Hull’s angel: Clive Sullivan, black pioneer in the social history of sport

Sullivan captained the last British team to win the Rugby League World Cup and scored a remarkable solo try in the final – but more significantly, he was the first ever black captain of any British international sports team. Mick O’Hare tells the remarkable story

‘Only two Welshmen have scored more tries than Clive Sullivan … None of the others, however, had faced so many obstacles in their quest for glory’ (Hull FC)

If he’d played football, he’d probably be an OBE. If he’d played rugby union he’d almost certainly be a CBE. But he played rugby league, which is probably why he only mustered an MBE, the lowest rung on the honours ladder. It’s also worth pointing out that he was black. While Bobby Moore OBE and Martin Johnson CBE are rightly lauded as World Cup-winning captains of their nations, how many people have heard of Clive Sullivan? Perhaps they should have. Not only was he the captain of the last British team to win the Rugby League World Cup and scored a remarkable solo try in the final, even more significantly he was the first black captain of any Great Britain sports team, ever.

And while we have rightly been lauding the transformation of that once-solid adjunct to the apartheid regime, the South African rugby union team who won their World Cup in November led by their first ever black captain Siya Kolisi, Welshman Clive Sullivan became the captain of his national team a full 47 years earlier in what were, it’s fair to say, far less enlightened times.

James ‘Jimmy’ Cumberbatch, professional rugby league player, on a Senior Service cigarette card