Black History Month Players: Chris Hughton

 As October is Black History Month in the UK, I will spend this month publishing threads on X (formerly Twitter) on certain players who have been part of a long and distinguished line of Black representation at West Ham United. With this being the second year I have undertaken this exercise, I thought it would be fair to publish a blog post for those who don't have X or find threads on the platform difficult to read. Feel free to read last year's threads, via this link, but this post and today's thread on X is on Chris Hughton. 

Born in 1958 to a Ghanaian father and an Irish mother, Hughton grew up in Forest Gate, almost on the doorstep of West Ham’s old home, Upton Park. Yet, instead of being scouted by West Ham, even when living so close to the club, he was scouted by rivals Tottenham at the age of 13. A promising youth footballer, Hughton not only had an interest in football, but also in politics. As a young player in the 1970s, Hughton wrote a piece for News Line, the daily newspaper of the left-wing political organisation, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party. He is still a member of the Labour Party and despite his writings for a far-left-leaning publication, Hughton holds no reservations about letting his voice on societal issues be heard in any forum. 

At the age of 18, Hughton signed a part-time contract with Spurs, which was unusual, when compared to the full-time professional deals that most young players sign at that age. Hughton trained as a lift engineer alongside playing football to make sure he had a back-up career. But there was no need for a backup career as he would sign a full-time professional contract with Spurs in 1979, making his debut in August of that year. Starting off as a winger, he would eventually become a full-back, playing mostly at left-back. Also, a remarkable fact that’s worth mentioning is that Hughton was the first player of black origin to represent Spurs since Walter Tull in 1911, with Hughton started a modern legacy of black representation from Spurs’ academy that continues to this day with Japhet Tanganga. 

Within two months after becoming a professional and making his debut, Hughton was already receiving full international honours when he became the first player of black origin to represent the Republic of Ireland when he played against the USA in September 1979. Across the course of his career, Hughton would go on to represent Ireland 53 times, scoring a single goal in a game against Cyprus in 1980. He would also be part of the famous Ireland squad who would go all the way to the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1990, but didn’t play.

But back to his club career, in 11 years as a professional with Spurs, Hughton would play 398 games, scoring 19 goals and is considered to be one of the best full-backs in the club's history. He won 2 FA cups, the 1984 UEFA Cup and was a runner-up in the 1982 League Cup and 1987 FA Cup. After 11 years with Spurs, Hughton moved closer to his birthplace of Forest Gate, when he signed on loan for West Ham in 1990 to provide cover for the club’s main left-back Julian Dicks, who was injured at the time. He would later sign permanently for the club after impressing on loan. 

In 18 months with the club, Hughton made 43 appearances and helped the club achieve promotion from the second division in 1991 as well as help them reach an FA cup semi-final that same season. He is remembered by supporters as a reliable defender who never let the side down. By 1992, Hughton was deemed surplus by requirements by the club who had just signed fellow black professional, Mitchell Thomas, as cover for Julian Dicks. But Hughton, wanting to keep playing, moved to Brentford where he helped them win the third division title in 1992. Hughton played for Brentford until 1993 when a knee injury ended his career at 34. But Hughton wanted to stay in football and coach and was given the opportunity to do so by former teammate Ossie Ardilles back at Spurs. 

Taking over as reverse team manager in 1993, Hughton spent 14 years back at Spurs earning his coaching badges and working his way up through the club. Under 11 managers, Hughton worked as a reverse manager, first team coach, assistant manager & was a caretaker manager twice. But after 2 years as an assistant manager under Martin Jol, Hughton was unceremoniously sacked in October 2007. But would not be out of work for long as he would be back in work by February 2008 when he was hired as a coach at Newcastle United. 

As coach for Newcastle, Hughton would serve under 3 managers in Kevin Keegan, Joe Kinnear and Alan Shearer in the space of 18 months, before being named as interim manager after Newcastle’s relegation in 2009. It was at this point where Hughton’s management career finally took off.

As interim manager, Hughton had such a great start to that 2009-10 season that he won the first two manager of the month awards of the season and was awarded the job permanently. By the end of that season, Hughton had broken multiple records including winning the championship title in record time. And the following season, back in the Premier League, Hughton made a brilliant start and had the club in 10th when he was sacked without cause, causing an already hated board under then-chairman Mike Ashley to take on more criticism for sacking a manager doing a great job. 

Over the rest of the 2010s, Hughton became one of the most recognised black coaches in English football, having stints at Birmingham, Norwich & Brighton, where he led Brighton to the top tier of English football for the first time since 1983. He also has managed Nottingham Forest for a brief spell and after honouring his mother’s heritage with Ireland during his playing career, he would honour his father’s when he served as a technical advisor to the Ghanaian national team this match for their World Cup qualifiers before taking the job on permanently in February of this year. 

But as a highly recognised black coach, Hughton admits that more needs to be done to address the imbalance of the lack of black managers within English football. Hughton even states that “The game has a responsibility to redress the balance.” Whilst he commends the diversity of football in terms of the amount of black players within the game & the increase of coaches in the game, he laments the lack of black representation in management roles. Moreover, Hughton believes much good work has been done, but he still believes there is so much more to go. Hughton stated in an interview with the Guardian in 2017 that whilst there also seems much more enthusiasm for change, it also has to be turned into action. And he is right! Whilst football does try to challenge the ills of racism, it won’t count for nothing unless more action is taken to make it a completely diverse game for all at every level of the game from the grassroots to the boardroom. 

Thanks for reading today's post. Today's sources include  Brian Belton's 'The Black Hammers' and the aforementioned interview with the Guardian in 2017:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/apr/28/chris-hughton-brighton-thirst-knowledge-manager