England and China's forgotten footballer

Frank Soo. [Photo/Provided to China Daily]

Chinese soccer fans have had the opportunity to watch their countrymen play at the highest level of the English game only a handful of times in recent history. So it may come as a surprise that one of the league's greatest players of the mid-20 century was of Chinese heritage.

Mysteriously pushed to the margins of British soccer history, Frank Soo was a household name in the 1930s, when he captained Stoke City in the First Division, which was then the elite league, and earned nine caps as an England international during wartime fixtures between 1942 and 1945.

Described in an archive copy of the Evening Telegraph as a "brilliant player and the idol of the crowd at Stoke", Soo was named in former England caretaker manager Joe Mercer's all-time 11.

Why Soo, who also captained the Royal Air Force team, is all but forgotten today is a question that bothers writer Susan Gardiner. The British author spent more than a year interviewing family members and sifting through archive newspapers to piece together her biography The Wanderer: The Story of Frank Soo, which will be released on Nov 14.

Gardiner told China Daily that fans regarded Soo as a working class hero.

Born in 1914 in Derbyshire to Chinese immigrant Quan Soo and his English wife Beatrice, he played alleyway soccer before making a mark on the local scene and joining Stoke as an 18-year-old.

At 1.7 meters, Soo was a great talent, with unrivalled ball control and a pinpoint cross. In his national newspaper column, prolific goal-scorer Dixie Dean named Soo as one of the country's most promising young talents.

Soo was a celebrity in the UK－his wedding made the front page of the Daily Mirror.

His decision to manage outside the country may have gone some way to cool interest in him. However, Soo himself said that his ethnicity may have also held him back from reaching his full potential.