3. CHEPSTOW: Wales’s First Black Footballer

Lots of us dream of becoming professional footballers. Especially playing for our country. One person who lived that dream was Eddie Parris. In 1931, he became the first Black footballer to represent Wales internationally. But what was professional football like between two world wars?

Scouted as a 17-year-old at Chepstow Town FC, Eddie played as a winger for various English football clubs including Luton, Bournemouth and Gloucester City, before his career took an abrupt pause with the onset of World War 2. 100 years since he played there as a teenager, has his life left a legacy at the local club that launched his football career?

Eddie Parris’s hometown of Chepstow is best known for its Medieval castle, and the old bridge over the River Wye linking Wales and England. But what do residents know about Chepstow’s role in Black Welsh History? Is there a monument to his story?

History Hun (Anouska Lewis) on her trip to Chepstow as she visits the cottage where Eddie Parris was born, explores his life with a historian of Modern Wales, and practises her goalie skills with the next generation of Chepstow football stars.

History Hun is on a mission to prove that no hometown is boring. Because everywhere has a history and history’s never boring!!

She’s spotlighting hidden histories from misjudged places across the UK and supplying you with a few history-hun-facts along the way x

Hometown Boring? is a Mags Creative production for BBC Sounds Audio Lab

Written, produced and presented by Anouska Lewis

Senior Producer – Ryan Nile

Editors – Pulama Kaufman and Ryan Nile

Sound Design – Pulama Kaufman and Ryan Nile

Executive Producers – James Norman Fyfe and Kit Milsom

Theme Music – Kit Milsom

Artwork – Ellie Walmsley

Additional – Amanda Birbara

Commissioning Editor – Khaliq Meer