Let’s not beat around the bush, we don’t have a programme for the season Stockport County fielded their first black player in the Football League, nor are we ever likely to obtain one. The player in question was Arthur Wharton and he appeared for County in the 1901/02 season. The oldest Stockport County programme we found when we looked recently was from 1956/57, earlier ones may well be available, but fifty five years earlier? No chance!
Stockport County were not in the Football League when Football’s Black Pioneers went to print but they gained promotion from the National League as champions in 2021/22 and so regained their place in the Football League for the 2022/23 season after an eleven year absence. They deserve to have their first black player honoured, and Arthur was not just any player as you will see.
Goalkeeper Arthur Wharton is famous as the first black professional footballer. What is less well known is that when he became the first black player to appear in the Football League it was for Rotherham Town (no connection with the current day Rotherham United) in 1893. Two years later he became Sheffield United’s first black player before returning to Rotherham Town and then, in 1896, he dropped down to non-league football with Ashton North End and later, Stalybridge Rovers.
In the summer of 1901, over five years since his last League appearance for Rotherham Town, Arthur joined Second Division Stockport County. Although Arthur kept a clean sheet in his last game for Rotherham, a Boxing Day 3-0 victory over Darwen, he had conceded 16 goals in his previous three games. Stockport were not put off by this and welcomed Arthur not only because of his goalkeeping prowess but also the additional weight he brought to the squad! The Athletic News of 2nd September 1901 welcomed the fact that Stockport’s seven new signings had an average weight of 11 stones 9 pounds, Arthur weighed in at 11 stones. The conclusion was that ‘the team should do better if only by reason of weight’ (they didn’t, they finished 17th just as they had the previous season). Arthur made his debut for Stockport on the opening day of the 1901/02 season on 7th September 1901 in a 3-1 home defeat to Middlesbrough. The game was the first League fixture to be played at Stockport’s Green Lane ground and was watched by a crowd of 5,000.
Arthur retained his place for the first six games of the season which saw only a single win and one draw. Although 16 goals were conceded during this period, newspaper reports from the time do not suggest that this was down to any inadequacy on Arthur’s part nor, interestingly and refreshingly, do they refer to the colour of his skin. Nevertheless Arthur was dropped after a 3-3 draw at Newton Heath on 5th October 1901. That was to be his last ever Football League appearance. He duly saw out the rest of the season in the reserves.
Arthur’s entire Stockport League career was packed into six games in four weeks beginning on 7th September 1901.
Arthur’s replacement in the Stockport goal was Joe Butler, who had made his debut for Stockport the previous season playing in seven games but conceding ten goals in his last two appearances in December 1900. Joe went on give tremendous service to Stockport and later Glossop but it was at Sunderland where he made his greatest impression. Joining the northeast club in October 1912 when they were lying second from bottom in the First Division he was an ever present for the rest of the season which saw them win the League Championship and finish runners up in the FA Cup. He is undoubtedly one of Sunderland’s greatest ever goalkeepers and his achievements are described in Sunderland AFC The Absolute Record – The Players by Rob Mason.
Stockport may not have made it into Football’s Black Pioneers but Arthur did – as the first black player at Preston North End and Sheffield United.
Arthur retired from football in 1902 and when he died in 1930 he was a largely forgotten figure. Great work by the Arthur Wharton Foundation led to his memory being rekindled and he was admitted to the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003 and, in 2014, a statue of him was unveiled at the English National Football Centre at St George’s Park, Burton.
