Arthur Wharton - Footballer

WORLD RECORD SPRINTER,TOP CRICKETER,BLACK FOOTBALLER


During the 1890's to be a goalkeeper you had to be mad, bad or dangerous to know. Goalies could handle the ball anywhere in their half of the pitch and could be charged down with or without the ball. Trying to grab the ball in a crowded goal mouth, the goalie needed the protective and attacking skills of a Thai kick-boxer. Arthur didn't just fist the ball away with his 'prodigious punch', he had to get his retaliation in first.

read on to learn more about Arthur Wharton........

Arthur Wharton is hardly a household name, but perhaps he should be. His sporting achievements elevate him way beyond many far better known and celebrated figures. He was a remarkable athlete who led a remarkable life through one of the most turbulent periods in British history.

Arthur Wharton was the world's first Black professional footballer and 100 yards world record holder. He was probably the first African to play professional cricket in the Yorkshire and Lancashire leagues. But while Arthur was beating the best on the tracks and fields of Britain, the peoples of the continent of his birth were being recast as lesser human beings. The tall Ghanaian irritated many White supremacists because his education and sporting triumphs refuted their theories. In the late Victorian era, when Britain's economic and political power reached its zenith and when the dominant ideas of the age labeled all Blacks as inferior, it was simply not expedient to proclaim the exploits of an African sportsman. This shaped the way Wharton was forgotten.

As his sporting powers waned, so did his fame and earning power. He died a penniless coal-miner, and his grave remained unmarked until 1997. His absence from the histories of football, and to a lesser extent athletics, is being righted.

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