Remembering Frank Soo: Brentford's first East Asian player | OneFootball

To mark East and South East Asian Heritage Month this September, Brentford celebrates and remembers the club's first-ever East Asian player, Frank Soo.

To commemorate his legacy, we spoke to Soo’s great niece, Jacqui Soo and Alan Lau, founder of the Frank Soo Foundation, to recall his influence in football.

Soo played as a midfielder/winger and later became a manager after retiring from the game. He was born in Derbyshire and raised in Liverpool by his Chinese father and English mother.

According to Jacqui, Soo’s love for football started as a child: “My uncle tells me my great uncle, who was around at the time, was saying he was always playing football at school.

"He worked in the Chinese laundry, which was our family business. He'd play football and was represented at the Liverpool schools. I think he even played in an adult side when he was still a kid.

“I suppose they were a non-traditional family in the way that they said, ‘Go and play football’. His family were so proud of him because he was a superstar at the time.”

From conversations with her relatives, Jacqui also recalls that Soo’s attitude and approach to playing football, he took his craft seriously: “He never drank. He never smoked. He was so fit. He was the only one out of his siblings who didn't smoke. But he was a fanatic. He was way ahead of his time.”

‘We Want Soo’

Soo had a significant spell at Stoke City, where he captained the team. Once the Second World War began, player contracts were cancelled, giving professional players the opportunity to appear as ‘guests’ for other clubs. This was often to where they were based on military service or as part of the war effort.

Extracts from newspapers showed that he was in demand by Brentford. One headline from the Daily Mirror in 1938 said: “'We Want Soo - £5,000 Bid' - In their search for a half back, Brentford have approached Stoke City for his transfer - a deal which would inevitably involve a huge fee. Soo can play on the right or left, as a half back or forward.”

Soo was regularly making headlines. Jacqui recalls being told about this: “Frank was all over the back pages and the front pages of the Daily Mirror at the time.”

This was no doubt due to his call-up for the England squad when he became the first player of Asian descent to play for the country when they played Wales in 1942. He went on to have eight further appearances for England between 1942 and 1945. As this was during the war, he never officially received an England cap for his contribution to the team.

Jacqui says: “You only have to look at the photographs of him. He was absolutely so proud. We're still hugely proud of the fact that Frank represented England.

“Did you see the attendances at the matches he played for England? One of them was 142,000. I think that was at Hampden Park. There was another 136,000 when he played for England. The attendance was enormous.”

His opportunity to play for the Bees came during the 1943/44 season, after guest appearing for Reading during the war. Soo featured in Brentford’s team for two seasons during the Second World War, making 16 appearances in 1943/44 and 10 appearances in 1944/45. In total, he scored three goals and was Brentford’s first-ever East Asian player.

Alan comments: “When he guest appeared for Brentford and for other clubs, when fans found out he was playing on that day, people just piled in to watch because he was an England player. He was a star.”

With Frank’s career coinciding with the war, he also captained the Royal Air Force. Jacqui says: “He was in the RAF. So was his brother, so they represented the country. That ended his international career, actually, doing six years in the service because I think he picked up an injury.”

After a playing career spanning almost 18 years, Soo moved on to coaching, first joining Finnish side Helsingin Palloseura in 1949. He’d go on to manage a number of teams in Scandinavia, including stints with AIK, Ekilstuna and Oddvold. Sadly, Soo would later pass away due to dementia in 1991 in Staffordshire.

More than just ‘The Chinese Player’

Alan Lau, who founded the Frank Soo Foundation in his memory, believes the player has greatly inspired him: “I think it's a story of someone who was a trailblazer, that even our community never knew about. And it's someone that's been forgotten. It's less for me, but I feel [this foundation] is something for the community and for my children.

“It shows someone in our community can do something that they didn't think they could do before because, as an Asian person, football isn't really seen as a viable career.”

Despite being a trailblazer, it is likely that Soo unfortunately experienced racism during his career. An excerpt from the 1933 Sunday Sun suggests Soo was reportedly not all that keen about being referred to as “The Chinese Player”, pointing out that his mother was English, he was born in Buxton, and always lived in England.

Lau says: “I can't answer for him, but imagine if in your whole career when something good was spoken about you, it always came back to being ‘the Chinese guy’ who did that?”

According to the Frank Soo Foundation, the Soo family also believes a highly racist cartoon derailed his England career (though no evidence of this cartoon has been found).

A legacy that lives on

Through the Frank Soo Foundation, Alan and Jacqui are working hard to keep Soo’s legacy alive for his talent on the pitch.

Lau says: “We have three main aims: firstly, to tell Frank’s inspirational story. Secondly, to work with other partners to help build better communities, so that's whether we have another East Asian community centre or with football clubs. And then the third thing is to support anyone from East or South East Asian community in their pursuit in football, whether that's to be a coach, a player or a fan.”

As well as supporting the East and South East Asian community, perhaps one of the biggest achievements of Alan, Jacqui and the Soo family has been getting Soo’s England playing career recognised.

This week, the Foundation announced that the FA will award an honorary cap to the family of Soo and the Frank Soo Foundation at the England v Wales fixture at Wembley Stadium on Thursday 9 October 2025.

The move helps recognise Soo’s contributions, which are important in remembering how he unknowingly paved the way for greater representation in football.