About Fitba Research Club 2023: Andrew Watson’s Legacies
Inspired by the story of the world’s first Black international footballer, Fitba Research Club: Andrew Watson’s Legacies celebrates the rich history of sporting achievement by people of colour in Scotland.
The project brings together a team of young community curators aged 18-25 from under-represented and minoritised communities across Glasgow. Working with curators, facilitators and other experts, the team is exploring the National Library’s collections and helping the Library highlight the forgotten, hidden and untold footballing histories to be found there, producing new interpretative materials and responses.
Our project is inspired by the career of Andrew Watson, Scotland’s – and the world’s – first Black international footballer. In 1881 Watson captained Scotland against England in London. Scotland won the match 6-1, a result which is still England’s record home defeat. But Watson’s life was even more fascinating than this suggests. You can find out more about Watson here.
Fitba Research Club has been developed by curators at the National Library of Scotland and Malik Al Nasir, Director of Yesternight Productions, consultant co-curator on the project, and an ancestral cousin of Andrew Watson. Mr Al Nasir is a writer and a researcher at Cambridge University: his investigations into his family’s links to the transatlantic slave trade won the vice chancellor’s prestigious award for Global Impact. You can read more about Malik’s discovery of his link to Andrew Watson and to both enslaved Africans in Guyana and their enslavers here.
The project is also being supported by the Scottish F.A., the Scottish Football Museum, and Show Racism the Red Card.
Fitba Research Club is based at the National Library of Scotland’s Glasgow home in Kelvin Hall. Kelvin Hall is home to the National Library’s Moving Image Archive, Glasgow Life’s excellent sporting facilities, and the University of Glasgow.
CONTACT US / FIND OUT MORE
To find out more about the project, please get in touch at fitba@nls.uk.
A media/press pack with further details can be found here.
Image: Scotland’s 6-1 victory over England at the Oval, London, courtesy the Scottish Football Museum. This is the first time the team wore the ‘Rosebery’ colours of primrose and pink hoops (the horse racing colours of Lord Rosebery). Watson was selected as captain and is pictured sitting in the middle of the group.
