Laurie Cunningham: An electric trailblazer, Real Madrid’s first British player of modern era

Cunningham became the first British player to join the Spanish side in the modern era, arriving in a £950,000 deal – a club record for both Albion and Real. There was a feverish excitement that this young man from north London might well be one of the game’s greats.

His arrival at the Bernabeu in 1979 came at a time of great change in Spain. Francisco Franco’s 36-year dictatorship had ended with his death four years earlier and, while the country was experiencing a rapid liberalisation, there were elements of life at Madrid that were slower to change. In Different Class, Dermot Kavanagh’s biography of Cunningham, his then-girlfriend Nikki Hare-Brown, a white woman, says there were tensions over their relationship.

On the pitch, things began well. Cunningham scored on his first appearance against AC Milan in a pre-season friendly, and twice more on his full league debut against Valencia, before the first of a series of injuries put him out for several weeks.

In his first Clasico, on 10 February 1980 at the Nou Camp, he was spectacular. It is a game not remembered for Real’s 2-0 win but rather the extraordinary Englishman on the wing.

“He was electric,” Barcelona defender Migueli recalled years later. “He drove us crazy with his dribbling, his bursts, his speed.”

Even the home support began applauding the man wearing the hated white of Real Madrid. A few months later, they were crowned league champions for a 20th time, adding the Copa del Rey, too.

Injury had limited Cunningham’s involvement, but there had been enough to convince the Real Madrid faithful that he would soon deliver on a regular basis.

Instead, that 1979-80 season would prove to be the pinnacle of his entire career. He was on receiving end of a vicious stamp off the ball by Real Betis’ Francisco Bizcocho in November, effectively ending his 1980-81 campaign. When photographs emerged of him dancing in a nightclub with a plaster cast, the vultures began circling. The newspapers who had so lauded him just nine months earlier now portrayed him as a playboy who didn’t take his talent seriously.

The 1m pesetas fine (worth around £20,000 today) handed down by the Madrid hierarchy was the largest in La Liga history. Cunningham publicly accepted it, but privately he was seething.

Then, after six months out injured, he was frantically rushed back to play in the European Cup Final against Liverpool. One Madrid director reportedly told him his very future at the club rested on his participation.

The game that took place on 27 May 1981, between two of the most illustrious teams in football history, was one of the worst in living memory. The Parc des Princes pitch, which had hosted a rugby match the previous day, provided the turgid setting for a match of few chances and even fewer moments of genuine quality.

Cunningham, clearly unfit and struggling, passed through the 90 minutes like a shadow. He would later describe the game as “horrific”. A well-taken 83rd-minute goal by Alan Kennedy was enough to settle the contest as Madrid missed out on the trophy they craved the most.

The following season saw things sink even further. A challenge during training led to another lengthy lay-off, but it was what happened back in London that brought Cunningham’s footballing struggles into sharp perspective.