Britain has yet to produce an international quality footballer of Asian origin. Of the current generation Michael Chopra and Zesh Rehman both played in the Premier League and for various youth teams for England, but neither won a full England cap. “I don’t think I’ve deserved to have an England cap, so I can’t really be disappointed about that,” Chopra told us exclusively. “I think if you’re going to be an England player, you’ve got to be playing week in week out in the Premiership and I haven’t really been doing that on a regular basis, so I can’t really say I’m disappointed, because I don’t think I’ve deserved it.”

The search continues, but over sixty years ago a British-Asian player pulled on an England shirt and played nine internationals – albeit not considered full internationals due to the Second World War – between 1942 and 1945. Frank Soo played alongside the great Sir Stanley Matthews for Stoke City in England’s First Division – predecessor of the Premier League. He made his debut in 1933, so how imporant a role model was Soo for Asian would be footballers?

“It’s important,” Chopra said. “I personally don’t think that there’s enough Asian players in the game. Don’t know why that is. Thankfully for me I’ve got the Indian side of my background and I know that no matter what I do there’s always going to be Asian kids growing up wanting to be a footballer and the main thing is you’ve got to stick in and keep working hard and then hopefully they will fulfil their dreams.”

Dedication and Talent:

There is no shortage of Asian talent in Britain. No less an authority than Sir Alex Ferguson accepts that the best street players are Asians in Bury, but for some reason this talent does not translate into international quality players. Too many fall by the wayside.

“I know back home at Newcastle where I grew up, I played with mates and some of them were Asian,” Chopra said. “Some of them were good players. They tend to take their foot off the gas and they get led astray a bit instead of just sticking at it, so I think if you’re wanting to be a footballer, doesn’t matter who you are, you’ve got to stick at it.”

What made Chopra special? He was the only Asian at Newcastle United’s academy in the 1990s and achieved several notable firsts for his community that establish him as an important role model, just like Soo. He had talent, but nurture was important as well. “As I was growing up my dad would take me to all the football games – all the Newcastle games, so I don’t know if it’s got something to do with family side or parents,” he said. “Thankfully my mum and dad both liked football and supported Newcastle, so my dad would always be there to take me. I think that could be one of the main reasons.”

Historically football has lost Asian talent to other sports, especially cricket. Chopra is aware of this and sees parental influence as a major cause. “I know you look at most Asians and they tend play cricket, so I don’t know if they’re being brought up in the family to like cricket and things like that,” he said. “I think it depends on what your background is really – whether your mum and dad like football, or whether they like cricket or whether they like rugby sort of thing.”

The Breakthrough:

So when will the breakthrough happen? “I don’t really know,” Chopra said. “It all depends on how good they are really. There could be a player out there now that’s unbelievable, but they haven’t really spotted them, so I can’t really answer that question.” Noel Blake has had plenty of opportunity to observe football on the pitch and the development of young players, so why does he think Asian players have not broken through yet?

“I don’t really have the ultimate answer to that,” Blake told us. “What I do know from personal experience is this; there are Asian generations in my time in England that didn’t want to come to football. That’s a fact, because the culture thing was an issue in certain groups in the seventies and eighties.”

But Blake sees signs of progress. “There was a cultural thing there,” he said. “Then you’ve got third and fourth generation of Asian kids now growing up in England who are more westernised shall we say for want of a better word, so therefore they’re going to be more into sport – into football. Cricket is ultimately the big sport if you are talking in India and Pakistan and Sri Lanka certainly – they were the three major Asian countries, that grew up in England, so now it’s the third and fourth generation.”

You can add Bangladeshis to that mix too, but cricket remains the top attraction for them as well. Football has to compete against it and for many years it didn’t, but Blake sees no reason to panic. “I go round the academies now and I see a number of Asian boys coming up, playing in the academy system,” said Blake. “I’ve seen them. They are there in the academy system. Ultimately, ability and dedication will bring them through, like it has done for all players.”