Tull, Octagon Theatre, Bolton

Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football. Show Racism the Red Card. Say No to Racism. Such are today’s campaign messages.  And then there’s the headline: “Colour Prejudice Problem” in a London newspaper.  However, the latter is dated September 1909, perhaps the first time that racism in football (and other sports) was headline news. So, the issue has been around for more than a century in this country and the player who brought it to light was Walter Tull. This is his story.

Tull, grandson of a Barbadian slave, was born in 1888 of mixed parentage, his father marrying a local white girl in Folkestone. His parents died when he was nine and he was sent to an orphanage in Bethnal Green. He turned out to be a first-rate footballer and became the first black outfield player to make it in the old First Division. He played for Tottenham Hotspur, but endured racial abuse, week in week out, and was dropped. He was “rescued” by the great Herbert Chapman, then manager of Northampton Town (and later of Arsenal), playing more than 100 times for the club. Then came the First World War and he broke new ground again.

Like a football match, it’s a game of two halves: the first to the brink of war, the second in wartime

In 1914, he enlisted in the Footballers’ Battalion (Middlesex Regiment) – and, in due course, became the first black infantry officer in the British Army. He served with distinction in Italy and in the trenches in France, before losing his life in the Battle of the Somme in 1918, aged 29. He was recommended for the Military Cross for his outstanding bravery and leadership, but somehow he never got the medal. Was that also due to colour prejudice?

His biographer, Phil Vasili, has long championed Tull’s cause and linked up with David Thacker, who comes from Northampton, before he became Artistic Director at the Bolton Octagon. So, bringing this remarkable, challenging and relevant story to the stage at last has been something of a mission.

Thacker opts for a minimalist workshop treatment, using eight versatile actors in casual dress, without furniture or props. They play football matches without a ball, fight battles without weapons (but lots of gunfire and explosives), mount mass suffragette campaigns with just two women. It’s a creditable, non-stop ensemble effort, which faithfully (perhaps too faithfully) sketches in Tull’s life chronologically from boyhood to death in battle. This does give it a forward drive, but in trying to pack so much in, it tends to become diffuse and lose focus. And at nearly three hours, it is overlong.

Like a football match, it’s a game of two halves: the first to the brink of war, the second in wartime. Walter, upright and dutiful, falls for a feisty, anti-war, white girl campaigning for women’s votes and doing time in Holloway for her trouble. This gives rise to rather too much politicking, drawing attention away from the main story. And drawing a parallel between the awful experience in the trenches and being force-fed in jail is a dubious juxtaposition. Nathan Ives-Moiba makes a notable debut as Tull, showing exceptional stamina (he enacts several football matches solo) and sensitivity.

Now, there’s a move to put the disgrace of that unawarded medal right. In addition to Vasili’s consistent efforts,  Michael Morpurgo, of War Horse fame, has chipped in with his recent novel, A Medal for Leroy, based on Tull’s experience.

• Tull at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton until 16 March