Gil Heron

Template:Short description Template:Use Jamaican English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Not to be confused with Template:Infobox football biography 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,<ref name="boston">Frank Dell'Apa, "Giles Heron: Played for Celtic, father of musician", Boston Globe (4 December 2008). Retrieved 2 June 2011.</ref> to Walter Gilbert Heron and Lucille Gentles, he came from a family of means.<ref>"Heroes Remember: Roy Heron"Template:Dead link Veterans Affairs Canada. Retrieved 2 June 2011.</ref> 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.Template:Citation needed

He moved to Canada as a youth and was later enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. As well as being a track athlete and a boxer, he played football and broke through during his stay there. A centre forward, he signed for Detroit Corinthians and the champion Detroit Wolverines, where he was top goalscorer in the 1946 season of the North American Soccer Football League.<ref>David A. Litterer, "The Year in Soccer: 1946" Template:Webarchive North America Soccer List (29 March 2005). 2 June 2011</ref> He then played for the Chicago Maroons in 1947.<ref name=bunk/>

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,<ref name="boston" /> and one of the first to play professionally in Scotland,<ref name=race/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref name="tel-obit">Roddy Forsyth, "Celtic's first black player, Gil Heron, dies", The Telegraph (30 November 2008). Retrieved 2 June 2011.</ref> He was released by the club the next year after making one appearance in the Scottish Football League<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (having been unable to displace the established John McPhail)<ref name=guardianobit/> and joined Third Lanark, where he played in seven League Cup matches, scoring five goals but did not appear in the League.<ref>Gil Heron, Scottish League (5 July 2005). Retrieved 2 June 2011.</ref>

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<ref name=guardianobit/><ref>Alec Wilkinson, "New York is Killing Me", The New Yorker (9 August 2010). Retrieved 2 June 2011.</ref> and did not meet again until Scott-Heron was 26.<ref name="richmond">Norman Otis Richmond, "Gil Heron, 81, father of Gil Scott-Heron, joins the ancestors" Celtic graves (Republished 19 January 2011). Retrieved 2 June 2011</ref> Heron had three more children with his wife Margaret Frize (deceased), whom he met while in Glasgow, Scotland: Gayle, Denis<ref name="boston" /> and his youngest child Kenneth, who was killed in Detroit.<ref name="richmond" /> His older brother, Roy Trevor Gilbert Heron, served with the Norwegian Merchant Navy during World War II and then joined the Canadian army,<ref>Roy Trevor Gilbert Heron Template:Webarchive The Memory Project. Retrieved 2 June 2011.</ref> later moving to Canada, where he became active in black Canadian politics.<ref name="richmond" />

At Celtic, he earned the nicknames "The Black Arrow"<ref name=guardianobit/><ref name="tel-obit" /> and "The Black Flash". While living in Glasgow, he played cricket with leading local clubs such as Poloc.<ref name=race/><ref name=guardianobit/> He later became a published poet,<ref name="richmond" /> 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.<ref name=guardianobit>Template:Cite news</ref>

External links

• Giles Heron, The Celtic Wiki. Retrieved 2 June 2011
• http://www.jaweb2.com/jaalumni/stgc/fball3.html
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/caribbean/news/story/2009/01/090108_heron.shtml