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

-
Image
  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
Post a Comment

Zaka residents warn of worsening violence in Masvingo (more on my father's attack)

-
Residents in Zaka have warned that there is worsening violence in Masvingo
province, with ZANU PF being blamed for a growing number of attacks and
incidents of intimidation.

Most recently, the ward chairman of the MDC-T in Zaka Central was
hospitalised along with his wife after their home was petrol bombed by
suspected ZANU PF members last week. Nelson Bvudzijena and his wife were
rushed to St. Anthony’s Musiso hospital with reportedly serious injuries.

A resident in Zaka told SW Radio Africa this week that the attack on the
Bvudzijena home followed a confrontation between the ward chairman and a
gang of known ZANU PF thugs. The argument is believed to have been about
Bvudzijena’s loyalties to the MDC, which prompted the ZANU PF members to
threaten him. The thugs are said to have warned Bvudzijena that they “would
come for him at night.” Days later, Bvudzijena’s home was burned down while
was sleeping.

The resident explained that not one of the perpetrators of the arson attack
was arrested, despite the group openly bragging about the incident. The same
group is believed to have assaulted a number of other people in Zaka last
week, and have threatened to repeat the same violence seen in the province
during the 2008 elections.

The resident told SW Radio Africa that people are living in fear, because
the memories of the violence in 2008 are still strong.

“Things are so bad that right now I am looking around to see that no one
hears me. If they heard me talking like this I could be in danger,” the
resident said.

The MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai visited Bvudzijena over the weekend,
during a memorial service held in honour of MDC members who were murdered in
Zaka district at the height of the 2008 election period. Tsvangirai said:
“We need justice to prevail because we are going for a crucial election and
the fear factor has to be dealt with. We are aware ZANU PF is involved in
military actions that are being planned against unarmed civilians.”

“(Robert) Mugabe is a hypocrite because he is only shedding crocodile tears
calling for an end to violence when he is not keen to stop violence,”
Tsvangirai said, adding: “We are tired of being fooled around with by ZANU
PF.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inside Xanadu 2.0: Take a sneak peek into Bill and Melinda Gates’s Washington mansion

-
Image
  LIFESTYLE HOME GARDEN HOME Bill Gates and Melinda’s 27-year-old marriage has come to an end. Picture: Anthony Bolante/Reuters Inside Xanadu 2.0: Take a sneak peek into Bill and Melinda Gates’s Washington mansion By Staff Reporter   May 11, 2021 Questions have been asked as to who is likely to get Bill and Melinda Gates’ 6 100² lakeside mansion in Washington State once their divorce is settled. But it would seem Melinda doesn’t really want it. In a profile in Fortune magazine published in 2008, she said when she arrived in Gates’ life the house caused her to have “a mini sort of personal crisis”. It was partly built when she married Gates in 1994. She described it as “a bachelor’s dream and a bride’s nightmare… with enough software and hi-tech displays to make a newlywed feel as though she were living inside a video game”. So with the help of interior designer Thierry Despont – who has worked on the Palm Court of New York’s Plaza Hotel, and the Ritz in Paris – she helped create a home
Read more

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

-
Image
  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
Read more

Are there any planets outside of our solar system?

-
Image
  Academic rigour, journalistic flair COVID-19 Arts  +  Culture Business  +  Economy Education Environment  +  Energy Health  +  Medicine Politics Science  +  Technology In French Artist illustration of an exoplanet.  dottedhippo/iStock via Getty Images Are there any planets outside of our solar system? July 19, 2021 2.06pm SAST Author Jean-Luc Margot Professor of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles Disclosure statement Jean-Luc Margot receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and philanthropists. Partners University of California  provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US. The Conversation is funded by the National Research Foundation, eight universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the
Read more