I HAVE written before about Walter Tull, who was one of Britain’s first black professional footballers and a first world war hero — the first ever black officer to lead white British troops into battle.

He died exactly one hundred years ago this Sunday.

The one thing that has always puzzled me and many others is why Walter Tull has never been as well recognised as his many achievements deserve. Why did he never get the Military Cross he was nominated for twice and clearly so richly deserved? 

Many memorials to Walter Tull have been proposed. Plans for statues outside Tottenham’s new football ground and at the Imperial War Museum have never come to fruition.
 
The only significant memorials that exists a hundred years after his death are in Northampton. The town certainly recognises Tull as one of its favourite sons. 

At Northampton Town Football Club’s Sixfields Stadium, Cobblers fans still pay tribute every year at a memorial to the man who made his home for some years playing for Northampton.
 
Northampton’s first tribute was erected in 1999 and a nearby street named for the hero. Today there is even a beer named after Walter sold at the ground.

The town erected another statue of Tull outside the Guildhall last summer. Richard Austin’s bronze certainly captures the essence of the man. 

A number of events are planned for the anniversary of his death, including a memorial service, an exhibition and a meeting on aspects of the man’s life with a tribute from his biographer Phil Vasili.   

Vasili has discovered new facts about Tull and his military career that throw fresh evidence of outrageous racism from the Colonel Blimps at the War office, which seems to indicate just why Tull has never had the recognition he so richly deserves.

In 2009, Vasili wrote his biography, Walter Tull, Officer, Footballer. Now he has found new evidence that spells out the army’s reluctance to recognise Tull and award him the Military Cross.

Vasili has discovered a top-secret memo sent by General White, the head of recruitment in New York, to the War and Colonial Offices. The memo is dated February 19 1918, just a month before Walter’s death. 

The memo makes it clear that any “woolly-headed niggers” were not wanted for the forthcoming spring offensive. 

“We now refuse to post coloured men to white units,” the memo went on. “These niggers must therefore go to native units if accepted. Can we take them for W Indies or other battalions?”

Even just a few weeks before Tull made the final sacrifice, the racist Army Council was still insisting black people should not be enlisted into British army regiments. Tull’s courage, skills and leadership proved just how wrong they were.

On March 25 1918, Walter Tull was killed near the village of Favreuil in the Pas-de-Calais region, his body was never recovered and he is remembered at the Arras memorial for those who have no known grave. He was just 29. 

Tull was finally featured on a special £5 coin in 2014 to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war.  

His legacy is also kept alive through the Action for Children charity whose forerunners were the National Children’s Home. Orphans Walter and his brother Edward grew up in a similar children’s home. 

Walter Tull’s life started in 1888 in Folkestone. His father, the son of a slave, had arrived from Barbados in 1876 and married a girl from Kent. Walter was only seven when his mother died. His father remarried but died himself just two years later.

His widow was unable to cope with six children and Walter and his brother Edward found themselves in a London orphanage. After a brief time as an apprentice printer Walter turned to his first love, football.

East London amateur club Clapton spotted his talent and young Walter played in their first team in the 1908-09 Season.

With Walter in the forward line, Clapton won several important London Cups. Scouts from Tottenham Hotspur soon spotted and signed the young black player — a brave move when there were virtually no other black players in British football.

Spurs paid Tull a £10 signing fee and £4 per week, but he never got the appearances he thought he deserved. He soon moved to Northampton Town, the Cobblers, in the Southern League.

Just like today, racist abuse from the terraces was alive and well a century ago as this contemporary newspaper report shows.
“A section of the spectators made a cowardly attack upon him in language lower than Billingsgate …” For black footballers it seems things haven’t changed for a hundred years.
 
Early in 1914 Glasgow Rangers made a bid for Tull, but a bigger game was about to kick off. War was declared and Tull was quick to volunteer. He joined the Football Battalion. Promotion came quickly and he was made a sergeant.

In July 1916, at the battle of the Somme, Tull developed trench fever and was sent home to England to recover. When fit again he was sent to an officer training school in Scotland despite military regulations that effectively banned black officers. Tull received his commission in 1917.

Lieutenant Walter Tull, the first black combat officer ever in the British Army, was sent to the Italian front and was mentioned in dispatches for his “gallantry and coolness” under fire.

Tull returned to France in March 1918 and soon organised an attack on the German trenches. Against heavy German machine-gun fire he led his troops over the top. A bullet pieced his skull. Despite efforts by his admiring men his body was never recovered. Walter Tull was just 29.

As in Italy, his men reported his outstanding heroism to their senior officers, but again the Colonel Blimps with their racist prejudice chose to ignore Tull’s heroism.

The campaign to award him the Military Cross continues to this day, but, because his father was from outside Britain, he was not entitled to a military award.

Walter Tull, Britain’s first black professional footballer, first black British combat army officer, is almost entirely hidden from history. 

Now surely, 100 years after his heroic death, it is time the whole country followed the lead of those of us in Northampton and give Water Tull the nationwide recognition he deserves.