West Ham United’s John Charles famously became the first Black player to represent the England national team at any level when he represented the Under-18s in Israel in 1962.
The following year, defender Charles became the first Black player to appear for the Hammers in the First Division – and his legacy lives on in the dozens of players of Black heritage who have worn the famous Claret and Blue in the six decades since.
It took until 1978 for Nottingham Forest’s Viv Anderson to become England’s first senior international, when he was capped by the same man who gave Charles his West Ham debut, Ron Greenwood.
And it would be another 15 years before another player who came through the Academy of Football ranks, midfielder Paul Ince, made history when Graham Taylor named him captain for England’s opening two games at the 1993 US Cup.
With David Platt and Tony Adams absent from the four-nation tournament, which was hosted in the United States as a test event ahead of the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals, Ince wore the armband on just his seventh cap for his country.
On 9 June 1993, England took on the United States at Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts – the home of the NFL’s New England Patriots. There, playing alongside future Hammer Les Ferdinand and Ian Wright and against future West Ham loanee John Harkes, Ince ended on the losing side as the Americans ran out 2-0 winners.
While Platt returned and scored, Ince kept the captaincy for England’s second U.S. Cup tie, against eventual 1994 champions Brazil at the Robert F. Kennedy Stadium near Washington DC, where the Three Lions secured a creditable 1-1 draw.
Ince also captained England five times under Taylor’s successor Glenn Hoddle. The first occasion was a friendly win over Mexico at Wembley in March 1997, then a 2-0 victory over Italy at the Tournoi de France – another World Cup warm-up event – in June of the same year, a vital goalless World Cup qualifying draw in Italy that October, and finally friendlies with Cameroon and Morocco.
The Cameroon game also saw a 19-year-old Rio Ferdinand become the first Black West Ham player to play for England at senior level in a 2-0 win at Wembley, replacing current England manager Gareth Southgate as a first-half substitute.
October and November 1998 saw striker Wright earn the final two of his 33 caps after joining the Hammers from Arsenal, where he had become the Gunners’ all-time leading goalscorer, against Luxembourg and Czech Republic.
In late 2001, David James and Trevor Sinclair became the third and fourth Black Hammers to play for England, when they appearance in a friendly defeat by Netherlands and friendly draw with Sweden respectively.
Kieron Dyer became the fifth in August 2007, when he started the 2-1 friendly defeat by Germany at Wembley alongside former Hammers Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole.
Ferdinand himself went on to play ten times for England while with West Ham, before adding 71 more caps during spells with Leeds United and Manchester United. In March 2008, aged 29, while with Manchester United, Ferdinand was made England’s third Black men’s senior captain, following Ince and Sol Campbell, in a 1-0 friendly defeat by France in Paris.
Ferdinand captained England on eleven occasions in total. Since his final appearance for his country, Ashley Cole, Chris Smalling, Fabian Delph, Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford have all worn the armband from kick-off.
Cole was in the side when his namesake Carlton Cole became West Ham’s sixth Black England international in a friendly defeat by Spain in Seville in February 2009, the first of his seven caps.
The seventh and most recent Black Hammer to represent England was Jesse Lingard, who was recalled to Southgate’s squad in March 2021 during his outstanding loan spell in east London.
