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The amazing life of a goalkeeper with superhuman speed was lost for so long – but Arthur Wharton deserves recognition
He was born into conflict, as his country – then known as the Gold Coast, now Ghana – fought back against its British oppressors. Wharton was one of the lucky ones, able to flee to London, with the intention of becoming a missionary.
In some ways, he never stopped running. He flitted from one football club to the next as a young man but Wharton’s journey started at Darlington. He was a keen sportsman who’d equalled the amateur world record of 10 seconds for the 100-yard sprint, though curiously, he was most often used in goal, despite his lightning speed. He could play on the wing but would rather guard a net, showing incredible speed to close down attackers and supreme punching ability.
Sports Life and Race Issues
Arthur Wharton (28 October 1865 – 12 December 1930) was a Gold Coast born Fante & British football player. He is widely considered to be the first black professional footballer in the world. His mother was Annie Florence Egyriba, a member of Fante royalty.
Arthur “Kwame” Wharton was born in Jamestown, Ghana in 1865.
In 1883, he moved to England to train as a missionary at Cleveland College, Darlington. It was there he began his amazing sporting career, competing as a ‘gentleman amateur’, but soon abandoning this in favour of becoming a full-time athlete.
Arthur became the first official fastest man when he ran a record time of 10 seconds dead in the 100 yards (now meters) on the 3rd of July 1886 at Stamford Bridge, London. His World Record would stand for over 30 years.
Arthur went on to become the world’s first black professional footballer.
He also later became a cycling champion, professional cricketer, and a rugby player.
Arthur’s achievements in the face of adversity, his contribution to the communities he lived in, and the scale of his successes make him a unique figurehead.
He tackled issues in his lifetime that are still very relevant today.
To equate Wharton to a modern-day equivalent is difficult. Imagine a custodian with Manuel Neuer’s presence, just as fast as Theo Walcott. Now factor in that according to accounts, Wharton could jump, grab his crossbar, and catch a ball between his legs. It certainly puts Rene Higuita’s scorpion kick to shame.
The famous Preston North End were said to be perplexed by him when they played against him. They offered him an opportunity to join their team and it was there that Wharton became part of the legendary side that managed an unbeaten league season in the 1880s, becoming the original ‘Invincibles’. After that, Rotherham Town were impressed enough to give him a shot, making him the first black professional in the game.
This was an alien era of football; one where the rules that we argue about in pubs today were yet to fully crystallise. Wharton’s exploits came between stints as a professional cricket player – playing multiple sports wasn’t uncommon back then – and he even beat the record for cycling the quickest time between Preston and Blackburn.
Imagine your club’s goalkeeper doing that. The past, they say, is another country; Wharton’s era was as foreign to us as he may have seemed to his teammates.
This was a man who played football as daringly as anyone before him or after. Opinion towards immigrants in the Victorian era was unkind, to say the very least. The mountain that Wharton had to walk up to prove his worth as a sportsman was steeper than many, if not all, of his peers.
He became the understudy to William “Fatty” Foulke, another goalkeeper-come-cricketer, who became a legendary Victorian figure. He later coached Herbert Chapman, the pioneering manager who became the father of the modern game. He was an Invincible at Preston North End.
A legacy for generations
In 2011, the English FA invited his granddaughter, Sheila Leeson, as a guest of honour for England’s friendly against Ghana. The FA had plenty to thank Leeson for, too – Wharton’s story was kept alive from her family photos. She helped to uncover one of the great stories of sporting history and now it’s immortalised in British footballing folklore.
Today, Wharton has his gravestone. He is also the subject of a beautiful 16-foot statue at St. George’s Park, depicting him leaping to touch a shot over a crossbar. Chronologically, he is the first footballer recognised in the English Football Hall of Fame. It’s the least that he deserves.
One of the Arthur Wharton foundation’s patrons is Sheila Leeson, Wharton’s granddaughter.
In October 2012, she travelled with the foundation to Ghana, where two teams competed for the Arthur Wharton Memorial Cup. The group met Wharton’s Ghanaian descendants and went to his former school, Mfantsipim – the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, is another alumnus.
But it isn’t just football that has remembered Wharton’s achievements.
In 2013, Campbell presented a statue to Lamine Diack, external, president of the IAAF, at the Anniversary Games at London’s Olympic Stadium. Wharton was also commemorated at England Athletics’ Hall of Fame awards that year.
But it’s the National Football Centre where Wharton will – in the words of St George’s Park chairman David Sheepshanks – “educate and inspire a new generation of coaches and players from all backgrounds”. The erection of the statue will be accompanied by an educational package, supplied by FURD.
