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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Ramaphosa distances himself from dozens of Zuma's key appointments

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 Mawande AmaShabalala

Political journalist
 
28 April 2021 - 19:51
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and Dr Tshepo Motsepe arriving at the state capture inquiry on Wednesday.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and Dr Tshepo Motsepe arriving at the state capture inquiry on Wednesday.
Image: Thapelo Morebudi/The Sunday Times

As deputy president of the ANC and chair of its deployment committee, Cyril Ramaphosa knew nothing about a host of key senior public appointments made under  the Jacob Zuma administration.

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These included appointments to law-enforcement agencies, state-owned companies, boards and as executives. Ramaphosa said this to the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture on Wednesday.

The inquiry sought to understand what role Ramaphosa, as head of deployment, played in the “patronage appointments” of characters, among others, such as Brian Molefe, Matshela Koko, Berning Ntlemeza, Tom Moyane, Dudu Myeni, Dan Mantsha, Siyabonga Gama, Arthur Fraser and Shaun Abrahams, all of whom left with a dark cloud hanging over their heads.

The commission wanted to know how the boards of Prasa, Transnet, Eskom and SAA were appointed during the Zuma years and whether Ramaphosa had a hand in them.

IN FULL | ‘I appear not to make excuses or defend the indefensible’: Ramaphosa at state capture inquiry

President Cyril Ramaphosa made his much-awaited appearance before the state capture inquiry on Wednesday.
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Ramaphosa said he knew nothing about most of the named individuals as the ANC deployment committee never processed them.

“You will find that a number of those never even featured in the deployment committee,” said Ramaphosa. “Let us accept that some of those deployments were done in a particular era, and in a particular way.

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“Right now as we look at that past slate, we are able to say we actually need to do things differently.”

Ramaphosa said it was unfortunate that most of the Zuma appointments “ended up being deployments that were not fit for purpose”.


Click here for the latest news and analysis of the state capture inquiry

“I would not be able to particularise each one of them because they happened as they did but I would say the deployment committee would not have dealt with a whole lot of those.”

Asked if he knew whether Zuma's appointments were made for dubious reasons and were  influenced by outside forces at the time, Ramaphosa said that only came to light later when the manifestation of state capture was as clear as broad daylight for all to see.

“Some of those appointments would have happened in that course of time and one, with hindsight, then became aware that there was a common thread and if you joined the dots you would find that there was something that was amiss that was happening.

“These state capture issues only became evident in time as we moved on. That is why I even referred to the statement by comrade Fikile Mbalula when he mentioned in the NEC meeting how he came to know about his appointment. Even at that time we were not alive that there was state capture ... something horribly wrong [was] going on.” 

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