Walter Tull

Tull's professional football career began after he was spotted playing for top amateur club Clapton. He had signed for Clapton in October 1908, reportedly never playing in a losing side. By the end of the season he had won winners' medals in the FA Amateur Cup, London County Amateur Cup and the London Senior Cup. In March 1909, the Football Star called him "the catch of the season". At Clapton, he played alongside Clyde Purnell and Charlie Rance. At the age of 21, Tull signed for Football League First Division team Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 1909 after a close-season tour of Argentina and Uruguay, making him the first mixed-heritage professional footballer to play in Latin America. Tull made his debut for Tottenham in September 1909 in the position of inside forward against Sunderland and his home Football League debut against FA Cup-holders, Manchester United, in front of more than 30,000. His excellent form in this opening part of the season promised a great future. Tull made only 10 first-team appearances, scoring twice, before he was dropped to the reserves. This may have been due to the racial abuse he received from opposing fans, particularly at Bristol City, whose supporters used language "lower than Billingsgate", according to a report at the time in the Football Star newspaper. The match report of the game away to Bristol City in October 1909 by Football Star reporter, "DD", was headlined "Football and the Colour Prejudice", possibly the first time racial…

Walter Daniel John Tull was born in Folkestone, Kent, the son of Barbadian carpenter Daniel Tull and Kent-born Alice Elizabeth Palmer. His paternal grandfather was a slave in Barbados. His maternal English grandmother was from Kent. He began his education at North Board School, now Mundella Primary School, Folkestone. In 1895, when Tull was seven, his mother died of cancer. A year later, his father married Alice's cousin, Clara Palmer. She gave birth to a daughter, Miriam, on 11 September 1897. Three months later, Daniel died from heart disease. The stepmother was unable to cope with five children, so the resident minister of Folkestone's Grace Hill Wesleyan Chapel recommended that the two boys of school age, Walter and Edward, should be sent to an orphanage. From the age of nine, Tull was brought up in the Methodist Children's Home and Orphanage (now known as Action for Children) in Bethnal Green, London. Edward was adopted by the Warnock family of Glasgow, becoming Edward Tull-Warnock; he qualified as a dentist, the first mixed-heritage person to practise this profession in the United Kingdom.

Clapton FA Amateur Cup: 1908 London County Amateur Cup: 1908 London Senior Cup: 1908

In the history of mixed-heritage footballers in Britain, Tull may be mentioned alongside: Robert Walker of Third Lanark; Andrew Watson, an amateur who is credited as the earliest black international football player, winning his first cap for Scotland in 1881; Arthur Wharton, a goalkeeper for several clubs, including Darlington, and who became the first mixed-heritage professional in 1889; John Walker of Hearts and Lincoln, who died aged 22; the Anglo-Indian Cother brothers, Edwin and John, who began their careers at Watford in 1898, and Willie Clarke, who played for Aston Villa and Bradford City in the Edwardian era. From around 2006, campaigners including the then Northampton South MP, Brian Binley, and Phil Vasili, who has researched Tull since the early 1990s, called for a statue to be erected in his honour at Dover and for him to be posthumously awarded the Military Cross. However, as the Military Cross was not authorised to be awarded posthumously until 1979, and the change did not include any provision for retrospective awards, this would not be possible without a change in the rules. The campaigners felt this would be justified given that the army broke the rules. Tull's commission, at a time when the army was desperately short of officers was also due to his natural leadership, coolness and respect of his unit's officers and men. If he had been recommended for a Military Cross, his status as an officer of non-European descent might have meant to award him the honour…