New light has been shed on the incredible life of Britain's first black professional footballer after his great-granddaughter discovered a long-lost box of memorabilia.
In a Mail Online website story written by Dan Bloom states, the son of a wealthy missionary, Arthur Wharton arrived in Cannock, Staffordshire, in the early 1880s as a teenage immigrant from Gold Coast, now Ghana, and his talents did not go unnoticed for long.
He ran the first 10-second 100 yard dash and played for Rotherham Town and Sheffield United - before spending 20 years down a South Yorkshire coal mine and dying a pauper.
Wharton's tale has been revived after his great-granddaughter Dorothy Rooney discovered a long-lost box of photographs and documents relating to his extraordinary career - including his personal bible.
She took them to share with an event run by the BBC show Antiques Roadshow, where they will appear this Sunday.
Rooney said: 'My mother and I found some old photos (of Arthur) and traced him back. We have actually been to Ghana and met family members, and they didn’t know of Arthur.
'He was a Victorian sporting hero.'
The 6ft teenager was sent to Britain in the 1880s to train as a Christian missionary, but soon took up athletics, winning the Amateur Athletic Association national championships two years in a row.
After hanging up his running shoes Mr Wharton went on to become an accomplished goalkeeper.
During his amateur days, which included a debut for Preston North End in the FA Cup, he became known for punching the ball as far as the halfway line and catching the ball with his legs while swinging on the crossbar.
Then, in 1889, he made history by signing professional terms for Rotherham Town and playing in the Football League.
The move made him the first black full-time paid footballer in the history of Britain, and quite possibly the history of the world.
He later joined Sheffield United and played in the First Division, which is now the Premier League.
The trailblazer played some 80 years before the likes of Bermuda-born Clyde Best played for West Ham United.
His career did not stop there. Mr Wharton also became a professional cricketer, being recognized as a great all-round sportsman.
He was the token professional player for local Yorkshire Greasbrough, but in 1914 he turned down a cricket coaching role at Durham to work as a miner.
He spent 20 years down a coal mine in South Yorkshire and died a pauper aged 65 in 1930, having spent all his earnings from professional sport.
Howard Holmes, of the Football Unites, Racism Divides campaign which installed a headstone on Wharton's grave, went with his great-granddaughter to the event.
'You think of black footballers in England and you think of Clyde Best and Laurie Cunningham,' he said. 'But Arthur was 70 or 80 years before their time.
'That is why his story is so important because it shows there was a black presence in English football right at the very start of the professional game.
'But Arthur’s was a real riches-to-rags story. He would have been quite well-paid when he was a goalkeeper but after that he had to earn a living as a miner.
'He did that in an overwhelming white community in Yorkshire.
'Can you imagine some of the multi-millionaire Premier League footballers of today having to do that?'
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