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

Zimbabwean authorities order NGO to close its doors

-

 

28 April 2021 - 18:31BY LENIN NDEBELE AND JOHN NCUBE
Connect, a family therapy and counselling training organisation in Manicaland, was told to close. Stock photo.
Connect, a family therapy and counselling training organisation in Manicaland, was told to close. Stock photo.
Image: 123RF/antstang

Zimbabwean authorities have ordered a non-governmental organisation to shut shop, resurfacing fears that the state is targeting NGOs it believes are pushing a political agenda.

ADVERTISEMENT

Connect, a family therapy and counselling training organisation based in the Mutasa district in Manicaland, was told to close its doors.

Government authorities in Manicaland delivered a letter to the organisation on Monday to inform them that their operations should be stopped.

“You are required to stop operations with immediate effect,” read part of the letter.

‘We’re watching you’: Zim’s Mnangagwa guns for ‘hostile’ NGOs

It’s the foreign-funded organisations that are believed to be spreading false anti-Zanu-PF narratives
AFRICA
6 months ago

Sarudzai Samungure, the ‎community services officer for the Mutasa Rural District Council, who wrote the letter, said the local authority suspended Connect's operations after a meeting with the organisation on March 19.

It was not immediately clear what Connect had done for its operations to be suspended in the Mutasa district. Samungure emphasised in her letter that Connect’s “co-operation in this matter will highly be appreciated”.

ADVERTISEMENT

This comes a day after the state-controlled Herald newspaper published a story saying that “dubious NGOs” were “at it again”, accusing them of “selling diplomats false tales to attract funding”.

Connect is the first NGO to be banned by Zimbabwean authorities this year. The last was the Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development Trust (COTRAD) from Masvingo, in March 2019.

COTRAD’s ban was set aside by justice Loice Matanda-Moyo, who served as a high court judge at the time after Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights filed an urgent application challenging the district administrator’s decision to outlaw the NGO’s operations.

TimesLIVE reported in October 2020 that Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa vowed to deregister any NGO suspected of plotting to overthrow his government, and said the state was spying on “people of interest”.

NGO bans hark back to the Mugabe era. He would ban NGOs ahead of elections, making it difficult for the outside world to provide humanitarian assistance or monitor polls.

In 2008, at the height of Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis, the government outlawed food aid agencies. The ban was reversed in 2009 after Mugabe was forced to form a coalition government with the late Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC T.

TimesLIVE

MORE

Zimbabwe’s biggest bank begins voluntary job cuts

Group CEO Blessing Mudavanhu and chief human resources officer Nyasha Mutsai said most of the bank's work had transitioned to digital platforms and ...
NEWS
2 days ago

Dead children reveal the explosive truth about landmines in Zim

Thousands of landmines laid during Zimbabwe’s war of liberation in the 1970s are still killing civilians
AFRICA
3 days ago

Ailing MDC Alliance legislator hauled from hospital back to prison

During their first week behind bars a snake was spotted dangling from the roof of their cell.
NEWS
5 days ago

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise?

-
Image
  There are a lot of people, but the oceans are very big.   Rosley Majid/EyeEm via Getty Images If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise? March 29, 2021 2.07pm SAST Author Tony E. Wong Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology Disclosure statement Tony E. Wong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners Rochester Institute of Technology  provides funding as a member 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 Universities of the Witwatersrand and Wester...
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, Johannesb...
Read more