Rugby League in England - Rugby League and Race

Rugby League and Race

Rugby league has had a tradition of being inclusive and for some notable firsts in terms of black participation. Professional black players first took to the professional rugby league pitch prior to the first world war.

George Bennet became the first black player to play for Great Britain while it was another 44 years before Viv Anderson became the first black footballer to play association football for England.

Clive Sullivan became the first black captain of the Great Britain team in 1972, 21 years before Paul Ince became the first black captain of England's soccer team.

Roy Francis was the first black coach of a leading club, almost half a century before the top flight of English soccer would have a black British manager, a milestone also achieved by Ince (on 22 June 2008).

Ellery Hanley earned the distinction of being the first black coach of any British national sporting team when he took charge of Great Britain in the home Ashes series of 1994.

In 1997 the Rugby Football League launched a thirteen-point action plan aimed at tackling racism and encouraging the development of rugby league in Asian and black communities. Despite the sport being popular in West Yorkshire and the North West, which both have large South Asian communities, the sport has little following amongst South Asian communities. The British Asian Rugby Association (BARA) was set up in 2004 to encouraging participation in rugby among British Asians.