Pioneering Scouse footballer Frank Soo who became the first non-white player to represent England is being celebrated on Google’s UK homepage to raise awareness of his inspiring legacy.
May 9 marks the anniversary of Soo’s first (wartime) England appearance in a 1-0 defeat to Wales at Cardiff’s Ninian Park in 1942.
The wing-half played in nine wartime internationals for The Three Lions and remains the only player of mixed English and Chinese heritage to represent the senior England side at football.
Although born in Buxton in Derbyshire on March 8, 1914, Soo, the son of a Liverpool-based Chinese sailor father, Our Quong-Soo, who had married Englishwoman Beatrice Whittam, grew up in Town Row, West Derby, in between Liverpool’s Melwood training complex and Everton’s former training ground Bellefield.
Starting his career as an inside-left with Prescot Cables, Soo spent the majority of his professional career at Stoke City, captaining a side containing Stanley Matthews, and making 185 appearances.
After finishing his playing days at Luton Town, Soo went on to have an extensive coaching career mostly in Scandinavia, which included taking charge of the Norway national team at the 1952 Olympic Games.
He died aged 76 in Cheadle on January 25, 1991 and proved to be a trailblazer for the likes of Liverpool-born former Everton player Tyias Browning, an England Under-21 international, who now plays for Guangzhou Evergrande in China, the nation where his grandfather was born.
- For more details click here for The Frank Soo Foundation.
