ANDREW WATSON, THE FIRST BLACK MAN TO PLAY ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL 

Did you know that Andrew Watson, and not Arthur Wharton, is widely considered to be the first black person to play association football at international level, and also the first black administrator in football?

Andrew Watson was a Scottish footballer who is widely considered to be the first black person to play association football at international level. Arthur Wharton was previously commonly thought to be the first black player, as he was the first black professional footballer to play in the Football League, but Watson's career predated him by over a decade. There is evidence that Watson was paid professionally when at Bootle in 1887, two years prior to Wharton becoming a professional with Rotherham Town; however, the Merseyside club did not play in the Football League at the time Watson played there. Watson played three matches for Scotland between 1881 and 1882.

Andrew Watson was born on 24th of May 1856 to a wealthy Scottish sugar planter, Peter Miller Watson (1805–1869) (the son of James Watson, of Crantit, Orkney, Scotland) and a local British Guianese woman named Hannah Rose. He came to Britain with his father, and his older sister Annetta, and they inherited a substantial amount when their father died in London in 1869.

He was educated at Heath Grammar School in Halifax, West Yorkshire and then from 1871 at King's College School, in Wimbledon, London, where records show he excelled at sports including football. He later studied natural philosophy, mathematics and engineering at the University of Glasgow when he was 19, where his love of football blossomed. He played in the full-back position, on either the right or the left flank.

Author, Tony Onslow writes that Watson was Bootle's star signing and that the club pulled off the biggest coup in Merseyside by signing the Scotland international player. It is not known exactly how much Watson was paid by the Merseyside club, but as their star signing he would have doubtless commanded more than the 26 shillings per week offered to Calderwood, who was similarly a Scotland international player.

After first playing for Maxwell in 1876, Watson signed for local side Parkgrove, where he was additionally their match secretary, making him the first black administrator in football. At Parkgrove he played alongside another black player, Robert Walker. He also took part in athletics competitions, winning the high jump on several occasions.

On 14 February 1880, he was selected to represent Glasgow against Sheffield; Glasgow won 1–0 at Bramall Lane. He was also selected for a tour to Canada in the summer of 1880 which was cancelled after the death of William Dick, secretary of the Scottish Football Association. In April 1880, he also signed for Queen's Park – then Britain's largest football team – and became their secretary in November 1881. He led the team to two consecutive Scottish Cup wins in 1881 and 1882, thus becoming the first black player to win a major competition.

In 1882, he moved to London and became the first black player to play in the English Cup when he turned out for Swifts. In 1883, he was the first foreign player to be invited to join the leading amateur club in England, the Corinthians. His time there included an 8–1 victory against Blackburn Rovers, who were at that time the English Cup holders. He also played for other amateur English clubs, including Pilgrims, Brentwood, and London Caledonians. As one of the 'Scotch Professors' of the age who introduced a more sophisticated and effective passing game into England where individualistic dribbling had previously been used, Watson was described by the founder of the Scottish Football Museum in a 2021 report as "the most influential black footballer of all time. There is nobody that comes close".

The colour of his skin was of no significance to his peers, and there is no specific historical record of racism on the part of the Scottish Football Association, although in an 1885 profile, mention was made of him "On more than one occasion being subjected to vulgar insults by splenetic, ill-tempered players". One match report is more interested in Watson's unusual brown boots rather than the customary black boots of that time. As written in the minutes, before one match where Watson was injured and unable to play, an SFA vice-president said if Watson had been fit he would have happily drugged a fellow Scottish international to give Watson his place. He played his last match for Queen's Park in 1886.

Watson also signed for Merseyside club Bootle in 1887. Bootle offered wages and signing fees to a number of players, and research by Tony Onslow outlined in The Forgotten Rivals. A History of Bootle Football Club indicates that Watson was paid professionally. This means that Watson's professional career would predate the professional career of Arthur Wharton, who was previously considered to be the first black footballer to play professionally.

Watson won three international caps for Scotland. His first cap came against England in London on 12 March 1881, in which he captained the side. Scotland won 6–1, which (as of 2019) is still a record home defeat for England. A few days later, Scotland played Wales and won 5–1, Watson captaining Scotland again.

Watson's last cap came against England in Glasgow on 11 March 1882. This was a 5–1 victory again to Scotland. Watson moved to London in the summer of 1882, which effectively ended his international career as the SFA only picked players based in Scotland at this time. The next non-white person to receive a full international cap for Scotland was Paul Wilson in 1975. The next black person selected to play for Scotland after Andrew Watson was Nigel Quashie in 2004, 120 years later.

Watson left Glasgow University after one year and in 1877 became a partner in Watson, Miller, and Baird, a wholesale warehouse business in Glasgow. In November 1877 he married Jessie Nimmo Armour (1860–1882), the daughter of John Armour, a cabinet-maker. Their son Rupert Andrew was born in 1878, and a daughter Agnes Maude in 1880. Watson moved to London with his family in the summer of 1882 for work reasons. His wife died in the autumn of 1882 and their two children returned to Glasgow to live with their grandparents.

He returned to Glasgow and married for a second time, to Eliza Kate Tyler (1861–1949) in February 1887. She was the daughter of Joseph Tyler, East India merchant. Later that year he moved to Liverpool, where he worked on ships and sat exams to qualify as a marine engineer. Watson and Eliza had two children, a son Henry Tyler in 1888 and a daughter Phyllis Kate in 1891. Through his father he was related to William Ewart Gladstone, who served four terms as British Prime Minister during the late 19th century, and likely also related to the 21st-century English poet Malik Al Nasir through his mother.

Watson retired to London in around 1910 and died of pneumonia at 88 Forest Road, Kew, in 1921. He is buried in Richmond Cemetery. In 1926, the sportswriter "Tityrus" (the pseudonym of J. A. H. Catton, editor of the Athletic News) named Andrew Watson as left-back in his all-time Scotland team. A mural of Watson was painted on the side of a cafe in Shawlands, south Glasgow in 2020, and he also features prominently in the First Hampden Mural at Hampden Bowling Club.

Image: Adeptales

Source:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Watson_(footballer,_born_1856)