Andrew Clark Donaldson (8 November 1886 – 14 June 1980) was a Scottish

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as an inside left. His clubs included

Motherwell Motherwell ( sco, Mitherwall, gd, Tobar na Màthar) is a town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Historically in the parish of Dalziel and part of Lanarks ...

Airdrieonians Airdrieonians Football Club is a Scottish professional football team in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, who are members of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) and play in Scottish League One. They were formed in 2002 as Airdrie United ...

(three spells, making 337

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km south ...

and

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

and Third Lanark.

Career

Donaldson's father died when he was an infant – his mother remarried and at the time of the 1891 census he was known as Andrew Colquhoun. Soon afterwards his mother also died and his stepfather moved away; he and his brothers reverted to their original surname and were raised by their maternal grandparents in

. He began his football career in the juniors at

Ashfield Ashfield may refer to: People * Ashfield (surname) Places Australia * Ashfield, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Municipality of Ashfield, a former local government area in Sydney ** Electoral district of Ashfield, a former electoral dist ...

, and in March 1906 scored twice for Scotland Juniors against Ireland in March 1906; he was also capped against England a few weeks later. Donaldson played regularly in the top division of Scottish football for 14 seasons, but never won a major trophy nor took part in a final – however, Airdrie won the minor

Lanarkshire Cup The Lanarkshire Cup was an annual competition open to football teams in the Lanarkshire area. The competition is now defunct. List of winners 1879–80 - Stonelaw 1880–81 - Thistle 1881–82 - Hamilton Academical 1882–83 - West Benhar 1883� ...

six times while he was with the club, and he is known to have been involved in the 1914 victory but likely to have played in most if not all of the other finals. In January 1915 he scored four goals for Airdrie in a 5–0 league victory over

Rangers A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

, albeit this was during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

when the SFL continued but wartime commitments and restrictions often affected the matches. He later worked as a trainer and scout at Motherwell, including during the club's most successful period in the early 1930s1931/32 Squad Photo
MotherWELLnet and then worked as a groundsman until he was 83.

References

1886 births 1980 deaths Footballers from North Lanarkshire Scottish footballers Airdrieonians F.C. (1878) players Ashfield F.C. players Motherwell F.C. players St Johnstone F.C. players Celtic F.C. players Dykehead F.C. players Scottish Football League players Scottish Junior Football Association players Scotland junior international footballers Men's association football inside forwards Association football coaches Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff {{Scotland-footy-forward-1880s-stub