England’s first Tamil footballer Vimal Yoganathan aims to inspire

When Vimal Yoganathan first approached the Barnsley pitch directly, club bosses knew they had discovered a unique skill.

The 18-year-old is praised for his speed, mentality and his ability to play with either foot, but that’s not the only thing that sets him apart.

Vimal is the first Tamil footballer to play professionally in England, one of the few players of South Asian origin signed in the top four leagues.

“Being a role model will be a big part of being a footballer,” he says. “I hope I can do it and inspire the younger players, especially the Tamil ones.”

Vimal’s fans come from Sri Lanka and the midfielder grew up in Trelawnyd, a small town in North Wales.

He says that when he was a child he didn’t have many friends from a homogeneous background and that from time to time “it was a little difficult.”

He tells BBC Asian Community that when his crowd was welcomed across the country, “there weren’t people you could 100% identify with in terms of fitting into a predominantly white area.”

It wasn’t long before he was scouted by his boyhood club Liverpool and signed for their academy the week he was eight years old.

He went straight to consolidate the Barnsley under-16 team and rose through the ranks there.

In August, he Scored his first senior goals for the League One club and before that year he made his debut for the Welsh under-19 team, acting as a substitute during a clash against Belgium.

At 6ft 3in (191cm), it wasn’t just his height that got Vimal on his feet at Barnsley, as did the club’s academy director, Bobby Hassell, but it certainly helped.

“He arrived when he was 15, he was a very tall, lanky and skinny boy; honestly, he didn’t look like a footballer at all,” he says.

“It was his aggressiveness that really stood out to all the coaches.

“It’s not normal to find 15-year-olds coming in and tackling like he did.”

As of 2023, there were only 22 professional players of South Asian descent aged 17 or over in England’s top four leagues.

With around 5,000 professional footballers in the UK, that represents around 1% of players.

Although it is still small, those figures, from the Professional Footballers Association (PFA)registered an increase of 29% compared to the previous season, when there were only 17.

“Every time I went straight to an academic tone, I was the only brown participant and clearly the only Tamil participant,” Vimal says.

“It was practically commonplace for me, but that has to change.”

In 2021, the PFA launched its Asian Inclusion Mentoring Program (AIMS), which has so far supported Vimal in his career.

“It shows me how many brown players there are in this sport,” he says.

“And he has grown up with the same intelligence: his appearance is perfect.”

Vimal avoids the word “pioneer” when people talk about what he has already achieved, as well as what is yet to come.

Football is his main priority, he says. Being a role model “should come naturally.”

But one word Barnsley sporting director Mladen Sormaz uses to describe Vimal is “humble”.

“There aren’t a lot of position fads,” he says.

“But I think this is the week we start using visual icons.”

He sees a bright future for Vimal and says he was “given all the equipment to become a supremacy-level professional.”

“All he wants now is the road and a little bit of success.”

Mladen remembers his own childhood, where gradually the number of British Asian children coming together to have fun decreased as he grew older.

He believes players like Vimal could help them stay in the game.

“It is simply about having models positioned in the market, that the visible network does it well,” he says.

“With a little luck, Vimal will probably be one of them.

“As a representative, you have shown that you are very interested in taking on that role on behalf of the community.”

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