May 1993. Keith Alexander was promoted from first-team coach to the Lincoln City dugout and, in the process, became the first permanent black manager in English football. Thirty-three years later, the frontier he opened still looks remarkably narrow.
Born in Nottingham in 1956 to parents from St Lucia, the 6ft 4in striker played for roughly 20 clubs in a journeyman career that stretched from the professional game into non-league. Alexander himself described what that career involved: “I was called all sorts of names and had things like bananas chucked at me.”
Lincoln arrived at a bad moment and left just as quickly. He was sacked after one season as the Imps finished 18th in the old Third Division. The route back ran through Ilkeston Town and Northwich Victoria before Lincoln brought him in again in 2002, with the club in administration.
From administration to the Millennium Stadium
What Alexander then did at Sincil Bank became the strongest line on his managerial record. In four consecutive seasons from 2002, he guided Lincoln from a financial wreck to the League Two play-offs, including two trips to the final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Spells at Peterborough United, Bury and Macclesfield Town followed.
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In March 2010, hours after Macclesfield’s trip to Notts County, Alexander died at the age of 53. England wore black armbands at Wembley against Egypt that evening. The Football Black List, which recognises non-playing black contributors to the game, named a lifetime achievement prize after him; past recipients include Yaya Toure, Shaka Hislop and former Lioness Kerry Davis.
A door that is still mostly closed
Research commissioned by the Black Footballers Partnership and led by economists at Liverpool, Erasmus Rotterdam and Michigan found that black former players account for just 4 percent of managerial roles in the Premier League and English Football League, despite making up around a quarter of former pros holding the required UEFA coaching qualifications.
The same study found that non-black players were 50 percent more likely to move into management than their black contemporaries. Once in the job, a black manager is 41 percent more likely to be fired than a white counterpart on comparable performance.
The season-by-season picture is just as flat. Sky Sports reported during Black History Month in 2024 that only two black managers held jobs across England’s professional leagues at the opening weekend of that campaign. Dwight Yorke, the former Manchester United striker, told the broadcaster: “We talk about inclusion and diversity, you just want fairness.”
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The name on the award and in the islands
For those who worked with him, the measure of Alexander outlasts the statistics. His son Paul described him in the BBC’s anniversary piece as “a very humble man” who “didn’t realise the impact he had on others just by walking into a room.”
Leon Mann, co-founder of the Football Black List, told the BBC the point is a running one.
“When we see a number of black British or black managers in the Premier League, we should pause and remember Keith’s contribution.”
Alexander also founded the Sacred Sports Foundation on St Lucia, the island his parents came from, running coaching and development programmes for young people. Kerry Davis received the Keith Alexander Award as a pioneer of women’s football at the Football Black List ceremony in April 2024.
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