Statue to pioneering footballer

Statue pays tribute to pioneering footballer

INJUSTICE: Jack Leslie made over 400 appearances for Plymouth Argyle and should have been the first black footballer to play for England (photos: both black and white images courtesy of the Jack Leslie Campaign)

IN 1925, Jack Leslie was denied an England cap simply due to the colour of his skin – a century later, and he will be immortalised in bronze.

Greg Foxsmith, co-founder of the campaign in the footballer’s name, spoke to the Voice of Sport’sMatthew Chadder about Jack Leslie’s story and the campaign’s ambitions.

MC: Can you outline the Jack Leslie campaign? GF: Jack played for Plymouth Argyle for 14 years, clocked up 400 games, 137 goals and finished as club captain.

He got selected to play for England, and then his name was removed from the team sheets, and he didn’t play, and it was 50 years before the first black football player played for England, Viv Anderson. He should have been the first black footballer to play. So, we researched it a bit more, and we were outraged, why is it not recognised?

We decided to set up the campaign to highlight the story and tell it in a positive way. The best way we could think of would be to raise money for a statue of Jack because that would show that even though he was overlooked, we want to demonstrate that a century later, things were different. It is a crowdfunded campaign with donations coming from people in football and outside of football. During the Black Lives Matter protests, the Colston statue came tumbling down and I thought, this is an amazing coincidence, at a time when a racist slave trader has his statue toppled, we’re successfully in the process of campaigning for a statue to go up. What a beautiful ying and yang.

It will be the first statue of a black person or person of diverse background in Plymouth, or indeed, anywhere west of Exeter, this is going to be significant.

Our aims and ambitions are to build a statue, to tell Jack’s story, and to use that story to campaign against prejudice, discrimination, and, in fact, to celebrate diversity.

This is a positive story, it’s brought together people to celebrate the life of Jack Leslie. He got knocked back in 1925 but in 2022, he’s going to get a lifesize statue with the story told on the side panelling and that’s only there because people have backed and supported it. That’s massive.

MC: You have had support from former players such as Viv Anderson and Carlton Cole, how invaluable has their support been? GF: Having the support of Viv Anderson and Carlton Cole was massive and meant a lot. It also meant a lot to Jack’s family, he has three surviving granddaughters.

There is still people we would love to reach, I’d love to get a tweet of endorsement from Marcus Rashford or Raheem Sterling.

MC: How have you found responses to the campaign? Has there been any resistance or any issues? GF: Generally, responses have been universally supportive and welcoming, it’s been incredibly empowering and uplifting to see how well supported the campaign is. We expected a lot more negativity and kickback than we actually got.

I can’t say that there has been none, there’s going to be a few people who raise questions, but we’re always happy to have these conversations. We’ve created a space where, if people want to express their opinions, we will tackle them head on.

MC: How have preparations gone for the unveiling? GF: It’s very exciting. I have to pinch myself to the fact that it is going to happen. Locally, I think people are excited.

We are totally independent of the football club (Plymouth Argyle) but the club is very supportive. The unveiling is Friday October 7 and there’s a home game at Argyle on the next day and the club will be dedicating the game to Jack Leslie, his granddaughters will be there as guests of honour, and it is going to be a real celebratory affair.

The statue remains, it’s permanent. That’s the beauty of it. It’s no longer a website that people won’t access or news cutting that’s dropped down the agenda. It’s there in bronze.

MC: Do you hope the statue can have a positive impact in changing negative stereotypes? GF: Absolutely, we want to use the statue and the campaign to challenge viewpoints that are negative on race and to explore issues. If you’re supporting an England team, and you’re supporting players who play for England who have a different skin colour, why are you not supporting people with a different skin colour, in education, or health care, or in the justice system, or in school?

We asked people, particularly children, how do you think they might feel looking different? What can you do to be inclusive? Already we’re seeing that responses are positive and the feedback from schoolteachers, and the kids themselves has been amazing.

We might challenge them to write a poem about Jack Leslie or how would you feel if you went somewhere where you were the only person with your skin colour?

There’s loads of ways that you can engage, and we find that once people examine the issues from that inward look, that immediately makes for a more diverse and inclusive society because it’s expressing empathy and understanding of people from different backgrounds. MC: What are future plans for the campaign? GF: We don’t propose to stop with objectives two and three, tell Jack Leslie’s story, and use the story positively to challenge discrimination and celebrate diversity.

I’m thinking perhaps of converting the campaign to get some sort of charitable status, so that we can then fundraise to get materials, or maybe do a publication that can be circulated to school libraries.

What we’d actually like to do is empower particularly young people to present the story themselves, I’d like to have a young person running our Instagram account, I’d like to have people from different backgrounds being able to take the story out, empowering them to tell the story.

You can find out more about the Jack Leslie campaign at https://jackleslie.co.uk/

TALENT: Jack Leslie scores in a 6-2 victory against Southend United in August 1925; right, a statue will be unveiled in Jack’s honour at Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park ground on October 7