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

Joke of the day

German scientists dug 50 meters down in the underground and discovered small pieces of copper. After studying these pieces for a long time, Germany announced that the ancient Germans 25,000 years ago had a nation-wide telephone network.
The Russian government was not that easily impressed. They ordered their own scientists to dig even deeper. 100 meters down they found small pieces o...f glass. They soon announced that 35,000 years ago, the ancient Russians already had a nationwide fibre net.
American scientists were outraged. They dug 200 meters down in the underground, but found absolutely nothing. They happily concluded that the ancient Americans 55,000 years ago had cellular telephones.

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