Walter Tull
Walter Tull was one of the first black professional
footballers before the Great War. Walter’s father had arrived from Barbados in 1876 and
married a
girl from Folkestone. Walter was serving an apprenticeship as a printer when
he was signed for Tottenham Hotspur.
He played only a few games; in a game at Bristol City in 1909 he was
racially abused by fans in what the Football Star called ‘language lower than
Billingsgate’ He was subsequently
sold to Northampton Town where he flourished under the guidance of legendary
manager Herbert Chapman, making 110 first team appears for
the club.
At the outbreak of war in August 1914 Walter,
then the subject of transfer negotiations between Northampton and Glasgow
Rangers, joined the 1st Football Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. The Army
soon recognised Tull's leadership qualities and he was promoted to the rank of
sergeant. In July 1916, he took part in the major Somme offensive. He survived
this experience, but in December 1916 he developed trench fever and was sent
home to England to recover.
Tull had impressed his senior officers and recommended that he should be
considered for further promotion. When he recovered from his illness, instead of
being sent back to France, he went to the officer training school at Gailes in
Scotland. Despite military regulations forbidding "any negro or person of
colour" being an officer, Tull received his commission in May, 1917.
He was then sent to the
Italian front where he led his men at the Battle of Piave with such distinction
that he was mentioned in dispatches for his "gallantry and coolness"
under fire.
Tull stayed in Italy until 1918 when he was
transferred to France to take part in the attempt to break through the German
lines on the Western Front. On 25th March, 1918, he was ordered to lead his men
on an attack on the German trenches at Favreuil. Soon after leaving the
trenches, Tull was hit by a German bullet. He was such a popular officer that
several of his men made valiant efforts under heavy fire from German
machine-guns to bring him back to the British trenches. He died in No-Man's-Land
soon after being hit - his body was never found. His commanding officer wrote to Walter’s brother, ‘He was popular
throughout the battalion. He was
brave and conscientious. The
battalion and company had lost a faithful officer, and personally I have lost a
friend’.
