Tuesday, January 16, 2018

RIP Cyrille Regis

Cyrille Regis was a stylish centre-forward for West Brom back when I was playing in the under 10s. Regis caught the eye in English soccer as one of few black players. But in this West Brom team he had the company of Brendan Batson and Laurie Cunningham. This team was beautiful to watch; I recall them usually wearing yellow and green stripes but I think that was their away strip. Which in those days (they are away in this game) you only wore if required to avoid a clash.

The black players were routinely booed just for their skin colour. It starts when Cunningham gets the ball at 2:15 but then stops dead as he sets up a lovely West Brom goal. Good on the commentator for highlighting it. Regis and Cunningham particularly copped a lot of abuse but persisted. When Regis was selected to play for England he got a bullet in the post with a message "if you set foot on our Wembley we'll shoot you in the knee". It would be great to think that's all long ago and far away but Adam Goodes would probably disagree.

There's so many highlights in this old game; an unexpected one is the goalkeeping of Gary Bailey. The save at 8:19 is as good as you'll see. Then there's the drop ball in front of goal, and the players caught offside from a keeper's long kick.  And the snow!

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