Birmingham Black History - Brendon Batson MBE

Brendon Batson MBE

Brendon Batson was born in St George’s on the Caribbean island of Grenada. He came to the UK in the 1970s with his family when he was nine-years-old. They settled in Tilbury in Essex.

Brendon had no knowledge or experience of football and everyone at his school assumed he understood and played cricket. Since his friends were all football mad he joined in with them at a team trial and got selected! Within three months he had been invited to go for trials with the County. Four years later he was spotted by a talent scout from Arsenal and joined them while still a schoolboy.

A move to Cambridge was to bring him into contact with people and circumstances that would change his life. The first was a young manager called Ron Atkinson who would later move to West Bromwich Albion (WBA) taking Brendon with him. The other was an opportunity for Brendon to take on the role of delegate for the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) giving him an insight into their workings. The more he saw the more interested he became.

In the late 1970s when Ron Atkinson took charge of WBA, Brendon was his first signing, where he joined Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham, fellow black players who affectionately were known as “The Three Degrees”. Although not the only Black footballers to play in the top football divisions, WBA was the first team to have more than one. Throughout this time Brendon continued to be active within the PFA advocating for a fairer deal for players.

In the early 1980s Brendon had injuries so severe that he was forced to stop playing. Out of the blue, he received a call from the then Chief Executive of the PFA asking Brendon to be his deputy which he accepted with some reluctance, as he had been keen to go into football team management but had been turned down for several managerial jobs.

While at the PFA Brendon worked tirelessly to eradicate racism, taking a lead role with the national campaign to Kick Racism Out of Football. He also campaigned for greater sportsmanship and communication within the game and has been the PFA’s representative in many big money deals as the lead figure at the helm of PFA Financial Ltd, the organisation who advise upon such things as footballers pay, premature retirement and compensation for injury and player transfers and fees.

He was awarded the MBE in 2000 for services to football.

Comments (1)

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... : nathan wallen

hi brendon, hope all is well, keep up the good work
hope to meet up soon
and one day hope to make the great sucess u done

October 28, 2007

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