Clyde Best - A black footballing pioneer

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2021

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bermuda-born Clyde Best came to England as a teenager in 1968 and went on to play for West Ham United alongside the likes of Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst. Best made a name for himself as a talented goal-scorer in more than 200 appearances for the Hammers, but he faced constant racist abuse from fans, and on occasion, from opposition players. Clyde Best told Mike Lanchin about how he stood up to the racists in English soccer.

(Photo: Clyde Best on the ball, 4 March 1972. Credit: Mirror Group Newspapers/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me
0:38.9	Mike Lanchin. All this week we're marking Black History Month in the UK, and today I've got the story of a man who's been described as the first black role model in English football.
0:51.0	Bermuda Clyde Best arrived in London as a teenager in 1968 and went on to play
0:57.3	more than 200 times for West Ham United at a time of rampant racism in the English game. In 2020 I spoke to him for our
1:06.6	sister program Sporting Witness. I wanted to be a professional soccer player from an early age. I couldn't do it in my country so I had to lead to do it.
1:23.0	Best! What a beautiful goal!
1:26.0	So curably taken!
1:28.0	It was a new thing to see people of color on the field but you've got to be tough you have to let people
1:36.2	understand that you're not afraid of them it wasn't easy but in life nothing's easy. Clyde Best scored 58 goals in the Claritin Blue of West Ham United and was the most
1:50.7	prominent black player of his time in the first division,
1:53.9	then the top tier of English football.
1:58.7	Now in his late 60s, Clyde's back in Bermuda,
2:01.7	after a career that took him from West Ham to Tampa Bay, Florida, to
2:06.0	Dutch team Firenord and eventually back home again.
2:09.8	But when he was growing up, it wasn't just soccer that inspired the young Clyde.
	...

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