We came through at a time when you had to laugh the racism off or you wouldn’t make a living in football and nobody felt that more than Cyrille Regis — a player I was so proud to call my friend.
I remember, in 1982, when he received a bullet through the post because he happened to be black and selected for England. ‘I got a bullet but you got nothing!’ he joked when we were with the national team.
Laurie Cunningham, who’d been picked for England a few years earlier, received very unpleasant letters, too, but I escaped because I was born to defend and kick people, which made people look at me in a different way and maybe feel less threatened.