"After reading this book, I am proud to say that I was born in the same town as Wilfred, a man who was skillful enough to have a successful career in professional football, but also knew where his duty lay when called upon."
Graham Taylor OBE, former England National Football Team Manager
"A fascinating story about a remarkable man."
Sir Michael Parkinson, lifelong Barnsley FC supporter
"Well researched and well written" Soccer History
Wilfred Bartrop was a gifted professional footballer who played in the years immediately before the First World War. Highly acclaimed for his speed on the right wing, Bartrop played for Worksop Town, Barnsley and Liverpool, and was an ever-present member of the celebrated ‘Battling Barnsley’ teams of 1910 and 1912. Bartrop was a star signing for Liverpool in 1914, but arrived at the worst possible time – just as Europe was plunged into the horrors of war. After the professional leagues were disbanded, Gunner Bartrop played his part in the ‘greater game’, manning artillery guns on the front line in France and Belgium.
Swifter than the Arrow recounts Wilfred Bartrop’s life, from his background in Victorian Worksop, through success and disappointment on the football field, and onto the bloody battlefields of Flanders. It is an extraordinary true story of triumph, tragedy, scandal, sport and war.
