'A special player': John Homer recalls memories of West Brom star Laurie Cunningham

West Brom supporters' club chairman John Homer recalls memories of Laurie Cunningham or a new E&S feature into The Three Degrees.

Transcript

00:00novelty if that's the right word was to see a black player in the albion lineup um

00:07there weren't many black players around there west ham had this yes i'm at this there was a

00:13chap called john charles who played right back and and they had a lad called adi coker as well

00:18and of course clyde best um but lorry came to the albion and wow we we knew we'd got a superstar

00:27he had an outstanding debut at spurs along with tony godden that was his debut as well that day

00:33and i remember there was one point in the second half when he was playing keepy up on the halfway

00:38line which was sensational you know and the spurs players were crowding around him and and they

00:43couldn't get anywhere near him basically so he made an immediate impression and obviously

00:49it's always a good thing to score on your own debut and and that that starts the ball rolling immediately

00:57the game that i do remember early on was a home game against newcastle united and this is the first

01:03time we saw the spectre of of racism as well in in in connection with the albion and and lorry to start

01:11with we played newcastle united at home and and the series at the time that was number one viewing was

01:19roots yeah most people obviously of my age will remember that and there was a fair lot of chanting

01:26from the newcastle fans at the time we're taking the context of the time i'm not saying they do it now

01:32but then there was but lorry cunningham that day was absolutely brilliant and it was only for the

01:39acrobatics of a chap called mike mahoney in the newcastle goal that we didn't beat them but he was

01:45super and he scored a headed goal to equalize a newcastle strike but i remember at that point i was standing

01:52behind the smedic end goal and every time he got the ball he just came forward and people couldn't

01:58take the ball off him and it was the real first indication of what a wonderful player he was going

02:05to be and his potential

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