The Lion Who Never Roared by Matt Tiller:
For those who don’t know, Jack Leslie was the first black player to play for England. The star of a barnstorming 1925 Plymouth Argyle team, the call up rescinded when the selectors discovered his skin colour.
The author was one of the campaigners which has led to a statue of Jack outside Home Park (plus, him becoming the first England player to get a posthumous cap). It’s a lucid portrait of a man, playing in a 2-3-5(!), a character who loved his wife (who was in, turn racially abused for marrying a black man).
It’s also good on the bizarre nature of 1920’s football, with Argyle playing Exeter City on BOTH Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, with Jack’s career ending with a scratched cornea from the lace of a football.
It’s also good on the casual nature of racism then (in newspaper reports) and it’s more virulent nature now. Ultimately, this is a portrait of a hero who ended up being the bootman for West Ham. To quote Harry Redknapp, ‘turns out we should have been cleaning his boots’.
