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 to Walter Gilbert Heron and Lucille Gentles, he came from a family of means. 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. 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. He then played for the Chicago Maroons in 1947. 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 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, and one of the first to play professionally in Scotland, 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. He was released by the club the next year after making one appearance in the Scottish Football League (having been unable to displace the established John McPhail) and joined Third Lanark where he played in seven League Cup matches, scoring five goals but did not appear in the League. Next he went to English club Kidderminster