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Professional footballer, record-breaking sprinter, champion cyclist, club cricketer: to suggest Arthur Wharton could play a bit is to tell only a fraction of an incredible story.

That story, which starts in in 1865 and appears to end in a pauper's grave near Doncaster in 1930, was lost for over 60 years but is now finally being given the attention it deserves.

I say "appears to end" because a more appropriate final chapter to Wharton's life is currently being written, thanks, in large part, to the efforts of two people: Darlington businessman Shaun Campbell and Rotherham grandmother Sheila Leeson.

This pair will be part of a Wembley ceremony before to celebrate Wharton's legacy as the first black professional in world football. And with this being the first senior match between England and its former colony, it is difficult to think of a more suitable occasion to mark the achievements of a true pioneer.

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Picture the scene: it is 1978 and Britain's best skiers, their coaches and assorted well-wishers, were assembling for the most important date in the calendar, the British National Ski Championships in .

Imagine the embarrassment: the British ambassador to France was on his way to dish out the prizes but the national federation had no money to stage the races.

Enter the benefactor: , in town on his annual skiing holiday, gets wind of the impending crisis, digs into the pockets of his salopettes and pulls out the Β£3,000 (more than Β£13,000 in ) needed to stage the races.

Plus ca change: Ritblat, now Sir John and , is getting ready for , the 33rd in a row he has supported financially, morally and vocally.

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Fifteen years ago, on one of my first forays as a journalistic hunter-gatherer, I arrived at to see a pair of smouldering jeans being bundled out of a changing-room window. Hang on a minute, I thought, if they are setting fire to trousers we should have sent Kate Adie.

I need not have worried, my strides were safe. What I had witnessed was an almost everyday occurrence, exacting revenge for a prank he probably had coming.

A few years before, David Hudson had been part of this madness as the club's second reserve goalkeeper, the craziest position at England's craziest club. One of the highlights of his three years with the Dons was a pre-season tour of Sierra Leone. The recently-crowned stayed in army camps and played in front of 60,000 fans. After one game their bus was stoned by angry locals.

I would argue these formative experiences make Hudson, now an insolvency expert, the ideal candidate for his new job, joint liquidator at football's new Crazy Gang, .

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