![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Arthur-Wharton.jpg\" "\\"Arthur")
<\/a>Arthur Wharton<\/p><\/div>\n
“[He] was the first black professional in England but how long they had to wait until the first black man was in the English national team, this is practically a 100 years later.”<\/p>\n
The footballer has already been officially recognised at Wembley by the Football Association, which also donated \u00a320,000 towards a statue of him in Darlington.<\/p>\n
Wharton moved from Africa’s Gold Coast, now Ghana, to the north-east of England in 1884, aged 19.<\/p>\n
He intended to train as a Methodist preacher at Cleveland College, Darlington, but was also a keen sportsman.<\/p>\n
In 1886 he became the Amateur Athletics Association national 100 yards champion, the first “northerner” to win the trophy.<\/p>\n
‘Minds and hearts’<\/p>\n
A year later he set a record time for cycling between Preston and Blackburn.<\/p>\n
His sporting prowess was spotted by Darlington Football Club, where he became a goalkeeper between 1885 and 1888 and England’s first black professional footballer.<\/p>\n
Arthur Wharton was a goalkeeper for Darlington Football Club between 1885 and 1888<\/p>\n
He later played for Preston North End, Stockport County and Sheffield United.<\/p>\n
Local businessman and Darlington FC supporter Shaun Campbell has been campaigning for acknowledgement for Wharton for more than five years.<\/p>\n
He believes his recognition by football’s world governing body is a “fantastic testament to the legacy of Arthur” and the “many people who followed after him”.<\/p>\n
“Acknowledgement from those people, the collective embracing of Arthur Wharton, is indeed very, very empowering,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It firmly places Arthur in the minds and the hearts of the footballing world.<\/p>\n
“This is not a local thing – he’s now got international recognition.”<\/p>\n
BBC Sport<\/em><\/p>\n Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A statuette of Arthur Wharton, who began his career in Darlington, is to be displayed in the presidents’ lounge at Fifa headquarters in Zurich. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[824,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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