please log in to view this image Arthur Wharton in his pomp, 1895 You may not be immediately familiar with the name, but Wharton is one of football’s most iconic figures – being, as he was, the first ever black professional footballer player. Born in Jamestown on the Gold Coast (which is now Accra in Ghana) in 1865, Wharton originally came to England in 1882 in order to train as a Christian missionary, but soon cast his holy ambitions aside and began playing as a goalkeeper/occasional auxiliary winger at an amateur level for Darlington and then Preston North End. Purported to be the first man in England to have run 100 yards in 10 seconds at an Amateur Athletics Association meeting, Wharton (who was a man of mixed Scottish, Grenadian and Ghanaian descent) excelled at a number of sports but impressed on the football pitch to such a degree that, come 1889, Rotherham Town signed him to a professional contract and as such, history was made. please log in to view this image
was allways under the impression, the first black footballer was walter tull, and his was a truly amazing story.
