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
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A Country in Danger of war again.

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DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi -- besieged in his Kinshasa home by heavily armed security forces -- swore a makeshift presidential oath on Friday as police battled in the streets outside with his rock-throwing supporters.
President Joseph Kabila was officially inaugurated on December 20 to a new term as head of the vast central African state, after winning a disputed November 28 election that Tshisekedi derided as fraudulent.
Kabila's inauguration earlier this week was held at a heavily guarded compound near the banks of the Congo River, and was attended by only one foreign head of state, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe warned that the region would resist any attempts to undermine Kabila's regime.
"We are one with them (Congolese) as they cele­brate the victory and his party and having won, and won thunderously against Tshisekedi. He has won a democratic election,” the Zimbabwean leader said.
"This must send a clear message to those who had other ideas. Any attempt to under­mine that democratic Government will be resisted by Africa, SADC and Zimbabwe which has been a partner to the Congolese people."
But a spokesman for Tshisekedi confirmed the oppostion leader had taken the oath of office on Friday.
"We consider (Tshisekedi has) been sworn in," said Remy Masamba, a spokesman for Tshisekedi's UDPS party. "I am sure that shortly he will communicate how the institutions will work and how the country will be run."
A top Kabila adviser called the move a "political farce" and said Tshisekedi could face charges.
"Anyone who makes pantomime politics and declares himself president will have to face the law of the land. We will not tolerate someone disturbing the peace and thinking his dreams are reality," Congo's ambassador to London, Kikaya Bin Karubi, told Reuters by telephone.
Tshisekedi had been seeking to hold the rival inauguration at a Kinshasa stadium, but security forces blocked the area around his house and also deployed tanks and the Republican Guard to the stadium.
Outside the stadium, hundreds of Tshisekedi supporters in small groups threw rocks at security forces before being pushed into backstreets by teargas. Police arrested dozens of people in street battles but there was no sign of serious injuries, a Reuters witness said.

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