Jack Leslie

With a tally of 137 goals in a total of 401 appearances for Plymouth Argyle FC, Jack Leslie (1901 to 1988) is believed to be the first Black player to captain a professional football league side. He developed a remarkable partnership with fellow player Sammy Black on the left wing and led his team to fourth place in the Second Division in 1932, Argyle's highest-ever standing in the English Football League.

Leslie achieved this success in the face of racist abuse from fellow players and supporters at matches, and discrimination from the Football Association (FA) in reversing his selection for the national team in 1925 before he could play. Another 53 years would pass before the first Black player appeared in the full England team, when Viv Anderson stepped out to play for England against Czechoslovakia.

Overlooked by England but regarded as a hero in Plymouth, Leslie's association with the city spanned 14 years. The national blue plaque marks the house in the city where Leslie lived together with his wife and child at the peak of his football career.

The inscription reads: "JOHN 'JACK' LESLIE, 1901 – 1988, Captain of Plymouth Argyle FC and the first Black footballer selected for England lived here".

Early life

John 'Jack' Francis Leslie was born in Canning Town, London, on 17 August 1901. He was the youngest of 3 children.

His mother, Annie, was a seamstress from Islington, while his Jamaican-born father, also John Francis Leslie, had come to England in 1863 at the age of 12 and worked at the Beckton gasworks.

Young Jack – as he was known to his family – went to Hermit Road School, next to the Hermit Road football ground that had been the home of Thames Ironworks FC and where West Ham United was founded in 1900.

While Jack was a fine singer and joined a local church choir, his real talent was for sport. He was a champion swimmer at school, and also excelled in cricket, but football became his passion.

After leaving school at 14, he played for Fairbairn House football club's junior team. In 1917, he formed a new team with other talented players from the club, which led him to play for the first time at the Boleyn Ground (better known as Upton Park, and the home ground of West Ham between 1904 and 2016).

In August 1919, Leslie joined the amateur club Barking Town and became a prolific goal-scorer during the resumption of league matches after the First World War. He combined his burgeoning career as an amateur footballer with an apprenticeship to become a boilermaker at the Beckton gasworks where his father worked.

In the 1920/21 season, he had his first taste of First Division football in a home match for Barking Town against Tottenham Hotspur, and went on tour with Essex FA to Normandy, where he was presented with a county cap for having played six matches at the senior level.

His performances attracted interest from several professional clubs, such as Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham, and Leslie was recruited by Plymouth Argyle's ambitious manager Bob Jack in the summer of 1921.

Plymouth Argyle FC hero

Jack Leslie played for Plymouth Argyle FC for 14 years, from 1921 until he retired from football in 1935, with a tally of 137 goals in 401 appearances for the club.

Leslie started at Plymouth Argyle on a weekly wage of £5 (reduced to £4 in the summer) and began training at the club’s ground, Home Park, on 4 August 1921. Later that month, he made his first appearance in Argyle's green strip in a pre-season match in front of 6000 spectators.

During his first two seasons at Plymouth, Leslie mostly played for the reserves, yet he still attracted praise for his skill as a winger and ability to create individual goals. The breakthrough came in March 1924 when Leslie found great form and was promoted to the first team, scoring his first goal in the league soon afterwards.

The opening game of the 1924/25 season saw Leslie paired with the club's new signing from Scotland, Sammy Black, for the first time, and they both scored as Plymouth Argyle beat Brentford 7-1.

They proved to be a formidable partnership on the left wing, playing to each other's strengths, with Leslie supplying Jack with many of the balls that ended up in the back of the net. Together, they scored 320 goals over the next 10 years. Sammy Black remains the top goal-scorer in the club's history with 182 goals.

Jack Leslie was regarded as a hero in Plymouth. He later reflected: "It was a good move for me. Argyle treated me well, and I had a great respect for the club's supporters. I found Plymouthians a fine bunch of people and I still have a warm regard for the place."

His association with the city spanned 14 years, and he often spent his time off playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe or socialising with his fellow teammate Fred Titmuss.

Today, both the city and the club are proud of Jack Leslie. A successful crowdfunding campaign led to his statue being erected outside Home Park in October 2022.

'The lion who never roared'

Jack Leslie's exceptional skills brought him to the attention of the Football Association (FA), who selected him as 1 of 2 reserve players for the game against Ireland on 23 October 1925.

He was informed of his selection by his team manager Bob Jack, and widespread newspaper coverage on 6 October named him as 1 of the 2 reserves. As Leslie recalled later in a newspaper interview in 1978: "Everybody in the club knew about it. The town was full of it. All them days ago, it was quite a thing for a little club like Plymouth to have a man called up for England. I was proud – but then I was proud just to be a paid footballer."

Yet joy quickly turned to disappointment when his name quietly disappeared from the team sheet. The England selectors replaced him as a reserve just 3 days before the match.

Leslie heard that "the FA had come to have another look at me. Not at my football but at my face … No one ever told me official-like, but that had to be the reason. Me Mum was English, but me Dad was black as the Ace of Spades. There wasn't any other reason for taking my cap away."

On the same afternoon that England drew 0-0 with Ireland, Leslie scored 2 goals in Argyle's 7-2 win against Bournemouth.

The FA denied that Leslie had ever been called up, despite the evidence of the team list that had been published, and the local football journalist 'Pilgrim' hinted that racism was behind his de-selection.

Following a campaign to raise awareness by The Jack Leslie Campaign, the FA presented a posthumous honorary cap to Jack Leslie's granddaughters in 2023 before the England-Ukraine Euro 2024 qualifier at Wembley, acknowledging the retraction "should never have happened."

The FA said: "In 1925, Jack Leslie earned a deserved call-up to represent England. However, he faced adversity because of the colour of his skin, and was deselected and never played for his country."

The honorary cap was to recognise Leslie's "career, his contribution to our game and wider society, and to right this historical wrong."

8 Glendower Road

Jack Leslie's blue plaque adorns the house in Peverell, Plymouth, where he lived with his wife and child at the peak of his football career – 8 Glendower Road.

During the summer break in 1925, Leslie returned to Canning Town in London, where he married his longtime sweetheart Lavinia Emma Garland – always known as ‘Win’ – at St Matthias Church on 27 June 1925.

The couple set up home together in the Peverell area of Plymouth, where Jack had been lodging, and which was close to Plymouth Argyle's Home Park.

Leslie was subsequently congratulated on his marriage in the Argyle 'Hand Book' for the new season. As if to symbolise the mutual appreciation between club and player, he opened the scoring within 4 minutes of the club's first match in a 6-2 victory over Southend United.