IT TOOK 105 years and 364 days from England’s first ever match, but today in 1978 Viv Anderson became the first black player to represent the Three Lions when he turned out for England in a 1-0 friendly win against Czechoslovakia.

In an age when Sky Sports try their hardest to deny the fact that football existed before the establishment of the Premier League in 1992 it is often easy to forget what kind of state the English game was in during the late 1970s.

Violence, hooliganism and racism was all too abundant across English football, so the selection of the classy Nottingham Forest centre-back was a momentous event.

Anderson went on make 30 appearances for his country, making the 1982 and 1986 World Cup squads supplementing the shedloads of medals he won under Brian Clough’s stewardship at Nottingham Forest, where he was a crucial part of the side that won back-to-back European Cups.

His England career stalled after the ‘82 World Cup in Spain, and it wasn’t until a £250,000 move to Arsenal in 1984 that he was back in the side. At Highbury he would win the 1987 League Cup and would become Alex Ferguson’s first signing as Manchester United boss later that year.

Anderson left Old Trafford before the trophies started rolling in for Sir Alex, moving to Sheffield Wednesday. After two seasons he was upping sticks again, this time taking up a roll as player-manager at Barnsley, but quit after a year to join his old mucka Bryan Robson at Middlesbrough, becoming his assistant manager.

He stayed with Robson at Boro until the pair left in 2001 following Terry Venables’ troubleshooting intervention that undermined Robson’s tenure and hasn’t been seen in the game since.

In the Millennium Honours List Anderson was awarded an MBE by Her Maj, an honour that he describes as the greatest of his life. His achievement of being England’s first black player also saw him introduced into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2004 and he now also acts as a goodwill ambassador for the FA.

He also runs a slightly bizarre website, that looks more like a CV (Sample quote - “…with almost ten years experience in management I am eager to move on to my next challenge”), but we won’t hold that against him.

There isn’t much footage of Anderson’s England bow on the internet for you, so we’ll throw a clip of the classic 1982 England World Cup song in which he featured. See which European big-wig was being founded today here and come back tomorrow for some more footballing history.

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