I have recently been accused by no less than the BBC of what amounts to lack of originality. That esteemed organisation has it that the content of this web-site is freely available elsewhere. Available in part it might now be but not necessarily at the time of writing over the last nine years and in English. Moreover, I doubt that anyone from the Beeb in London or Glasgow has personally stood beside the grave of Tom Scott in Jundiai in Brazil,  never mind that of John Harley in Montevideo, Uruguay or on what was Chile's first cancho de futbol in Valparaiso or worked out who the Ballantynes of Venezuela were. And that is just one continent. But hey-ho that's the way it seems to go in a Britain just now, where the forensic is derided and the slap-dash, well, literally applauded.

However, in the case of this piece I am willing to admit that actually it is little more than a pulling together of what for me at least are known knowns but for a reason. It is a personal marking and in some ways a celebration of the contribution of Black players, the "Gentlemen of Colour" in question, to the World's game yet even here I think I can claim some quiet skin in the game of discovery, if only by association.    

But on to the facts, augmentation of which I invite. The first Black, international and probably professional footballer was Andrew Watson. With a father born in Easter Ross, as such he first played in 1881, by then as a club-player with Queen's Park, for Scotland, also captaining the national team that year. And he also probably had been just a few seasons earlier the first or at worst joint-first Black footballer of any note, after joining the Glasgow team, Maxwell, in 1875, perhaps even 1874. There he was to play alongside Louis Baretto, born in Bombay, an Indian mariner, who by 1881 had sailed on to London yet must be considered as another contender. And from there Watson was to move on before Queen's Park to another Glasgow club, Parkgrove, where he joined Robert Walker, the third contender, who from 1875 had previously played for Third Lanark. In fact Walker had won a runners-up medal with the 3rds in the 1876 Scottish Cup Final. Moreover, the young Watson was very much a "gentleman", at least in  in the English sense. He had money. At twenty-one he had inherited a fortune from his father, albeit one that was in part based on slavery. The probable grandson of an African slave, his family on both sides owned slaves, paid off with the passing of the Slave Emancipation Act. Then as now life was more complex than perhaps it should be.

And, as it happens, by pure coincidence the first "gentlemen of colour", and the source of the title to this piece, to play soccer in the United States were also surnamed Watson, if unrelated as far as we know. They were the brothers, Oliver and Frederick, Allie and Fred, whose backgrounds and playing careers from 1894 are, with no need of contribution from me, comprehensively covered by two eminent, American soccer-historians, Ed Farnsworth and Brian Bunk. Read their excellent article by clicking on "The Watson Brothers" to the right.

Robert Walker

Andrew Watson

Andrew Watson (My original research from 2015)

The Watson Brothers

Black Players for other European National Teams

Vahap Oezaltay

Eddie Parris

Arthur Wharton

John Walker

Willie Clarke

Walter Tull

Miguel do Carmo

Miguel do Camo (My original research from 2015)

Francisco Carregal

Francisco Carregal (My original research from 2015)

Arthur Friedenreich

Juan Delgado

Isabelino Gradin

Jose Leandro Andrade

Delgado and Gradin (My original research from 2015)

Now, of where and when in Continental Europe Black players first took the field I have no idea. There is, however, an excellent list of those who went on to represent those countries at national level, which again can be accessed above and to the right. And the next on that list after Andrew Watson is in 1927; a Beirut-born Turk of African heritage by the name of Vahap Oezaltay, who was also Turkey's first professional player and the first to ply his trade abroad. He twice played in France, both stints with Paris's Racing Club.

Notable too in that same list is that of the Home Countries Wales was the next after Scotland to have a Black man in its team, Eddie Parris in 1931. England, in the form of Viv Anderson, would take another thirty-seven years. But to be fair that is not to say that there were not Black players in England. Arthur Wharton played as amateur goalkeeper, probably there read shamateur, for Darlington in 1885, moving on to Preston North End and becoming openly professional in 1889 with Rotherham. Although, just as an aside Wharton is said actually to have been by today's criteria a Scot; in terms of his forebears Scots-African and a Scots-Afro-Caribbean on the respective sides.

Following Arthur Wharton the next Black players of note in England were once more Scots. First there was  John Walker, Leith-born, who played for Leith Primrose, Hearts and in 1899-1900 for Lincoln. That was before death back in Scotland from the scourge of tuberculosis at just twenty-four. His father was West Indian.  Then there was Willie Clarke, Mauchline-born, his mother African, who also started with 3rd Lanark, won a Scotland junior cap and made almost two hundred appearances as a winger for teams South of the Border between 1900 and 1911, notably with Bradford City.

And Clarke would be followed by Walter Tull. Andrew Watson had been born in Demerara, now a part of Guyana, Wharton in Ghana, on the Gold Coast in Jamestown, now part of Accra. Tull on the other hand was born in Folkstone. He played as a half-back before the Great War, mainly for Northampton under Herbert Chapman, who knew a player when he saw one,, and it was that War that also took his life. He died, an infantry Lieutenant, in France in 1918. 

But England or the English-speaking World more generally, is not the centre of the universe. Football was being played elsewhere by immigrants and now natives alike. Football went to Brazil in 1894 and quite probably in three places almost simultaneously. In the city of Sao Paulo it was through the efforts of grandson of Ayrshire, Charles Miller. In Rio de Janeiro, or rather in Bangu just outside that city, it was through Tommy Donohoe, grandson of Ireland and son of Busby, Renfrewshire. And in upper Sao Paulo State it was through Glaswegian, Tom Scott. And whilst the game in Sao Paulo and Rio respectively would by 1909 bring through Arthur Friedenreich, with his German father and Black Brazilian mother, and by 1905 the half-Portuguese, half Black Brazilian, Francisco Carregal, it was probably up-state Sao Paulo that can lay claim to Brazil's first "Pele".  1900  saw the foundation very much under impulse from Tom Scot of the doyen of Brazilian football clubs, Ponte Preta Athletic Association. Its Treasurer, with every indication that he was also an on-field team member, was the man of colour, Miguel do Carmo. It means his would be the double accolade of being both Brazil's first Black player and administrator. But who would know if I hadn't researched and translated the story. Certainly not the BBC.

Which leads us finally to Uruguay. In the first South American Championship held in Argentina in 1916 the all-white, Chilean team accused Uruguay of playing "Africans".  The claim was made because of the inclusion of Juan Delgado and Isabelino Gradin. The former was a half-back of mixed race again with a Scots connection. He was in the Uruguayan national team the heir to John Harley, the Cathcart-born Scot, who from Scottish attacking centre-half, is credited with giving Uruguay the unique style of football that would take it to victory in two of the first four World Cup's, two of which it did not take part in. I'll leave you to do the maths. And whilst, at the time he did not at club level play for Harley's Penarol, he had taken on, in both senses, the Glaswegian's legacy. As for Gradin, he was the Uruguayan-born grandson of African slaves, who did play for Penarol, brought to the club as an eighteen year-old by Harley, and must be regarded as one of the great, World footballing talents of his time, albeit a World completely disrupted by a war in Europe that did not touch the South Americans.

And it is Gradin, who is the link in the chain to our last "gentleman of colour" and ptr-Pele, with Andrew Watson, perhaps the joint greatest of them all. Jose Leandro Andrade was also Uruguayan, said to be the son of an escaped, Brazilian slave.  Born in 1901 and brought up, like Gradin, in the Palermo barrio of Montevideo he first made his mark in his home-country in 1921, played international football for seven years, won two Olympic medals, one in 1924 and 1928, and the 1930 World Cup. In fact there is a very good if not irrefutable case for saying that Andrade was, with our own Alex Jackson and Austria's Matthias Sindelar, quite simply one of the three great forwards of his time. But then perhaps the BBC, based on its "extensive" research might disagree.