The First Black Professional Footballer1865 to 1930

SPORT & CLASS

Who was Arthur?

Arthur Wharton

• The first man to run 100yards in 10 seconds

• The first black professional footballer

• A multi-talented sportsman, pioneer and celebrity of his day

(2)

Images: Arthur with the Princess Hassan Cup after breaking the World Record for the 100 Yard Sprint 1886

| In football kit early 1890s | in his later mining years

Industrial Revolution & the Working Class (3)

Composing Rooms with Linotype Machines in Sheffield Telegraph & Star Newspaper Offices. Bentley Miners by Peter Tuffrey. Both courtesy of Sheffield Newspapers. Arthur section of team photo, Darlington FC 1885

Industrial Revolution & the Working Class (4)

Watch: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3546565 (Sheffield United v Bury 1902)

“…it turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half, for not only had you escaped from the clanking machinery of this lesser life, from work, wages, rent, doles, sick pay, insurance cards, nagging wives, ailing children, bad bosses…”

‘The Good Companions’ 1929 by Yorkshire Writer, JB Priestley

Losing privilege (5)

Arthur’s wealthy Ghanaian family. His mother’s side were Ghanaian royalty. Arthur had nobody to give him a helping hand in

Britain.

Hardship of being a working-class sportsman (6)

Watch: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3544321Arthur and the handicap system in running

(clip from ‘The Arthur Wharton Story’)

(7)

‘Is the darkie’s pate too thick for it to dawn upon him that between the posts is no place for a skylark? By some it’s called coolness – bosh!’

(Football News and Athletic Journal, 29 October 1887)

‘Stalybridge Rovers have bagged a real nigger as

goalkeeper in Wharton' (Northern Daily Telegraph, 18th January, 1896)

Arthur’s ethnicity was the target of put-downs in the newspapers  

Hardship of being a working-class sportsman

(8)Hardship of being a

working-class sportsman

Watch: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3544336Arthur’s time as a miner from ‘The Arthur Wharton Story’.

Arthur during his mining years >

(9)Becoming ‘one of us’

Watch: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3544385

Video clip about Arthur’s footballing moves from ‘The Arthur Wharton Story’

In a sense, the code of good sportsmanship, allowed everyday people to see the equal capabilities of a black man

in a universal context – sport

(10)Becoming ‘one of us’

“… a modest and unassuming man, a genial companion,

and a friend whom any person might feel proud to number

amongst his acquaintances”.Ashton Herald, 15/2/1896

“Arthur is a most sociable fellow when you know him, but

you have to get to know him first...”Athletic Journal, ‘Men I have met’, 26 June, 1888

(11)Becoming ‘one of us’

Arthur and two team mates, Darlington FCPubs in Rotherham that were managed byArthur.

(12)Changes in football

Football Unites, Racism Divides (FURD) work hard to combat racism and encourage community cohesion

(13)Race and class

Watch: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3544239Rapper Akala, in a heated debate with founder of the

English Defence League, Tommy Robinson, explaining how racism isn’t inherent in the working classes (2013)

(14)Race and class

By becoming a sportsman, Arthur lost his privilege and became ‘working class’.

Arthur was forgotten in part because he was black and also because in his time, the working class had no power to write their own histories.

The underhand discrimination he received in national papers isn’t that different to what we hear about ‘chavs’ in the news now.

Class pioneers: Writer, Owen Jones and rapper/actor Ben Drew (Plan B)

Listen: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3544297

Plan B on use of the word ‘chav’(2013)