By Richard Edwards

Example: Roland Butcher

MANY of England’s most esteemed black footballers were queuing up this week to praise the influence of Cyrille Regis, who died of a heart attack at the age of just 59 on Sunday night.
But that influence spread far beyond the football pitches of the Midlands and Wembley.
Roland Butcher was at home in Barbados when he heard the news of Regis’s passing. The pair were good friends and were widely and rightly recognised as sporting pioneers in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
While Regis was the third black footballer to represent his...