Viv Anderson

Audley came to England in 1954, while Myrtle arrived in 1955.

Despite the racial tensions at the time, Anderson has said his childhood was relatively untroubled by discrimination and his parents must take a lot of credit for protecting him from the worst excesses of the environment they lived in.

He spent a year as a schoolboy with Manchester United before being released.

He returned to Nottingham where at school he sat and passed three CSEs.

He then worked for three weeks as a silkscreen printer that he described as "a glorified tea boy really. I'd get the tea, and get the sandwiches at lunch time. I was just a dogsbody."

Vivian Alexander Anderson (born 29 July 1956) is an English former professional footballer and coach.

He became the second non-white footballer to represent the men's senior England team after Paul Reaney who had first appeared for England in 1968.

Coach Ron Greenwood was insistent that no political issue was at stake, despite the ever-rising number of young black stars in the game, born and raised in England.

There was no doubt that Anderson was playing outstandingly in a form team that season and got his call-up entirely on merit.

A gangly, awkward figure, he was a much-admired tackler and was also quick going forward and occasionally scored vital goals.

Anderson had broken into the Nottingham Forest team during 1974 and became a regular after the arrival of Brian Clough as manager of the East Midlands club, then in the Second Division, in January 1975.

He won the 1977–78 Football League title as well as both the 1978–79 European Cup and the 1979–80 European Cup while playing as a defender for Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest.

He also played for Arsenal, Manchester United, Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley and Middlesbrough.

He was part of the side that won promotion to the First Division in 1977, winning the title, along with the League Cup, a year later.

Anderson was one of the first black players to represent top English clubs at the time, and regularly suffered racial abuse from fans of rival teams.

He was regularly pelted with bananas and targeted with racist chants.

In 1978, he became the first black footballer to play for England's senior men's national team and from 1980 to 1988 was selected in the England squad for four major tournaments.

Anderson was born in Clifton, Nottingham.

His parents, Audley and Myrtle were both from Jamaica.

Anderson made his debut for England in November 1978, for a friendly against Czechoslovakia.

Vindication for his selection on merit was further supplied when Anderson was part of the Forest team that retained the League Cup (though he missed the final through injury) and then clinched the European Cup in 1979 with victory over Malmö.

His second cap was in a friendly against Sweden in June 1979.

His third appearance was his first competitive international as England defeated Bulgaria 2–0 at Wembley in a qualifier for the 1980 European Championships.

Anderson continued to impress for Forest during this period, and picked up his second European Cup winners' medal when they retained the trophy with victory over Hamburger SV in Madrid.

Forest did reach a third successive League Cup final that year, but lost to Wolverhampton Wanderers.

England had duly got through to the European Championship finals in Italy and Anderson was named in Greenwood's squad, playing in the final group game against Spain as a replacement for Phil Neal.

England won 2–1 but did not progress further.

With Forest beginning to fall from grace (the ageing side was breaking up and the 1980 European Cup win was to prove to be their last trophy for nine years), Anderson's England career seemed to be stalling.

Anderson later made his World Cup qualifying debut in a qualifier for the 1982 competition in a 4–0 win over Norway.

Essentially the battle was now between Neal and Anderson for the No. 2 shirt, but after qualification for the World Cup, suddenly neither were appropriate for the role.

Injury to Kevin Keegan had meant Greenwood needed to call upon an experienced club captain to lead the team out in Spain, so Ipswich Town's skipper Mick Mills, normally a left-back, was put in the right-back slot (with regular incumbent Kenny Sansom remaining on the left) and both Neal and Anderson missed out.

Neal played against Kuwait in the final group game to rest Mills when qualification had already been assured, but Mills returned for the second phase, from which England were eliminated.

Anderson, meanwhile, never kicked a ball.

After the World Cup and Greenwood's departure, he did not feature at all under new coach Bobby Robson until 1984, with Neal still mainly getting the nod.

England failed to qualify for the 1984 European Championships during this period.

Anderson finally won an 11th cap, in April 1984, almost two years after his tenth.

In the summer of 1984, he aimed to revive his career with a move to Arsenal for £250,000.

This duly helped Anderson revitalise his international standing and he won six consecutive caps from 1984 and into 1985, including four qualifiers for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico; in the first of which he scored his first of his two international goals in an 8–0 mauling of Turkey.

Then Robson gave a debut to the young Everton right-back Gary Stevens who was so impressive that Anderson found himself usurped again.

Robson split his selection policy, but Stevens got slightly more appearances than Anderson as England completed their qualification for Mexico and though both were in the squad for the finals, it was clear that Anderson was again going as reserve.