Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

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  By Andrew Aloia BBC Sport Last updated on 11 October 2021 11 October 2021 . From the section Football Watson was a trailblazer who helped transform how football was played There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. And yet today, 100 years on from his death aged 64, Watson remains something of an enigma, the picture built around him a fractured one. His grainy, faded, sepia image evokes many differen...

Mugabe is in Singapore - sources




October 28 2011 at 12:56am

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has flown secretly to Singapore
for medical treatment for the eighth time this year, government sources
said, heightening concern over the health of the 87-year-old leader.

As he approaches his 32nd year in power, observers say political factions
within his Zanu-PF party are jockeying increasingly openly to succeed him as
party leader, amid increasing expectations of political instability in the
southern African country.

The sources, who asked not to be named, said Mugabe and his wife, Grace,
flew from Harare on Monday to Johannesburg where they caught a Singapore
Airlines flight to Singapore. They said he was expected to return on Sunday.

His spokesmen have declined to comment. Western diplomatic sources who have
recently seen Mugabe say he appears increasingly fail.

While the official version is that Mugabe has been to Singapore for a
cataract operation and subsequent check-ups, there are rumours that he has
prostate cancer that has spread.

The government sources also reported that Mugabe had been shaken by the
killing last week of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Mugabe has repeatedly
condemned Nato support for anti-Gaddafi forces.

Political analysts say Zanu-PF faces an uncertain future as the coalition
government works slowly towards a new constitution and elections within the
next two years.

Opinion surveys rate Zanu-PF way behind the party led by Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe's main political rival, with whom he had been
forced into a power-sharing deal. - Sapa-dpa

Comments

  1. Our President has grown up now, truly he deserves time to rest and advice. Let not these western come and disturb him.Akura mdara wedu.

    ReplyDelete

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