The material in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ is presented in alphabetical order by club (Accrington Stanley to Wycombe Wanderers). We did discuss presenting the stories in a different way, chronological order by date of debut. Had we done so the book would have opened with Arthur Wharton, who made his debut for Preston North End in 1886, and continued through to new arrivals in the League like Salford and Harrogate Town. This would have given the book a very different flavour, turning it much more explicitly into a book about 130+ years of the black British experience. There are stories within the book that reflect many aspects of that history.
Arthur Wharton was sent to England from his home in what is now Ghana by his middle class parents to be educated in British schools. Their hope was that he would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Methodist minister. Sadly from their point of view his undoubted ability as a sportsman distracted him from the career path they had chosen for him and the rest is, well, history.
The second black player came from a very tough working class area of Scotland, Leith, where disease was rife. His father was from ‘West Indiea’ [sic]. John Walker was lucky to survive beyond childhood, many of his contemporaries didn’t, and he enjoyed a brief but successful career as a professional footballer. He died tragically young, succumbing, probably to tuberculosis, at the age of just 22.
Another black ‘pioneer’, Willie Clarke, was the grandson of a member of British Guiana’s (now Guyana) plantocracy. His father, Alexander Clarke, was sent to Britain to be educated, in this case, in Scotland. After featuring as the first black player at three clubs in the English Football League, Willie served in the Army during World War One, which he survived, dying at the age of 70 in Tunbridge Wells in 1949.
Walter Tull was another who would have featured in the early chapters of the book. Walter was the grandson of an enslaved man on Barbados. Walter’s father made his way to England where he settled in Folkestone and married a local white girl. Walter was the first black player at two clubs and also served as an officer in World War One. He was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant even though Army regulations at the time specifically excluded anyone who wasn’t white from being an officer.
So already in these four stories we have links to West Africa, two British colonies in the Caribbean (Guiana and Barbados) and the slums of working class Scotland. These stories alone demonstrate the diversity of British society that pre-dates the Windrush generation by up to 60 years.
Of course there are many other stories and the players featured in the book came from (i.e. were born in) at least fourteen different countries, the net is cast even wider if you take into account where players’ parents were born.
If you have already bought a copy of the book and would like to follow the stories chronologically you can download the timeline here:
If you haven’t yet got your copy the obvious question is why not?! The book can be bought from Amazon (the cheapest option), is available in some main branches of Waterstones (and can be ordered from any other branch) or, if you would like to support your local independent book shop, they can order you a copy. Finally, you can get the book from the publishers: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/product/footballs-black-pioneers-subscriber-copies-for-pre-order/ – although you will pay the full price they do still have signed copies and they will also send you a free limited edition A5 size print to go with the book.