This week: a pioneering African-American ballet dancer and an England footballer dogged by injury

THE baller dander Arthur Mitchell, who has died aged 84, broke barriers for African-Americans in the 1950s as a dancer with the New York City Ballet.

Born in Harlem, Mitchell started dancing with the New York City Ballet in 1955 under famed choreographer George Balanchine. Balanchine put him in several leading roles, including one pairing him with a white female dancer in Agon in 1957.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Mitchell recalled the daring of that choice.

"Can you imagine the audacity to take an African-American and Diana Adams, the essence and purity of Caucasian dance, and to put them together on the stage?" he said.

In 1968, affected by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, Mitchell started a dance school that grew the next year to include the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Anna Glass, the executive director of the Dance Theatre, said Mitchell was a visionary. "He believed in a world where all people could have access to this beautiful art form," she said. "He really sought to ensure that all people saw themselves in ballet."

Mitchell was born in 1934, and grew up with four siblings. He started formal dance training in high school, and on graduating, took the offer of a ballet scholarship with the School of American Ballet, founded by Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein.

His dancing years also included choreographing his own works, performing on Broadway, and working with dance companies in other countries. The Dance Theatre of Harlem performed internationally and has been artistically acclaimed even as it went through some periods of financial upheaval. He stepped down as director almost a decade ago.

Mitchell had most recently spent time at the company last month, during a two-week residency in which he restaged one of his older ballets to be performed next April as the company marks its 50th anniversary.

THE footballer Kevin Beattie, who has died aged 64, played for most of his career with Ipswich and won nine caps for England, scoring one goal, but many feel that a player of his skill should have had much more success. Bobby Robson once said that Beattie was - with the exception of George Best - the finest footballer player he had ever seen.

Beattie was born in Carlisle into a family that struggled with poverty - they would sometimes go for several days without food - but he showed promise as a footballer and joined Ipswich when he was 18.

He won the FA Cup with the team in 1978 and after missing the UEFA Cup final in 1981 through injury was awarded a winner's medal in 2008 following a petition organised by Rob Finch, the ghostwriter of the player's autobiography.

Always close to his family, he skipped an England Under-23 match against Scotland in Aberdeen to visit his parents in Carlisle, but he went on to receive senior recognition a year later. However, injury was a constant problem for him and he was forced to withdraw several times from England squads.

Beattie also played for Colchester, Middlesbrough and Barnet as well as in Sweden and Norway and after retiring from football worked as a publican. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.