“I feel like Paul’s story is lost in history, I don’t think there is enough out there about him. We need to tell it. His story can be an inspiration for so many.”
Alice Dearing is relieved to know she is not alone.
The 27-year-old became Team GB’s first female black swimmer and race in the women’s 10km open water event at Tokyo 2020. However, she was not the first black British swimmer altogether.
That distinction belongs to Kevin Burns, an English freestyler who competed in the 1976 Montreal Games. And then, four years later, he was followed by Scottish backstroke star Paul Marshall.
Marshall’s story is largely unknown but it is powerful, sad and inspiring – especially to Dearing, who followed in both Burns and Marshall's footsteps and competed on sport’s biggest stage.
Marshall and Dearing have an immediate connection. Marshall's father was born in Ghana, the same west African nation as Dearing’s mother.
But at 23 in Tokyo, Dearing was a veteran in comparison to Marshall, who earned selection to the 1980 Games as a teenager, raced in the 100m backstroke and helped Team GB to the final of the men’s 4x100m relay.
Marshall swam in the semi-finals of the relay event but watched from the sidelines as Duncan Goodhew, Gary Abraham, David Lowe and Martin Smith won bronze in the final, behind Australia and USSR.
However, swimming was just one part of Marshall’s varied life and his career in radio, the Armed Forces and his attempts at numerous world records that resonated as much as his success in the pool.
He was the son of a Dundee girl and a doctor from Ghana but was adopted by Philip and Ida Marshall when just three weeks old and they, along with his PE teachers, were the driving force behind his swimming career. Having looked after him since he was a baby, they always encouraged him to swim, ignoring the stereotype that is still hard to shake 50 years on.
Dearing, who is the lead ambassador for the Black Swimming Association, a charity launched to encourage more black people to swim, said: "Black people can't swim, they are too heavy, and it's not a sport for us.
“That was the notion. Black people’s bones are too dense, we sink when we’re in water and it’s something that has been repeated for decades.
“Now we are in a position where a lot of black people don’t swim or don’t know how to do 25 metres. That’s in 2020. I can’t imagine what it was like in the 70s when Kevin and Paul were doing it. The fact they were is pretty amazing.”
Marshall was quick to disprove that theory. He competed at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton aged just 17 and broke the Scottish 100m backstroke record. His own record.
After the Moscow Games, Marshall became a travel reporter with Radio Tay in Dundee and was on the airwaves for 12 months before he joined the RAF, where he served for more than 20 years and reached the rank of Squadron Leader. Paul's final posting was as at RAF Leuchars, near his original home town of Dundee.
Later in life, he started a marketing company with his wife, Gina, and became a management consultant but sport was always where his heart belonged. He attempted to break world records, participating in attempts at the most consecutive rugby passes, the longest continuous 100m relay and the largest human flag.
In June 2007, he was diagnosed with metastatic bowel cancer but he did not let it slow him down, marrying fiancé Gina a year later.
However, his condition worsened and he died in 2009, aged just 48, leaving behind his wife and sons Cameron and Ross from his first marriage, as well as Brodie – who was born two months after his death.
“What Paul did was really cool. He is one of just two black people to swim for GB at the Olympics,” Dearing added.
“Growing up, I didn’t know much about him and that is a shame because it would have been such a source of inspiration for me. I was aware that there was a black swimmer at the Olympics but I didn’t know who or what they competed in.
“I hope his story can help inspire others. Hopefully, if I get there next summer, both will help open the floodgates and people will see how doable it is and change perceptions.”
Forty years on from Marshall’s Moscow moment, his legacy is just beginning.
With thanks to Team GB’s official university partner The University of Hull for their research work which has supported the Black History Month series on TeamGB.com.
Sportsbeat 2024