Viv Anderson: the phenomenal Black footballer who changed England for ever

In 1978, Anderson made history and faced adversity as the first Black footballer to play for England. It was just one triumph in a career packed full of them

The last time Viv Anderson played in a football match, he accidentally broke a man’s nose. “I said, ‘That’s me finished,’” he says. “I left very quickly after that.” After this amateur match, five years ago, in which he participated as a favour to a friend, he decided he wouldn’t step on to the field again. In some ways, it was a fitting end to the playing days of one of England’s best full-backs, a man who thinks that today’s football is lacking the rough and tumble of yesteryear. In other ways, it is inconsistent with a player who cites “team bonding” as the thing he misses most about professional football.

Basking in the sun on a hot summer’s day, 66-year-old Anderson is the picture of serenity. He greets me with a firm handshake. He has a habit of ending sentences abruptly, pursing his lips as if swallowing the depth of his feeling, although when he is animated, he bangs both hands on the table to make his point. “My memory for detail is not the best in the business,” he wrote in his 2010 autobiography, First Among Unequals. But today, the memories he shares are profound. “The easiest part is breaking through,” he says at one point. “The hardest part is staying.”

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