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 lea ...

who played as an

inside left In the sport of association football, a forward (attacker or striker) is an outfield position which primarily plays further up the pitch than midfielders and defenders. As with any attacking player, the role of the forward relies heavily on be ...

. His clubs included

Motherwell Motherwell (, ) is a List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Shires of Scotland, Historically in the p ...

, Airdrieonians (three spells, making 337

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) is a defunct 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&nbs ...

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 Foot ...

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, 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. The Lanarkshire FA was dissolved in June 1999 when it was merged with the Ayrshire and Renfrewshire FAs to form the Wes ...

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, albeit this was during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

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 men's 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 men's junior international footballers Men's association football inside forwards Scottish football coaches Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff 20th-century Scottish sportsmen {{Scotland-footy-forward-1880s-stub