When the game of soccer started back in the mid-1800s, it didn’t take long for the game to spread. In many aspects of life at the time, black people were focused on attaining the civil rights that had been denied them. Still, for 3 black people, their destiny was to help break the soccer color barrier. Andrew Watson, Robert Walker, and Arthur Wharton did just that in the late-1800s.
Andrew Watson is considered to be the world’s first black player to play soccer at an international level. According to Ged O’Brien of the Scottish Football Museum, Watson—born in Guyana but who moved to England as a child—began his career with Maxwell FC in Scotland, moving to Parkgrove in 1874 when he was 18.