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

POLITICS Cele doesn't want to spill the tea after Zuma meeting, but daughter Dudu provides the snacks

   

18 February 2021 - 14:45
Former president Jacob Zuma met police minister Bheki Cele in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, on Thursday.
Former president Jacob Zuma met police minister Bheki Cele in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, on Thursday.
Image: Supplied

Police minister Bheki Cele had a three-hour-long meeting with former president Jacob Zuma at his Nkandla home in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday. 

After the meeting, Cele got into his police vehicle and ignored dozens of members of the media camped outside the entrance to Zuma's guarded homestead. 

Cele's spokesperson Lirandzu Themba told TimesLIVE that she wasn't present at the meeting and was therefore not privy to the discussions between Zuma and Cele. 

The agenda for the meeting was not disclosed, but it comes as Zuma faces the prospect of jail time over his defiance of a Constitutional Court order to appear before the commission of inquiry into state capture, which has been widely reported on in recent weeks.

However, shortly after the departure of Cele's convoy, Zuma's daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla took to social media, saying that the visit featured no tea, just “great conversation and laughs”.

She added that there was much mirth around Cele being the one to execute a warrant of arrest for her father, should it be executed.

When Cele arrived at the compound shortly before 11am, he was met by an unwelcome reception of Umkhonto we Sizwe military veterans, who stopped his entourage in their tracks after they attempted to enter Zuma's homestead.

Cele's bodyguards were able to come to an agreement with the vets, who had previously vowed to lay down their lives for Zuma.

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