John Homer recalls his memories of The Three Degrees for a new Express & Star series.
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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 ì— Ã·'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?