Walter Tull

... second player to, to, to play for the club.

And, you know, what is, is difficult to comprehend is that, uh, Walter Tull was the first, and that was some, I think 60 years, um...

I do know the facts, but I'm, but I'm trying to remember.

Something like s- some 60 years before me.

The old club became one of the great names of English amateur football, won the FA Amateur Cup five times, and played at The Old Spotted Dog during an era where amateur football could attract enormous crowds.

Walter Tull played there for Clapton as an amateur in 1908 before joining Tottenham Hotspur the following year.

He became one of England's first Black professional footballers, and later the first Black British Army officer known to have led white troops in combat.

He was killed in France during the First World War.

That is Clapton FC history, not a retroactive achievement of a club founded in 2018.

CCFC are unusually direct about that.

When members later named the walkway behind the ground Walter Tull Way, the club explicitly explained that Tull never played for Clapton Community.

They were honoring the history attached to the place.

But it is important that that the next generation, so the generation after us and after, that they understand the history that played.

So as we said, like Bobby Buckle, Walter Tull, the Walter Tull story is incredible.

And I want fans to know about Walter Tull.

I want them to learn about what a leader he was in the war, what the leader he was for black rights in the UK.

And so for me, these murals, will educate the next generation of Tottenham fans as well.