Name Wally McArthur | Role Rugby league | |
 | ||
Died August 28, 2015, Findon, South Australia, Australia | ||
Wally McArthur (1 December 1933 – 28 August 2015) was an Aboriginal Australian rugby league footballer and track and field athlete. In 2008, the centenary of rugby league in Australia, he was named in the Aboriginal Australian rugby league team of the Century. Details of his life and career have been subject to controversy.
McArthur was born in 1933 in Borroloola, Northern Territory. According to rugby league historian Sean Fagan, McArthur moved to Adelaide in the early 1950s, and became a noted short-distance runner. McArthur was also interested in playing Australian Rules Football, but was denied this because of a "colour bar". Fagan and Australian journalist John Pilger have claimed that McArthur was not selected for the Australian track team at the 1952 Summer Olympics because of racial discrimination, but this has been disputed.
McArthur played in the South Australian Rugby League and Western Australia Rugby League before moving to England to play a total of 165 games with Rochdale Hornets, Blackpool Borough, Salford and Workington Town.