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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Ace Magashule, South Africa’s next president?

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"Ace’s next step is to exploit a flaw in South Africa’s Big Party electoral system."
Richard Poplak

 
 — 

THE LEAD

Ace Magashule, South Africa’s next president?

By Marianne Thamm

There is magical thinking in polite South African society that ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule’s political demise is imminent. In the real world, Ace is in the strongest position to wield the final, killing blow. He is perhaps the greatest threat democratic South Africa has ever faced.

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

If you’re the gambling type, where do you place your bets?

On President Cyril Ramaphosa, the staid, plodding, committee-obsessed, consensus-forward technocrat? On the legal system, bound as it is by the constraints imposed by rule of law and mauled by the Years of Zuma? Or on Ace Magashule, former warlord of the Free State, current secretary-general of the ANC, de facto leader of the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) movement, and a man with a current tally of 21 charges of corruption and fraud hanging over his head?

As the roulette wheel spins into oblivion, the outcome will be determined by the following zero-sum logic: if Ace loses, he and his supporters will be locked out of patronage networks, their families disgraced and likely impoverished, their links to the ANC’s power brokers severed. Ace himself, and many more, will serve a considerable sentence, and will be too old to emerge from prison as a warrior waging righteous warfare against White Monopoly Capital.

If Ace loses, he loses everything.

But what happens if Ace wins?

Well, if he wins, and if he’s able to wrest control of the ANC from Ramaphosa’s disparate and harried faction, he wins it all.

Mainstream media practitioners and high-end commentators are mostly unwilling to consider such an outcome. It’s hard to blame them. But over the course of the past several weeks, beginning with former president Jacob Zuma’s nose-thumbing at his constitutional obligation to appear before the Zondo Commission, the forces against the Ramaphosa presidency have 3D printed themselves into a remarkably coherent mob. The Economic Freedom Fighters’ Julius Malema, who moonlights as kingmaker within the ANC, paid a visit of support to Zuma at his Nkandla residence, travelling by helicopter to engage in the sort of DF Malanesque bosberaad that most South Africans probably thought went out of fashion with apartheid.

We now know, without question, that the Radical Economic Transformers have assembled an expeditious bloc of slavering loot-monsters. And that their surest passage to survival/victory depends on the secretary-general taking up residence in Mahlamba Ndlopfu.

They’re so close they can taste the breath mints in the presidential courtesy bowl.

Click here to read the full article

 
 
 

 

Ace’s gambit could spoil ANC’s game

By Ferial Haffajee

As the ANC NEC meets this weekend, and ahead of its secretary-general Ace Magashule’s second court appearance next week, will the step-aside rule be on the agenda? Magashule’s legal opinions look stronger than the recommendations of the party’s integrity committee, and he’s playing a crafty hand.

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

Never mind stepping aside from his role as secretary-general, Ace Magashule could make a run for the position of ANC president if the party holds its national elective conference next year.

Reports are increasingly surfacing suggesting this may happen – like one in City Press last weekend – while his local cadres in the Free State also tout the possibility.

Magashule is unlikely to step down from his role voluntarily, even though the party’s integrity commission has recommended that the national executive committee (NEC) make him do so. Instead, he has lawyered up, using the constitutional right to a guarantee of being innocent until proven guilty in court as a key pillar of his defence. Magashule has commissioned at least three legal opinions to bolster his position. Although the topic may be raised at this weekend’s NEC meeting, the draft guidelines developed by the party to govern the step-aside process are not nearly as strong as his three opinions.

He is scheduled for a second court appearance on 19 February on fraud and corruption charges, so he is building a campaign of political support instead of going meekly into the dock.

It’s not difficult to win an ANC presidency – you need lots of money, as President Cyril Ramaphosa showed when he blasted over R500-million on a high-profile and glitzy party primary in 2017 to become its president. That has set a precedent suggesting Magashule can now do the same. He has deep pockets after terms as Free State premier: he was cut into all deals, as Pieter-Louis Myburgh showed in his book, Gangster State.

Click here for the full story.

 
 
 

Down your device and reignite the weekend reading ritual by picking up a copy of Daily Maverick 168 from one of these Pick n Pay stores. 

 

 

DM168 FEATURE

South Africa ready to roll out Covid-19 vaccines

By Estelle Ellis

Despite news that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine may not be efficacious against the new coronavirus variant, South Africa’s vaccination programme is about to begin.

 
 
 

Valentine’s Day Desserts That Aren’t a Box of Chocolates

Sponsored Content by Milky Lane

True romantics know that a homemade Valentine’s Day dinner is just as lovey-dovey, if not more so, than spending the night out. But a special main course calls for an equally special dessert. Chocolate is the go-to dessert on Valentine's Day, but you could be one of the countless people who don't do normal on Valentine's Day. If you're not too keen on buying chocolates for the umpteenth Valentine's Day in a row, these non-traditional desserts are a sweet alternative:

 

This Week's 168

 

2020 hasn’t been a year of wins. Not for our health, not for our safety and not for our economy. But the recent arrest of eight suspects in connection with the theft of R2,7-billion at VBS Mutual Bank could, maybe, make 2020 a win for justice.

These arrests are a result of the impact of investigative journalism. For almost two years Pauli van Wyk followed the story, exposing those linked to the looting, and who are still being investigated.

But we know that there is still much more work to do and more corruption to be exposed. We also know where to look. Help us conduct these investigations by becoming a Maverick Insider.

 

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