John Homer on Three Degrees abuse and impact of West Brom icons

Express & Star

John Homer recalls his memories of The Three Degrees for a new Express & Star series.

Transcript

00:00Going away West Bromwich Albion were coming to town and everybody wanted to see them the new musical express that year

00:06I don't know you're probably too young the NME as it's called

00:10Every Christmas used to have a column of what's in and what's out

00:15And the NME was never too bothered about football but that Christmas 78 after we beat Man United 5-3

00:23And won at the Arsenal

00:24We were top of what's in

00:28Oh wow yeah

00:29And also if you go to the Hawthorns in the East End there's a collage of photographs

00:34And there is a picture of the cover of an NME and on the front is Cyril Regis

00:41Which that for me was my two loves there football and music combined

00:48That was a statement

00:50So we were very much the in thing because of this pioneering black players

00:56And also the wonderful fluid attacking football cavalier style of play that we have

01:03I think 77-78 there was an undercurrent of it

01:10But slowly but surely I think as more black players came into the game

01:14It died down a little

01:16And certainly instead of it being universal at all grounds

01:20And I'm not saying that it was at all grounds to start with

01:23But the number of grounds where you went

01:25And the racism chanting

01:28It suddenly started to go

01:31But there were grounds where it stayed

01:34West Ham

01:35Yeah West Ham

01:36The famous incident where they were throwing bananas on the pitch

01:39And Cyril picked one up and ate it and threw the skin back into the crowd

01:43Saw all that

01:44The National Front were around at the time

01:47You know

01:48But the thing about the Albion supporters

01:51Whatever was going on in the area

01:53They took these players to heart

01:56And you will

01:58No doubt you've spoken to Brendan

02:00If you spoke to Cyril

02:01Cyril would say

02:02The best way that I could answer these chants was to score goals

02:05Of course if you ran at the time

02:07When everything was going on

02:09We have a football club here

02:10Who are bold enough to field three black players

02:13Who are bold enough to take on all the insults

02:15And all the racism

02:16And all the chants

02:17And all the crap that was going on around them

02:19Right

02:20And overcome it

02:22At our football club

02:24At West Bromwich Albion

02:26You know

02:26So many black footballers that followed

02:28The Ian Wrights of this world

02:30And Dion Dublins and everybody

02:32Ian Wrights says that

02:33The moment he wanted to become a footballer

02:36Was when he saw

02:37The three degrees on the telly

02:40And he turns to his dad apparently

02:42And said

02:42Look at this

02:43These are black blokes

02:44Who can make it in the game

02:45And if they can do it

02:47I can do it

02:48Now

02:48Groundbreaking

02:50Pioneering stuff

02:52But

02:52So

02:53We can do it

02:55When the 역 ÷'em

02:56As a team

02:57As a team

02:57ejemplo

02:57He was

02:59Going off to the start

03:00He was

03:01And he was

03:02Burada

03:02And he's

03:03ganz

03:03Now

03:04And

03:05It's

03:05The

03:06What?

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