest by two years naturally looked out for his younger brother but the boys had very different temperaments. They attended Sunday school at St Mary's Church on Hornsey Rise together, and joined the Boys' Brigade where they took part in gymnastics and played in the marching band. Keith was quick to anger with a rebellious streak that got him expelled from primary school and led him into trouble with the police as a teenager that culminated in a prison sentence – but he says his brother never judged him even when he become famous. He recalls: 'He never ever said one bad word about me. We never had a rivalry, we rarely argued, it wasn't like that. As little boys we used to share the bed and he'd wet it and I woke up soaking wet, so I used to get annoyed by that. He never hung his clothes up properly. I was tidy, he was messy ... He matured mentally, football just came to him out of the blue really, he just melted into it all of a sudden. We both went to training but I didn't stick to it, I was doing my own thing by then. He loved what he was doing but he didn't big it up.'
Living in an area that was often harsh for black teenagers, Keith sums up the filial differences between the two boys when he states, 'He studied and played his football ... I went a different way.' He recalls one formative experience when the family were living in Trinder Road. The brothers were playing in the playground of a white council estate that was considered a no-go area for black children, and as soon as they were spotted by a group of local boys they were chased back home through the streets. Arriving breathless and agitated at the front door their father asked what was up and when Keith explained he insisted that Keith go back outside and fight the ringleader.
Finsbury Park had few recreational spaces compared to other, leafier London boroughs. The best places for informal football kick-abouts were Finsbury Park itself or Highgate Wood. The effects of bomb damage from the war were still visible on the streets and large craters dotted the area which offered an irresistible and impromptu playground for the curious and adventurous.
In September 1967, Cunningham left primary school and started at Highgate Wood Secondary School in Hornsey. On his first day, uncharacteristically, he got into an argument with a boy called Robert Johnson. Johnson a big, physically strong boy, who had spent his first eight years in Jamaica, commanded respect by his appearance alone. A grandfather now and speaking in his comfortable, suburban, front room in Woodford Green in north-east London, he cuts a genial figure with a smiling voice that is never too far away from a spontaneous and infectious laugh. He recalls with a still discernible Jamaican lilt: 'Laurie never fight, but he fought me on our first day. It was all about defending somebody else that I tripped over and he thought that I was wrong. I shouldn't really have done it because I was bigger. But we were best friends after five minutes.'
Johnson became the first of a series of friends in Cunningham's life who looked out for him on the football pitch. Where Cunningham was quick, balanced and skilful, Johnson was strong, fearless and resolute. Both were natural sportsmen and seemed to spark off each other with an instinctive understanding of each other's ability.
'For the first year at school I didn't play football because my mum didn't like me playing it, so for the first year I played rugby and that's where me and Laurence got together. We were very quick, we were very tricky. Nobody could catch us. Then we started to play other sports as well, cricket, basketball, we were all-rounders basically. Laurie was a better all-rounder than I was, but still we had a great friendship and we played well together in everything. He'd look for me, I'd look for him. Playing football we didn't need to look to see where each other was, we just hit the ball and knew we were going to be there. I could hit long balls to him and he could hit long balls back to me. I just knew where he was going next, it was like ball over the top, Laurie's on to it, goal.'
Apart from his talent as a sportsman Cunningham stood out in other ways too. Despite the fact he had to wear school uniform he managed to style it to his own taste. For example, the school jumper was navy blue, a colour he disliked and refused to wear throughout his life. Instead he chose to wear a black jumper which matched the black uniform trousers and highly polished shoes he favoured. If the desired effect was to get himself noticed it worked. Teenagers tend to pick up on the smallest stylistic transgression and the merest detail can have quite an impact. Johnson expands: 'Laurie always had this fashion thing even at school because he used to tie his tie differently. He was one of the first that came in with a short tie, that was his unique style, all of us used to try and blend in and tie it properly ... Laurie just had a way about him when he dressed, even with the school uniform he made it look good. Although he was in uniform he was just different. On the first day going back to school, you all want to make an impression, you'd dress up the morning you were going back into school, but when you got in the playground you'd look at one person and go "Oh God! Look at Laurie." His shoes weren't school shoes, they were patent or brogues. Anything in fashion, you name it, Laurence would have it before anyone, everybody, regardless. He always looked smart, but I had a feeling sometimes going to school that his mum did all that for him. He looked good but it wasn't him that did it, his mum sent him out like that.'
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Different Class"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Dermot Kavanagh.
Excerpted by permission of Unbound.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword: Then Laurie Cunningham Came Along by Ian Wright, xiii,
Prologue, 1,
1 'Nothing seemed to faze him', 7,
2 Blues & Soul, 35,
3 Land of the Rising Son, 63,
4 Young Hearts Run Free, 85,
5 Radical to the Third Degree, 111,
6 El Negrito, 149,
7 'Bad Luck ... Like Witchcraft', 175,
8 Never Grow Old, 195,
Afterword, 219,
Acknowledgements, 221,
Supporters, 225,