Gilbert Saint Elmo Heron (9 April 1922 – 27 November 2008) was a Jamaican professional footballer. He was the first black player to play for Scottish club Celtic and was the father of poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron.
Career
Born Gilbert Heron in Kingston, Jamaica,[5] to Walter Gilbert Heron and Lucille Gentles, he came from a family of means.[6] He played for St Georges College, a prominent Jamaican high school, and won the Manning Cup and Oliver Shield in 1937 – a statement of island-wide, schoolboy football supremacy. He went on to represent a Caribbean all-star football team and beat Jamaican Olympian Herb McKenley as a schoolboy.[citation needed]
After playing for Chicago Sparta in 1949, he played for Windsor Corinthians in 1950 and was twice selected to all-star teams against the touring England national team. After missing the first match with the Ontario All-Stars on May 24 (on account of a league suspension in Detroit), he recorded an assist for the Essex All-Stars in the June 17 match (albeit a 9–2 loss to England). Both Gil and his brother Lee played for the Essex All-Stars.
He was spotted by a scout from Glasgow club Celtic while the club was on tour in North America and he was signed by the Scottish club in 1951 after being invited over for a trial. Becoming the first black player for Celtic,[5] and one of the first to play professionally in Scotland,[3][8] Heron went on to score on his debut on 18 August 1951 in a League Cup tie against Morton that Celtic won 2–0. Heron only played five first-team matches in all, scoring twice.[9] He was released by the club the next year after making one appearance in the Scottish Football League[10] (having been unable to displace the established John McPhail)[4] and joined Third Lanark, where he played in seven League Cup matches, scoring five goals but did not appear in the League.[11]
Next, he went to English club Kidderminster Harriers, before moving back to North America.
In 1957, he played for Windsor Corinthians and was again selected to Ontario's Essex All-Stars to face a touring English team, Tottenham Hotspur, on 22 May.
Personal life
While in Chicago, Heron met Bobbie Scott, a singer, with whom he had a son in 1949, Gil Scott-Heron, who became a famed poet and musician. They separated when Heron left for Scotland[4][12] and did not meet again until Scott-Heron was 26.[13] Heron had three more children with his wife Margaret Frize (deceased), whom he met while in Glasgow, Scotland: Gayle, Denis[5] and his youngest child Kenneth, who was killed in Detroit.[13] His older brother, Roy Trevor Gilbert Heron, served with the Norwegian Merchant Navy during World War II and then joined the Canadian army,[14] later moving to Canada, where he became active in black Canadian politics.[13]
At Celtic, he earned the nicknames "The Black Arrow"[4][9] and "The Black Flash". While living in Glasgow, he played cricket with leading local clubs such as Poloc.[3][4] He later became a published poet,[13] with one of his works, "The Great Ones", describing leading players from his time playing football in Scotland.
Heron died in Detroit of a heart attack on 27 November 2008, aged 86.[4]
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