John Nicholson

When players are racially abused these days we're all terribly shocked.

But in the late 70's proper hardcore racism was an everyday part of society. The National Front was on the rise and racial abuse at football was commonplace.

Even to kids like me who had been raised by casually racist parents in an all-white environment which distrusted foreigners wherever they came from, it had all started to seem just plain wrong. A drunken Eric Clapton was spouting racist garbage on stage in Birmingham and even David Bowie was doing Nazi salutes. It was not uncommon to see the NF outside of football grounds, recruiting members and stirring up trouble.

So as teenagers we got behind the whole Rock Against Racism and Anti-Nazi League movement in 1977. This largely just involved wearing badges and reading the NME, though I do recall seeing Penetration - a great punk band - at some kind of RAR sponsored gig. But more importantly it raised our awareness of the Nazi threat amongst us. And this was especially evident at the football.

Race was such a big issue in the late 70s when WBA - ironically managed by Ron Atkinson - fielded three superb black players, Brendon Batson, Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham, it was big news.

This would seem utterly unexceptional today in our multi-racial football world but at the time it was seen as very exotic. At the time commentators would refer to them as 'The Three Degrees' - a name assigned to them by Big Ron. Well, hey there were three and they were black, so that's alright. They weren't women though and as far as I know, Prince Charles didn't fancy one of them.

At the time it seemed you couldn't just be a good footballer if you were black, you had to be a 'black pearl', 'black diamond', 'black flash.' Remarkable as it may now seem, the notion that black players wouldn't like playing in the winter or that they were lazy was still commonplace.

As good as Batson and Regis were, it was Laurie who was the star of that WBA side. He was to make history as the first black player to represent England at international level. As such he was enormously significant but better still, Cunningham was a superb footballer.

He'd started his career in 1974 at an Orient side then in Division Two, a short but super-quick left winger. A couple of years later, he was attracting interest from the top flight, moving to West Brom for £110,000 early in 1977.

He had pace to burn and had developed an all-round skilful game, creating as many goals as he scored himself. He fitted into the side perfectly and helped the club to seventh, scoring six in 13 in that 1976/77 season.

By all accounts he was a shy man and found the attention he received at a high-profile, successful club difficult to deal with. But when Regis emerged from non-league football the following season and Batson arrived from Cambridge, race was such an issue at the time that the Three Degrees tag was probably inevitable; their cultural significance was such that they were a focus of attention.

But Cunningham was a different kind of player to the more aggressive battering ram Regis and the tough-tackling Batson. He wasn't just fast, he had great balance, which made him hard to knock off the ball - thanks to ballet lessons. Can't imagine Joe Cole doing that can you?

Still just 21, he was exactly the kind of player England needed at the time - fast, creative and full of flair. He was also exactly the sort of player that rarely got a game for England at the time. Such players were seen by Don Revie and then Ron Greenwood as an indulgence we could not afford.

However, by April 1977, Cunningham had made such an impact at The Baggies that he was a shoo-in for the England Under-21 friendly against Scotland. He was the first black player to represent his country at any level. To younger readers this may not seem such a big deal, but at the time it really was because a black man playing for England symbolised everything the National Front and their supporters stood against.

The so-called Three Degrees were an important marker in British football and society more broadly, effectively acting as role models for the generations that followed.

This was all thrust upon Laurie but he appeared to wear the burden lightly, at least on the pitch. He scored on his international debut and the following season, he helped Albion to a sixth-place finish. The 1978-79 season was to be the peak of his career in England as a now-excellent side progressed to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup and finished third in the league.

Cunningham was on top form in the European games, the 2-0 defeat of Valencia at The Hawthorns going down in Baggies' history as a momentous occasion, as was the 5-3 defeat of United at Old Trafford.

That May his first of six full caps came against Wales in the home internationals.

However, his exposure on the European stage had not gone unnoticed in Spain and in the summer of '79 he was transferred to Real Madrid for five grand short of a million quid.

This was an extraordinary move.

At the time very few players left England to play overseas, let alone a club as big as Real Madrid. Laurie was the first Englishman to play in Spain.

A prototype Galactico, he scored on his debut and was a big hit with Real fans who affectionately dubbed him 'Black Flash'. In his first season he scored eight in 29 and they reached the European Cup semi-final, losing out to Hamburg despite a Cunningham goal. However, they won the League and Cup Double. Cunningham was a star.

But Ron Greenwood still left him out of the 1980 Euros squad. Even after 14 years, Ramsey's victorious wingless wonders seemed to cast a shadow on every England manager. Attacking wingers were out of vogue. His exclusion was a disgrace and illustrated much of the narrow, dour thinking that has dominated English international football since 1966.

After all, here was a player with top-flight European experience playing at the peak of his game. Ironically, the only victory England achieved was over Spain. Their failure to beat Belgium and a loss (as usual) to Italy led to their failure at the group stages. England's failure to breakdown stubborn defences had been their downfall, and as, many at the time pointed out, that was exactly why Cunningham should have played.

But things were sadly to go downhill from this great start for Laurie. Injuries restricted his appearances in 1980-81 to just 12, though he still knocked in five and played in the European Cup final, losing to Liverpool. Further injuries put him out of action for all but three games in two years.

All the momentum in his career was lost just at the time when he should have been enjoying his peak mid-twenties years. Tragic.

Madrid sent him on loan to Manchester United, now managed by Big Ron. He made five appearances and scored once but against all expectations decided to move clubs in Spain and signed for Sporting Gijon for a season and then Marseille. Now injury-free he played well for both clubs but he couldn't seem to settle.

He returned to England in 1985-86 to play 15 games for Leicester, before relocating to Spain again for a season at Rayo Vallecano. But his star had waned. He pitched up for six games at Wimbledon in 87-88 and as a substitute in the 1988 Cup Final win over Liverpool he got a winner's medal, his only domestic silverware.

Injury cursed his next season at Belgian club Charleroi before he returned to Rayo Vallecano for a successful 19-game spell in 88-89, helping them get promotion to La Liga.

His career was coming to an end but on 15th July 1989 utterly shockingly, his life was to come to an end in a terrible car crash in Madrid. It seemed scarcely believable that such a dynamic talent had been snuffed out just like that.

We had lost one of England's most gifted and exciting footballers at just 33.

His impact culturally is not without huge significance but it is for his marvellous free-flowing talent that fans in the West Midlands remember him most.

He also deserves greater recognition outside of West Bromich because for three years he was probably England's best offensive player, the fact that this was not properly recognised by his country is indicative of a certain mind-set in English football that has cursed the game for decades.

A player ahead of his time who would have been at home in today's Premier League; Long live Laurie.