Freeze frame: Death of Laurie Cunningham, Jult 1989: Car crash claims life of first black footballer to play competitively for England

TELEVISION footage is scarce and the memories are fading fast but those who saw Laurie Cunningham play in the flesh will swear they have rarely seen a more exciting footballer.

Nottingham Forest defender Viv Anderson was the first black player to play for the England senior side but Cunningham's first appearance in an England shirt pre-dates that of Anderson when the winger featured in an under-21 international against Scotland in 1977. And while Anderson's senior debut came six months before Cunningham's, it was the latter who was first to play in a competitive international. Cunningham was also the first Englishman to play for Real Madrid.

The London-born winger enjoyed a spectacular rise up the football ladder, arriving at Real only five years after starting out with Leyton Orient. In between he honed his skills in one of the most gifted West Bromwich Albion sides in history.

Cunningham featured alongside Cyrille Regis and Brendon Batson as the Baggies revolutionised English football by being the first side to feature three black players in the team. Despite racial abuse from the terraces the trio thrived and the club finished third in the first division in 1978 and went on to reach the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup. It was on their European charge that Cunningham ran rings around Valenica in a performance that attracted the attention of Real Madrid. The Spanish giants went on to sign the 22-year-old for a fee of just under 1 million.

After a successful start in Spain, which saw him feature in the 1981 European Cup final defeat against Liverpool, a succession of injuries meant Cunningham was never able to reproduce the consistency shown earlier in his career.

In 1983 he left Madrid and over the next six years spent time at a succession of clubs – Sporting de Gijn, Olympique Marseille, Leicester City, Madrid's Rayo Vallecano, Charleroi and Wimbledon – before rejoining Rayo Vallecano in 1988 and scoring the goal that clinched Rayo's promotion back to the top flight. The player was relishing the opportunity to return to the Bernabeu for a crack at his former employers but he never got the chance. On the morning of 15 July, 1989, Cunningham died in a car crash outside Madrid. He was 33.