Frank Soo
Frank Soo was an English professional football player and manager of mixed Chinese and English parentage. He was the first player of Chinese origin to play in the English Football League, and the first player of an ethnic minority background to represent England, though in unofficial wartime matches.
He initially began his career at inside-left, though later became more established at half-back. A quick and intelligent player, he was an excellent passer of the ball. He grew up in Liverpool and began his playing career with Prescot Cables before he joined Stoke City for a £400 fee in January 1933. He made his first-team debut in November 1933 and became established in the first-team by the 1935–36 season. He lost most of his best playing years to World War II, leaving him only able to serve in the Royal Air Force and play for Stoke and England in unofficial wartime games, as well as guest for numerous other clubs. He was sold on to Leicester City for a fee of £4,600 in September 1945 and then moved on to Luton Town 10 months later for £5,000. He joined Chelmsford City of the Southern League in May 1948 and retired as a player after two seasons.
A stern task master, he began to coach for European clubs in the 1950s and early 1960s. He briefly coached Finnish club Helsingin Palloseura in 1949 before taking charge at Isthmian League side St Albans City for the 1950–51 season. He was appointed manager of the Italian Serie A club Padova in April 1951 but left the club 11 months later following the sudden death of his wife. He then coached Norway at the 1952 Summer Olympics, then led Eskilstuna to promotion out of the Swedish Division 3 Östra in 1952–53. He briefly managed Örebro before he coached Djurgården to the Allsvenskan title in 1954–55. He then returned to lower league football with Oddevold, securing promotion out of Division 3 Nordvästra Götaland in 1955–56. He coached at AIK in 1958 before returning to England to manage Scunthorpe United in June 1959. He took Scunthorpe to 15th in the Second Division in the 1959–60 season before he resigned in May 1960. From there, he struggled to find work, spending short periods in charge at Frigg, IFK Stockholm, Fredrikstad, and Akademisk Boldklub.
Personal life
Frank Soo was born in Buxton, Derbyshire on 8 March 1914, and brought up in Liverpool. His parents, a Liverpool-based Chinese sailor father, Our Quong-Soo, and an English mother, Beatrice Whittam, had married in Chorlton, Manchester in 1908. The couple had moved to the village of Fairfield to open a laundry, as was commonly done by Chinese emigrants in England at the time, before eventually moving premises to West Derby, Liverpool around 1920. He had an elder brother, Norman, and several younger siblings: Phyllis, Ronald, Jack, Harold and Kenneth. His brother, Ronald, was killed on 14 January 1944 while serving as an air gunner in No. 166 Squadron.Soo married hairdressing salon proprietor Beryl Freda Lunt in Stoke-on-Trent on 12 June 1938. The couple honeymooned in Bournemouth. Freda, as she was known, was a keen autograph hunter and had initially introduced herself to Soo to ask for his signature. The couple separated in 1951, and Freda died as a result of a barbiturate overdose on 10 March 1952; it was not known whether her death was intentional or accidental.
Playing career
Stoke City
Soo played for Norwood, West Derby and West Derby Boys' Club and was scouted by both Everton and Liverpool without ever being signed by either club. He instead began his senior career with Cheshire League side Prescot Cables in late 1932, whilst working as an office clerk. He was quickly signed by Stoke City for a £400 fee on 25 January 1933, after being spotted by the club's scouts. Tom Mather handed Soo his debut at the expense of Harry Ware after picking him to play inside-left against Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park on 4 November 1933, making him the first player of Chinese descent to play in the Football League; the match ended in a 6–1 defeat. Despite the heavy defeat, he was praised as Stoke's stand-out performer. He kept his place for the 1–0 defeat to Manchester City at the Victoria Ground seven days later. He made a third appearance in a loss to Arsenal at Highbury, before being dropped for six matches. He scored his first goal in professional football on 3 January 1934, as Stoke beat Bradford Park Avenue 3–0 in the third round of the FA Cup, and then scored again as Stoke defeated Blackpool by the same scoreline in the following round 24 days later. He scored his first league goal for the "Potters" on 29 January, concluding the scoring in a 3–0 victory over Huddersfield Town. He made a total of 16 appearances during the 1933–34 season, scoring three goals, as Stoke posted a 12th-place finish in the First Division.Soo featured mainly for the Reserves during the 1934–35 campaign, as the forward line of Harry Davies, Joe Johnson, Bobby Liddle, Stanley Matthews and Tommy Sale proved to be highly effective, scoring 60 of the club's 71 league goals on the way to a tenth-place finish. He failed to make a first-team appearance between September and 9 March, only returning to the side following a run of three consecutive defeats. He broke his leg during 1935–36 pre-season training, but made a speedy recovery to feature in a 2–0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield on 18 September. He found himself a first-team regular under new manager Bob McGrory, who utilised him as a left-sided half-back in the place of ageing veteran Harry Sellars. Playing alongside Arthur Turner and Arthur Tutin, Soo would be a part of one of the club's great half-back lines. He played a total of 40 matches that season, helping Stoke to a fourth-place finish, the highest in the club's history.
Stoke were inconsistent across the 1936–37 season, recording a 10–3 victory over West Bromwich Albion in the middle of a run of eight defeats in 11 league fixtures. Soo made 31 appearances, as City finished in tenth place. Soo scored four goals from 45 appearances during the 1937–38 campaign and played at centre-forward on two occasions in November due to injuries to Freddie Steele and James Westland. However, Stoke struggled again, falling to 17th-place in the league and being knocked out of the FA Cup by Bradford Park Avenue. Soo succeeded Turner as acting club captain in March 1938 and was formally named as captain in the summer.
In October 1938, Stoke rejected a bid from Brentford of £5,000 for Soo. Stoke recovered from a poor start to the 1938–39 season to finish in seventh-place, with Soo scoring three goals from 44 appearances, sometimes being asked to play out of position due to injuries to other players. His name was put forward in numerous newspapers for selection in the England team, with the Daily Express stating that "Soo, of Stoke, is one of the finest halves in the game, and it would be no less than he was worth if they put him in". However, he lost the chance to represent England due to the outbreak of World War II, which had also caused Stoke City to cancel their planned 1939 summer tour of Germany and Poland, and then led the Football League to cancel the 1939–40 season after just three matches. Before the league was suspended, Soo's midfield partnership with Turner and Tutin – with Matthews and Steele in attack – had made Stoke one of the favourites for that season's league title.
World War II
Soo initially found work in the engineering department of the Michelin tyre company in Stoke-on-Trent, which allowed him to play wartime matches for Stoke City. Throughout the war he played at full-back, right half-back, left-half-back and inside-left, filling in as need be as team-mates would be unavailable for selection due to service or work commitments. He also appeared for Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Chelsea, Reading, Brentford, Port Vale, Crewe Alexandra, Millwall, and Burnley, and played nine times for the England national football team between 1942 and 1945, the first non-white person ever to play for the national team and the only person of East Asian descent to date. He also played for several FA representative teams not officially described as "England". He played mainly for Stoke City however, scoring three goals in 28 appearances in the 1939–40 season as Stoke won the War League West Regional Championship. He then scored four goals from 18 matches in 1940–41.He was called up to the Royal Air Force on 28 July 1941 and spent most of his time in the RAF working in the technical training of aircrews. As time went on, he was based further away from Stoke and became unable to play for the club; he scored three goals from 12 appearances in 1941–42 and four goals from 13 matches in 1942–43, before he was stripped of the captaincy. He played just two games for Stoke in 1943–44 and scored three goals from eight games in 1944–45. In April 1945, Soo submitted a transfer request after growing tensions between himself and McGrory due to his lack of availability and his frustrations at being played out of position by McGrory, who also had a similarly tense relationship with star player Stanley Matthews.