Andrew Watson (top centre) with members of the Scottish team that played against England at the first Hampden Park on the 11 March 1882. Scotland played in blue and white hoops and won the match 5-1, watched by around 10,000 spectators.
Born in Georgetown in British Guiana (now Guyana), Watson was the son of a local woman and Peter Miller, a a Scottish engineer. He moved to Govan to work as an engineer and began playing football with local sides before joining Queen's Park in 1880. He played for the club for seventeen years, although he also turned out for clubs in England during this period, presumably while working in the south.
Watson was capped for Scotland three times, and captained the side which beat England in 1881. He is generally recognised as the first black man to play for a senior football team in the UK.
Courtesy of the Scottish Football Museum
Keywords:
black men, footballers, Guyanese, Scotland football teams, Scotland v England, 1882